Page 11 of Later Bloom

“I do now, I guess!”

With a bewildered smile, Aubrey teases, “Are you trying to set me up?”

She hopes for a no but also maybe a yes, maybe, which is weird. She hates being set up, the expectations and constraint that comes with it and the mess of disappointing yet more people, how someone will show you a picture of a stranger and say, “Well? Should I tell him you’re interested?” and you want to say no but you can’t really explain why, it’s just something you know, and when you try to explain it their face falls because, oh no, they’ve actually already told the other person you’d be down to go out with them.

But Aubrey also knows. She knows she’s in no position to turn down a “maybe this’ll be it.” She knows she should be saying yes, staying open, and smiling along at anyone willing to introduce her to the other lonely people in their lives.

Still, this time, she mostly hopes for a no. She just got here. She can’t navigate murky waters yet, this foreign path that someone, well intended as they might be, thinks she should head on. Not so soon.

And so when Louise finally says no, Aubrey allows herself a sigh of relief.

Most of the problem doesn’t lie in being set up, per se. Meeting someone on some arranged dinner date isn’t inherently bad or impossible. Aubrey could see herself heading on a somewhat blind date and being pleasantly surprised. It’d be kind of romantic, a good story to tell her future kids. She didn’t always think like this, but things change. Desperate times. Distant memories.

The problem here lies with Louise. Safe, understanding Louise, who knows how Aubrey thinks and feels. Louise, who’s read Aubrey’s musings since she was nineteen. Who should know better. Who’s meant to be the one person who gets it.

So it catches Aubrey off-guard when Louise won’t meet her eye and asks quietly, “But would that be so bad?”

“I don’t like being set up,” Aubrey replies plainly. She fails to conceal her hurt. “Especially by you.”

“Right. I know that.” Louise waves a dismissive hand. “With Oliver, and everything.”

Hearing that name yanks her out of the sunroom for a second. Aubrey’s gaze drifts to the beaten-up hardwood floor. She hums in response, which seems to satisfy Louise, who’s grown quiet.

There’s a twinge of embarrassment in Aubrey’s chest, heat spreading across her cheeks and the tips of her ears as she tastes on her tongue a name she hasn’t heard in a really long time. It’s not hard to churn up old memories—her rotation is limited to just a few stories, and her family knows of even fewer.

But Oliver, they remember. Oliver, they bring up from time to time, with little sighs, sad smiles, and longing looks.

Louise flips to the next page of her binder and says, “Right, so here’s what I’ve got set up in terms of bookings. Actually, maybe we should start by coming up with a name.” But Aubrey isn’t listening anymore.

Chapter Four

Eight years earlier

Aubrey is staying at home for a few days to celebrate her twentieth birthday. It’s a nice little vacation from campus, even though really it’s hardly a forty-minute drive back to her parents’ house.

It’s just after dinner when her mom comes up to her in the bathroom, stands too close by her side, and says, in a sing-songy way, “I’ve got news for you.”

Aubrey’s unsteady hand hovers by her ear where she’s trying to get an earring to obey her command. She meets her mother’s eye in the mirror and lets her eyebrows urge Marie on.

“One of my coworkers, Stacy, she has a son, Oliver. He’s your age.”

The sentence ends there. Aubrey picks at a stray hair and says, “Okay?”

“He’s single.” There’s a marked, heavy emphasis on single.

“Mom,” Aubrey warns somewhat playfully, because it’s hard to deny that a part of her is flattered. She wonders immediately what he looks like, what he’s into. Maybe football, or playing the guitar.

Her mother plays the innocent part to perfection. “I’m just saying, it’s not been so easy for you to meet boys, so I thought—well, it can’t hurt, can it?”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

“Come on. Here, I’ve got a picture.” Marie pulls out her phone and tuts impatiently as she tries and fails to unlock it. Her face has contorted into a grimace by the time she manages to pull up her conversation with Stacy, and she holds out the device to show Aubrey a picture of a guy in his early twenties. He’s pleasantly average, with short, neatly cut hair, a crisp polo shirt, and an air that suggests he didn’t want his picture taken in the first place.

Aubrey doesn’t say much. She can’t decide what would be the right thing to do now, staring at this stranger and trying to decide, under her mother’s gaze, whether she finds him attractive. “Well?” Marie urges.

“I don’t know,” Aubrey concedes. “I mean, he’s fine. I’m not sure he’s my type.”

“Oh, now, why do you say that?”