Page 13 of Later Bloom

“No, just, this. Hanging out with guys I don’t really know. Talking about things we’ll probably forget about really soon.”

He says, “Mm,” and frowns. It’s hard to tell whether he agrees or not. Aubrey’s cheeks grow hot. Then he says, “That’s what dating is, though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” The notes of a familiar pop song play on the radio. “I don’t do much of that.”

“Ah.” Oliver drums his fingers over the steering wheel. His face is illuminated for a second by a passing streetlight. “How do you meet guys, then?”

Aubrey hesitates. She wonders for a second if there’s a point in lying. Sometimes she does, other times she doesn’t. It depends on the person, though she’s come to learn she’s usually wrong in anticipating their response. But tonight it’s late, and she and Oliver don’t have much in common, and she’s exhausted. Lying feels hard. So she says, with a defeated sigh, “I don’t.”

The radio takes centre stage for a moment. Then Oliver says, “Cool,” and Aubrey turns to look out the window. After a minute, he adds, “I’ll take you home, alright?”

She doesn’t say anything in return. She’s used to this. Already, at twenty, it seems she’s missed this unspoken deadline that people consider acceptable for her not to engage in casual dating on a regular basis. The pressure started to mount when she was around eighteen, and now she can’t imagine it getting worse. She knows it will. It’s a terrifying thing to sit with, this ticking time bomb, the fear that she’ll turn twenty-one and still be a woman who’s never been in a relationship. It’s irrational. She’d never say it out loud. She’s too conscious that twenty-one is laughably young to be worrying about this, that she’s still got so much time. Anyone over the age of twenty-two would scoff at her. She’d deserve it, probably. And yet it’s there and it won’t go away, the worry at the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her with the reminder that she’s doing something wrong. Something weird. That at twenty, moved out of her parents’ house, she’s missed out on a number of experiences she’ll never get back—asking for permission to have a boy over, going to prom with someone eager to make a first move, showing the poster collection on her wall to a guy who’d gently tease her and remark at the childhood photos on her dresser. It’s overwhelming. She focuses on the streetlights.

“Should I come out and open the door for you?” Oliver asks as he parks along the curb in front of Aubrey’s house.

The lights are still on in the living room. Aubrey lives in a dorm now, on the other side of town, and there are no posters on the walls there. She often wonders whether she’ll ever bring a boy over to her dorm before she graduates. With each next step, the fear has compounded, and she wishes she’d enjoyed life when it was easier to bear. Like looking at old pictures of yourself and thinking you were so pretty then, how come you didn’t like yourself in that moment? She knows the fear will grow and she probably won’t meet the perfect guy the following day, or week, or month. And she’s barely twenty. But things just feel so big at twenty.

“It’s fine,” she says, opening the door with a small, polite smile. “Thanks for the drive.”

“Good luck. With dating, and stuff.”

Without thinking, Aubrey replies, “Good luck with talking.” The radio isn’t playing anymore. She hops out of the car and shuts the door behind her before he has a chance to respond. By the time she steps inside the house, the car has driven off.

In the living room, her mom is sitting on the couch and pretending to read a book. Marie asks, “Well?” and though she doesn’t look up from the page, the smile she fails at biting back says enough. She can hardly sit still.

Aubrey tries not to audibly sigh when she drops her purse to the floor. “It was fine.”

“Was it?”

“No. I told you he wasn’t my type.”

Marie looks up, aghast, as if she’s been directly insulted. “Wha—well, you’ve gotta give him a real chance. You guys barely hung out for a couple hours!”

“We’re just not a fit. It’s fine.” Aubrey begins to climb the stairs leading to the second floor. She can hear her mom scrambling to get up and rush over from the other room.

“But it’s got to work! I’ve already talked to Stacy, and we were thinking we might go on holiday together, all of us, she’s got this great cabin I’ve been dying to check out, and Oliver is such a sweet boy. I mean honey, really, you’ve got to stop being so picky, you’ll never find anyone if you keep looking for the impossible—”

Aubrey counts the steps as she climbs up the stairs, one, two, three, four.

“Don’t you think you should hang out with him at least a few times before you make up your mind?” her mother goes on behind her. “I mean, of course it’s not going to be fireworks and whatnot from the second you meet, I swear, you’ve got to stop watching so many movies. Real love takes time, you know. Listen, I’ll give Stacy a call and we can probably arrange something. Or better yet, do you have his number? Maybe if I give him a call myself—”

Aubrey doesn’t even bother trying to come up with a response she hasn’t used before. She turns the corner, vanishes in her room, and pretends she hasn’t heard her mother’s tirade for the eighth time this year.

Two days later, she’s on her way back to campus—nearly the same as she was when she got there, yet just a little different. She always feels a little less sure of who she is after a date that doesn’t lead to anything more, as if it’s further blurred the edges of the person she so desperately wants to be. It makes her wonder if she should be funnier, if she should pick up a new hobby, if she should start putting more effort into her hair. The feeling lasts for a few days and then it fades away, or seeps into her bones, whichever.

Her mother doesn’t talk to Stacy, but she also never quite lets go of Oliver, of what he could’ve been. She makes him into the symbol of Aubrey’s lack of effort and brings him up every so often, with a sad little shake of her head and a tut of her tongue. She says things like, “He was such a nice boy,” and “Have you looked him up recently? Maybe he’s still single,” and “Really, it’s like you didn’t even try at all. And you wonder why you’re still on your own.”

At twenty-seven, the fear of turning twenty-one without having ever been in a relationship has turned into a nostalgic memory, one that Aubrey smiles and chuckles at when she thinks of turning twenty-eight.

Chapter Five

Suddenly, it’s Monday afternoon, and Aubrey is handing out hors-d’oeuvres to the locals that crowd every inch of the inn for opening day. They finally settled on a name in the early hours of the day—The Beauchamp, obvious and simple, but nice because it’s Aubrey’s family name. Even though she’s Aubrey Campbell from her father’s side, she’s always liked the sound of the name Beauchamp, especially because her aunt bears it. Louise promises she’ll get a sign made for the front porch.

Aubrey smiles and nods and introduces herself to people who won’t remember her in a few minutes. At least they all seem to know who Louise is, and collectively agree that she and Aubrey sort of look alike.

It’s a warm, sunny day outside. The windows are open to let the breeze dance through the house. People are exploring the rooms upstairs, gathering in small groups to catch up and gossip, hands full of canapés and plastic cups. Music plays from a turntable someone donated to Louise the day before, along with a box of old jazz records. Their first official guests, a couple in town to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, will be checking in around 4:00 p.m. Aubrey has checked the time every three minutes for the past two hours. It’s only 2:25 now.

Louise had baked the canapés in a frenzy yesterday, minutes before midnight. From Louise’s house, where Aubrey was reading alone, she could see the lights on in the inn’s kitchen and Louise pacing through the window. Aubrey had rung her just to make sure she hadn’t completely lost it.