Seymour had encouraged Audrey to sign up for anything she wanted to, but while there were plenty of classes that seemed as if they would be useful, not to mention looking rather interesting, she felt she shouldn't get too carried away. She'd decided to stick to only two to start off with, and figured that she always had the possibility to decide if she should do more in the future.
She spent the few days before her classes started doing everything possible to be prepared. She'd been very much dreading the possibility that she might show up and find within the first couple of minutes that she was already horribly over her head. But it made her feel a little more secure to know that she was armed with fresh notebooks, finely-sharpened pencils, a couple of brand-new pens, and a floral-patterned bag to carry everything. She'd also taken the time to carefully consider all of the dresses hanging in her closet, and selected a blue one with yellow flowers and a white collar as the most professional-looking.
But what had helped more than anything was the fact that Seymour didn't seem the slightest bit nervous for her. He was already convinced that she was going to do wonderfully.
Though she could have driven herself there, she was still happy to accept when Seymour offered to drop her off. It was nice to have the extra time to sit in the passenger seat and make absolutely certain she'd packed everything she would need. After one last hug and a few words of encouragement from Seymour, she was feeling as ready as she ever would.
As soon as he was back home and turning the doorknob, it occurred to Seymour how strange it felt to be walking into an empty home. It was the first time since their wedding that he and Audrey had a reason to spend time apart, and he found that he already missed her. It wasn't all that long ago when he was used to spending evenings alone, but it felt a lot lonelier now that he'd gotten used to spending that time with Audrey.
But he could manage, if it meant Audrey got to do something that was clearly important to her. He was sure he could find a way to occupy his time. And besides, at least he wasn't completely alone in the house.
"Here, Buddy!"
Within a few moments, a cocker spaniel puppy was trotting his way over, ears flopping and tail wagging.
"It's just you and me for a while." Seymour said as he crouched to give the dog a few pats in greeting. "You wanna help me with something in the kitchen? I know you like being the cleanup crew."
As he got up and walked further into the house, the dog reliably trotted behind him. Seymour knew it likely had a good deal to do with the fact that Buddy had already learned that the word 'kitchen' meant a strong possibility of getting food, whether it was something dropped, or something that hadn't turned out right being scraped into his bowl.
"Audrey's doing something real important tonight, so we're gonna make a surprise for when she gets back." Seymour explained as he pulled one of the cookbooks off the shelves. After opening it to the table of contents, he crouched down again and held the book out for the dog to see. "What do you think? Anything look good?"
The dog stared blankly and tilted his head.
"Right, I keep forgetting you can't read."
Finding something to talk to even when he was the only person around was an easy habit to fall back on, though it was nice that dogs seemed to be a little more interactive than potted succulents. But unfortunately, Buddy still wouldn't be much better at baking advice than his plant collection.
"I guess we'd better stick to something simple enough that we can actually make it turn out alright…" He thought out loud as he started flipping through pages.
He supposed Audrey would probably be forgiving if whatever he made didn't turn out perfect, seeing as neither of them were especially skilled in the kitchen. He could still vividly remember the week when she'd been trying to get the hang of a recipe for pot roast. They'd eventually figured it out together, but not before he'd gotten very skilled at sneaking food to the dog, and perfected his own recipe of 'peanut butter sandwich made very quietly after Audrey has gone to bed.' But even if it didn't have to be perfect, he still wanted it to be something nice enough to show Audrey how happy he was for her.
"There's a couple pastries in here… or there's pie… do you think we could manage apple pie?"
Seymour thought that the dog appeared very skeptical as it looked back at him.
"You're right. I'd probably just end up accidentally making applesauce."
After thinking for a few moments, he closed the book again and set it back where he found it. Maybe it would be better to just grab one of the box mixes from the cabinets.
He walked through over to look through a shelf stocked with various Betty Crocker boxes, pulled one out, and turned it for Buddy to see.
"Well, here's one for a cake. We can pull off a cake, don't you think?"
He looked up to see that the dog had gotten distracted by the sight of his favorite rubber bone sitting underneath the kitchen table, and was now sitting happily with the toy between his paws and gnawing away with growing puppy teeth.
"Alright, you can stay there while I get started."
It wasn't too long before Seymour had put together a cake mix that looked right, at least as far as he could tell, and he got it into a pan and set it in the oven with only a minimal number of splatters.
"Hope you won't be too offended if I finish your job with a mop." He said as Buddy dutifully lapped the stray batter off the floor.