Chapter Ten
The arbitrary deadline doesn’t disappear, but time starts to move faster, as it often does when life feels a little easier.
Autumn is so beautiful in Lunenburg that it stifles thoughts of the future. It’s a crime to think of later days as the leaves turn deep shades of red and the town slows to a crawl.
Reservations are fewer at The Beauchamp, and some rooms sit empty for days on end.
Aubrey likes to tidy up in there when the days grow long.
She finds little souvenirs of their guests’ stay in the changed angle of the cushions or the bottle of perfume someone left on the dresser.
Once in a while, the computer pings with a new message, and she reads the emails with her chin in her hand and her knees folded to her chest. People thank her for her time and promise to return, like you always do after you visit somewhere new, where real life doesn’t exist and all you have to worry about is what outfit to wear for dinner.
Arthur takes longer to do his deliveries, even though there are fewer crates.
Often, he and Aubrey sit at the table and talk about something that happened between neighbours, or Arthur tells Aubrey what it was like growing up around town.
How he went to the waterfront every Saturday morning with his parents, how he wished so desperately for a sibling.
How weird it is to stick around even though he can’t imagine leaving.
Louise works more shifts, leaves the house early, and gets home late.
Or maybe it just feels this way because it’s very quiet all the time.
She and Aubrey speak less. Maybe she should’ve let Louise play matchmaker with her after all and pretended to go along with it to avoid this, now—smiling in passing and saying “Hey, slept well?” to her aunt in the morning as they’re both on their way out.
Sometimes they have dinner together in the kitchen while the guests eat out in the dining room.
They sit at the little round table and hum in approval of Louise’s cooking.
Once in a while, Louise will set down her cutlery and say, “We’ve got one check-in tomorrow, and then the suite is checking out as well. ”
And Aubrey will nod and say, “Great, yeah.”
The silence is always welcome but not always comfortable.
Today, Louise asks, “So, how’ve you been, then?”
Aubrey picks at the blueberries on the table and pops them in her mouth. She smiles around a mouthful and says, “More or less the same, I’m afraid.”
There’s a pot of tea on the stove, filling the room with its scent of chamomile. When Aubrey looks over at it, she finds Louise watching her instead. “What?” she asks, pressing.
“Jesus, nothing. I just realized we haven’t been hanging out as much. You having fun? The job’s okay?”
“No complaints on my part.” Aubrey smiles and reaches over to pat Louise’s arm.
She’s tried to tell her aunt a little about the few times she’s gone out with Arthur and his friends, but the mention of Arthur’s name prompts questions she doesn’t care to answer, about how nice he is and how they’re getting along and how close they’re getting.
She feels like a child being gently nudged forward by an adult in a direction she doesn’t want to go in, and it’s hard now not to look at Louise and see a family member concerned with a future and a life that isn’t hers to worry about.
The questions remind her of that last conversation over the holidays, except without the booze.
All Aubrey wants is for her aunt to tell her it’s okay.
It’s okay if she stays on her own, if she doesn’t meet anyone for another year, another three, another ten.
She wants someone older and wiser to promise Aubrey a gentle future.
To say that relationships aren’t all that, that men are stinky and irritating and that she’s not missing out on anything.
Louise doesn’t get the hint. Asking for it would feel too much like cheating, and everyone knows it’s all about the other person wanting to say it, not you asking them for it.
So it’s easier to avoid the topic. Aubrey fills her email folder with the things she wished she would say to Louise instead.
Beyond the edges of her laptop it feels like there’s not much else to talk about.
Like the one thing they have in common is the thing driving them apart, little by little.
Maybe it was easier when they lived hours apart.
Louise doesn’t seem to notice her grimace. Aubrey says, “Sorry.”
“What for?”
“Just, I know you’re trying. It’s a little hard for me to be interesting, I feel.”
“I find you interesting no matter what, sweetheart. Being your aunt’ll do that to me.
” For a moment she seems to weigh her words a little more heavily.
She sighs. “I just want you to live, and enjoy your time here, and I guess I didn’t think about that when I invited you over, that there would have to be more to it than this place.
I should’ve thought about that before. I think I was just excited to have someone here with me. ”
“I’m not a ten-year-old, Lou.”
“I’d argue against that.”
They laugh. Aubrey says, “I mean, I get it, but I’m a grown woman.
I think maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.
I actually like staying in, believe it or not.
I know people seem a little more intriguing when you know less about them.
But let me spoil it for you, I didn’t do much back home, either.
I’ve always found it a little exhausting to come up with things I enjoy doing.
Like it’s a chore. I’m not sure who decided watching TV isn’t good enough. ”
Louise snorts. She looks happy like this. “That’s fine,” she says. “I just want you happy, ridiculous as it sounds.”
“Well, don’t we all.”
They share identical smiles. Louise looks her over.
“You’re not dating much.” It’s an observation, a fact, and Aubrey isn’t sure how she’s meant to take it.
Louise is quick to add, “Sorry, I guess I just thought you did a bit more. You used to tell me often about the guys you met. It was nice, reading about it.”
“Right. I haven’t been going out much, no. I don’t know, it comes and goes.” Aubrey folds her knee up to her chest on the chair and rests her chin on her leg. “Do you sometimes worry we talk too much about men?”
“Well, not lately.”
Their laughter echoes at the exact same time their guests laugh from the dining room. Soon they should go check on them, but Aubrey can’t bring herself to get up. “Maggie keeps saying I should get a hobby, or laid. She told me I need to mess up more with men. That I’m too careful.”
“I want to say you can’t be too careful in love, but I don’t think that’s true.
Maybe you’re too careful with your heart.
I think—well, what do I know, really. I always told myself I’d prefer spending too much time by myself, if there’s such a thing at all, than in company I’ll end up regretting.
But it’s hard, isn’t it? It’s like fighting a current, feeling like you’re not living right.
And what if you’re not allowing yourself to have fun, and what if you’re not giving things a real chance? ”
Aubrey watches the creases at the corner of Louise’s eyes when she smiles. She asks, “So it doesn’t go away then, with time?”
“It gets better. It also gets more specific. The more time you spend living, the more unique the experience gets to you personally, doesn’t it?
So you relate less, but you also compare less, you care less.
You get used to the idea, sure. But you don’t get so used to everyone else poking at you with their questions and worries and concerns.
I think you learn to say ’I’m happy’ faster, like a reflex.
I still care some. It comes and goes, like you said.
I tell myself I shouldn’t. But I care very much for you, for your future.
More than I thought I would.” Louise picks up Aubrey’s empty plate and sets it over hers, then stacks the cutlery on top of that.
“God, anyway. Being a person’s just not linear, that’s what it is. ”
It’s no promise that things will be okay, but it’s something. Probably the best Aubrey will get out of Louise. It’s dark in the kitchen now. The days are so much shorter in October. “I guess there’s no figuring it out,” she says.
Louise scoots over to stroke her hair. “What we’re missing is experience, baby. It’s what eats away at doubt and replaces it with the confidence to try. When you’ve got experience, you learn you’ll be fine no matter what. But you’ve got to mess up first to get there.”
“Mm. I’m not so good at that.”
“So Maggie might be onto something, then. Maybe messing up is what’s missing.”
“Well, I’ve tried.” When Aubrey says that, she thinks of the last few months, but she thinks of years ago, too. She thinks of bonfires and the forest. Louise squeezes the side of her shoulder.
“Try some more, let me know how it goes. Now’s a good time, too. Get a few mistakes in before the cold sets in. There’s never a better season to stay in and mope than winter.”
They clean up the dishes. The air is a little lighter now, but in the days that follow the silence would still linger.
That night, Aubrey lays in bed and pulls up old pictures from her laptop—grainy digitals from the last summer she worked at camp and tried, more desperately than she ever had, to gain experience.