Human Nature

“So what do you think?”

Aubrey Mclean tugged absentmindedly on the ends on her freshly dyed hair and tore her eyes away from the menu in front of her to look across the table at her father. His own menu lay closed in front of him, his hands folded carefully on top of it. The corners of his mouth turned up and he shared a smile with his teenage daughter. “What looks good?”

Letting out a small sigh, Aubrey laid her menu down and following her father’s suit, folded her hands. “I don’t know why I even bothered looking through the menu,” she replied, chuckling. “I never actually order anything different.”

Jeremiah Mclean smiled at his daughter. “Like father, like daughter, I guess.”

“I guess so.” Aubrey agreed, running her fingers through the ends of her hair for what was probably the hundredth time since she’d gotten to the restaurant. She still wasn’t sure how she had let her best friend, Skye Anderson, talk her into dying her hair. Aubrey’s long dark hair had probably been the same shade of dark brown since ninth grade and after years of Skye’s nagging for her to make some sort of change to her hair, Aubrey had finally agreed.

Skye had called it “the ombre look”, while Aubrey had thought it looked like a dye job gone wrong. But Skye had coxed her into it and two hours later, Aubrey emerged from the local hair salon with her ends freshly trimmed and newly blonde.

“Aubrey, you look hot!” Skye gushed as her best friend dropped into the passenger seat of her Nissan. “I’m so glad that you decided to listen to me. Those boys at your new school won’t be able to keep their hands off of you!”

Running her fingers back through her newly dyed hair, Aubrey shrugged. “It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would,” she admitted. “Though, I’m still not sure it’s really me.”

“You’ll just have to make it you.” Skye reached out to twirl the ends of Aubrey’s hair through her fingers. “You’re lucky, Aubrey. Not many people get the chance for a fresh start. To completely reinvent themselves. That’s something people dream of.” She let out a small sigh, grabbing Aubrey’s tanned hand in her own. “I’ll miss you like crazy, you know that, don’t you?” Aubrey turned to look at her best friend.

Skye was staring up at her fiercely, her red hair crazy and her blue eyes misty with unshed tears. Nodding slowly, Aubrey squeezed her friend’s hand. “I do. And I’ll miss you too, that goes without saying.”

“No,” Skye disagreed. “You have to say it.” Aubrey grinned at her friend and Skye returned with a smirk of her own. A deep chuckle escaped from Aubrey’s lips and she quickly placed her fingertips on her mouth, as if trying to keep it in.

Skye bit her lip, keeping her smirk to herself. A comfortable silence settled around the girls as the redhead started her car and eased out of the salon parking lot. Aubrey rolled down her window and rested her elbow on the door, watching the shops in downtown Humberland pass by. She was going to miss this town. She was going to miss her friends, especially Skye. She was going to miss her grandparents more than anything.

After losing her mother and his wife, Aubrey’s father, Jeremiah Mclean, hadn’t dealt with it well, and so he sold the bakery in Humberland that he had owned and operated with his wife, in favour of a scouting job for his college friend, Bryan Hastings. Jeremiah travelled around the Maritime provinces looking for his friend to set up locations for his chain restaurants. And for a while, Aubrey tagged along with him.

However, after one year and three schools later, Aubrey’s grandparents, Duke and Viola Hastings, decided that constant moving was not the way that their eight year old grand-daughter should be living. And with that, Aubrey moved to Humberland with her mother’s parents.

“Are you nervous about seeing you dad?” Skye asked, her eyes on the streetlight ahead of her. “It’s been what, three years since you guys have actually seen each other in person?”

Aubrey nodded. “Three Christmases ago. He was travelling a lot. He calls all the time though. At least every second day.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you nervous?”

The brunette glanced sideways at her best friend. “Of all the things that’s going on this week, seeing my dad is the least of my worries. Between a new town, new school, new house, new people, the only constant thing is my dad. I’m not nervous. I’m excited to see him. I’m excited to actually get to spend time with him.”

Skye pulled her Nissan in front of the Hasting house and turned to her friend. “I’ll be over tomorrow before you go. Bright and early. Promise.”

Aubrey leaned in and wrapped her arms around the red head. “Good. I’ll text you after I get home. I don’t think David plans for us to be out late.”

“You know,” Skye said, pulling away from Aubrey and raising an eyebrow. “It’s really weird that you’re going on a date with your ex-boyfriend the night before you leave.”

Rolling her eyes, Aubrey replied, “shut up. You know that he didn’t even want to break-up. I’m sort of just giving him the last date he wants. I’ll talk to you later.” Stepping out of the car and closing the door behind her, Aubrey waved a hand to receive a beep of the horn in reply, before walking up the path to her grandparent’s home.

“Hey folks!” A young blonde with a stained white apron tied around her small waist appeared at our table. She shot a sincere smile at Jeremiah and Aubrey, before pulling out a pen and pad of paper. “My name is Callie and I will be your server. Had you had a chance to look at the menu? Are you two ready to order?”

Jeremiah smiled at the young girl and nodded, picking up his menu and ordering for both himself and his daughter. As the waitress walked away with their meals written down, he turned to his daughter. “You know,” Jeremiah said, grinning. “We should really find another place to eat. It just seems sad that we always eat at Bryan’s restaurants.”

Aubrey shrugged. “What can we say, Dad. Discount food is where we’re at.”

Jeremiah tiled his head back and laughed aloud. “Yeah, yeah I guess it is.”