Page 50 of Later Bloom

He sits up to slip his coat off his shoulders, and the air is too calm, with the piano and the soft light and the flowers.

Aubrey stands from her chair and heads to the counter. “I’ll make some tea,” she says. Arthur twists in her chair to follow her movement.

“Forget about the date.” He’s smiling when he speaks. “Tell me about your night with Flo.”

“There’s not much to tell there, either. It wouldn’t be any more interesting than what you have to say.”

“Well, I’d like to hear about it.”

Aubrey fills the kettle with water and stares out the little window that overlooks the yard, at the snow falling and the neighbours shovelling their entryways. She hears herself say, from a distance, “I thought you already asked Florence how it went. I don’t know what else I could say you haven’t heard yet.”

Her nerves are shot. Maybe she didn’t sleep well. She counts one second, two, and then Arthur is laughing softly to himself. It’s always like this—impossible to irritate him, like he’s just okay with everything. It makes it very easy to say things, as if Aubrey doesn’t have to worry about the words she chooses, about how she’s coming off, because he nods and gets it. It’s almost concerning how simple it is.

“Well, okay then,” is all he says in response.

She’s not sure what to say next. She stands there at the counter and waits for the water to boil, and of course it’s not even close to being done and Arthur just sits there, with his coat off and his hair wet.

He’s looking at her intently. “I didn’t know Florence told you about that.”

Aubrey smiles, just a little. Maybe to be polite, maybe because she can’t help it. “You must not know women very well.”

“That’s true.” He takes a beat. “Maybe I’d prefer to hear about it from you.” He doesn’t seem embarrassed to know that Florence talked about him, or by any aspect of this situation. Meanwhile, Aubrey’s ears are red hot. When she looks at him, he looks different, and she can’t pinpoint exactly what’s changed.

“Did you do something to your hair?” she asks.

“Why? Should I?”

Aubrey takes two mugs from one cupboard and two mint tea bags from another. “Going out with Florence was fine. Very loud, and overall a good testament as to why I’m still single, but I got the chance to put on a nice outfit and have a very expensive drink, so not a complete failure.”

“Ah, good. Florence said you had a bit of a rough time.”

“Mm, well, compared to her, maybe.” She pours the water in both cups, and for a second the steam clouds her vision. “It wasn’t too entirely different from the usual.”

Arthur clicks his tongue. “Disappointing?”

“Discouraging.”

“Ah.”

Aubrey sets both cups down and settles back on her chair with a leg folded under herself. “Do you think it’s weird when I talk about this? Dating and all?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you wish maybe I wouldn’t tell you about it? Like maybe you don’t want to hear about who I’m meeting, or the woes of my unending failure to find love?”

Arthur shrugs. He wraps his hands around his cup and the polka dot pattern disappears. “I’ve just bugged you into spitting it out, so obviously I don’t mind. Maybe I wish I could do something about it, in the sense of helping, I mean. I don’t know, I just think you shouldn’t worry so much. It feels like you do that a lot.”

“I do do that a lot.”

“Why?”

Aubrey leans in to blow on her tea for a second, just so she can take a moment to think. Reluctantly, she says, “I just try to imagine the different ways things could turn out, and it seems all of them are terrifying.”

“All of them?”

She nods. “Humour me, then,” he says. “Tell me the stuff that worries you.”

She wants to give him an example, but nothing comes to mind. Nothing but one very specific example from her past that she really, desperately doesn’t want to bring up.