Now that she had finished typing up a brief but carefully thought-out message and gathered up the courage to send it, Audrey decided she should go back to swimming instead of sitting in the plastic chair while she stared at her communicator and anxiously waited for a reply. She set the device down at the small table next to her, where it should be a safe distance from the water. The people who handed them out at the ship's entrance said that those things were very sturdy and waterproof enough that you could take them scuba diving, but she still didn't want to take the risk of getting thrown off the ship because she broke something that would be much too expensive for her to replace.
She was the only one using the pool at the moment, which she knew was probably because there was a party going on in the ship's ballroom. She had tried out a couple of the parties they'd thrown so far, but it wasn't much fun when she didn't know anyone there, and everyone who knew where she was from was just hoping to watch her dance instead of actually talking to her. It was much better here, where it was quiet and no one was staring at her. Although, it was just a little bit quieter than she would have liked.
Though she loved going to see him in his lab, Audrey had started to worry that Seymour might think she was only spending time with him because of the plants. She figured that at least once, she should plan something else they could do. And after some careful consideration and some re-reading her books about Earth, she decided that the pool would make for a good bonding activity. After all, the surface of his planet was more ocean than land, so he should feel at home around the water.
But since she was currently still alone and free to set the controls however she wanted, and she decided to do some playing around with the settings. The arctic waters were refreshing, but she wouldn't want to keep it that temperature for very long, and she spent a couple minutes on the hot springs setting to get the cold numbness out of her limbs. The swamp simulation was interesting to look at, but it murky enough that she kept worrying she would run into the wall. She decided to try out what the screen said was the most popular choice, and soon found herself in a nice little tropical scene, with crystal-blue waters and holograms of colorful fish darting around. She requested plant life, and the wall screens added some images of swaying palm trees. A few more taps on the screen, and the bottom of the pool filled with projections of coral reefs.
This was a nice way to pass some time, she decided. She hadn't gone swimming in awhile, and she had almost never seen this much water in one place before. Now she just had to hope her message would work, and she would end up with someone she could talk to.
Seymour had never taken the time to visit the ship's pool before, but when his communicator lit up and he read that Audrey was asking if he could meet her there, he figured he should go and see what sort of help she was requesting. Helping out passengers didn't exactly fall under his responsibilities, but he should remember that he was still part of the staff. Audrey remembered it, apparently. He wasn't quite sure why the thought made him feel a little like someone had kicked him, but he and told himself he should be glad that she thought of him if she needed something.
"Seymour! I'm so glad you came!" Audrey lit up with a bright smile when she spotted him, and began to make her way over to the edge of the pool.
He took a quick glance around, but he didn't see any obvious signs of anything wrong.
"What can I do for you? Did you want a drink, or some towels? Are the controls working alright? I don't really know how to fix that sort of thing, but I could alert someone from maintenance, or-"
"Oh, I didn't need anything. I just thought you might like to join me. It's pretty nice when the pool's this quiet."
Seymour gave her a surprised look and then glanced down at the water, but he didn't look as if he was planning come closer. Audrey wondered if she'd made some sort of mistake. Maybe he'd prefer a different environmental setting? Or maybe she'd been wrong to think he'd want to be there with her at all.
"I hope I didn't pull you away from anything. Were you working on something?"
"No, just hanging around my quarters."
"Then would you like to come in for a while?"
He would have really liked to agree. Audrey was looking up at him hopefully as she hovered a few feet from the wall, her green arms turned into a more of a teal color underwater. It was the first time someone had invited him to participate in one of the ship's recreational activities, and really the first time anyone had tried to befriend him at all. But he'd never been this close to any body of water larger than a puddle, and since it wouldn't be much fun for either of them if he got in and started drowning, he was forced to admit, "I can't swim."
Audrey tilted her head curiously. "I thought most of your planet is water."
"Well, um… I guess it is, but I didn't live near any of it, and we never had the money to travel anywhere…"
Audrey paused to consider this new information, realizing that evidently, she still had a good deal to learn. A few moments later she swam over to the ladder to climb out of the pool, then sat by the edge so her legs could dangle in the water. Looking back over at Seymour, she patted a spot on the ground next to her.
"Then could we just sit here awhile and enjoy the beach?"
Much to her relief, he nodded, and reached down to begin pulling off his shoes and rolling up the legs of his pants. "Yeah, we could do that."
Once they were sitting next to each other, Seymour looked around to take in the scene Audrey had set up. The technology on their small ship wasn't as sophisticated as it was on the larger liners, but even if it wasn't enough to disguise the concrete walls and make someone forget they weren't on an actual beach, it was a peaceful atmosphere nonetheless. He could see why a lot of the other crew members liked to use their shore leave to head somewhere tropical.
"Seymour… could you tell me what Earth was like? I've read books, but what was it like for you, when you really lived there?"
She was expecting him to light up and start happily chatting away, the same way he always did when he was explaining something from his botany lab. But Seymour looked down at his hands, and Audrey got the sense he was struggling to figure out where to start.
Deciding to try asking something more specific, she said, "So, not much water around where you lived. Did you grow up in a desert?"
"No, just sort of a downtown area. I don't think we were too far away from some of the bigger cities, but more run down than one of those places."
She was glad to hear that he hadn't lived in a desert, at least. They weren't very good places to live, in her opinion. But then again, big cities weren't always great either, and judging by the look on his face, his home life wasn't exactly a happy memory.
"Is your family still there?"
He shook his head. "I never knew any family."
She didn't think he seemed upset with her for asking, but he certainly looked a bit wistful, and she felt awful for not realizing that it might be a sore subject.
"I'm so sorry, maybe I shouldn't have asked. If it's hard to talk about…"
Seymour looked up long enough to give her a reassuring smile. "It's alright. I don't mind."
He liked having someone care enough to listen.
Audrey briefly considered what she'd learned of physical contact protocols across different species, and decided that it would be appropriate to place a hand on his shoulder. "Were you all alone then?"
"Not exactly… there was this man who owned a flower shop, and let me stay there so I could work for him." While he had liked the flower shop itself, his boss hadn't always made it the nicest place to grow up, but he thought it might make him ungrateful if he mentioned that part of the story.
"Could I ask how you wound up coming to work on this ship? I'm sure you must have really impressed someone, if they gave you a whole lab to yourself."
"It really was nothing." Seymour said with a shrug that failed to look casual instead of flustered. Audrey still wasn't quite sure why he didn't want to brag about earning a prestigious position like this, but she had things about her own past she wasn't ready to share, so she didn't want to push him.
"It was lucky, though. We needed the money." He continued. "People on Skid Row didn't really have a lot of money to spare, and the shop wasn't doing too well. Now I can send enough back to keep the place afloat."
Audrey smiled at him. "That's nice of you."
Seymour shrugged again. "It's no big deal. They're paying me enough that I can afford it. Besides, I owe him everything." As he looked up to meet Audrey's eyes, he found himself wanting to share thoughts he hadn't told anyone else before. "I was pretty nervous about leaving everything i'd ever known, but it just… it really wasn't a happy place, and I was ready to do just about anything to get outta there, even if it took leaving the whole planet."
Audrey could understand what that felt like. Back while she was living on Areole, she'd lost track of how many attempts she'd made to find someone who might enjoy her company enough to take her with him, though the farthest she'd ever gotten were an empty promise or two that no one had any attention of keeping. Not that it ever really seemed like a good idea to trust the kind of visitors who came through, but sometimes it seemed like just about anything would have to be better than staying.
Though he didn't quite know what to make of the look on Audrey's face, Seymour remembered how excited she always was to talk about his homeworld, and he realized it felt important to make sure he wasn't ruining the idea for her.
"I promise, Earth's not as bad as I'm making it sound. I think I was just unlucky enough to be born in a really bad part of it." He didn't think Audrey looked quite as reassured as he hoped, so he added, "They'll take the tour groups to all the best spots. Things like mountains, and canyons, and waterfalls."
Apparently, he wasn't very good at making the tours sound appealing, because Audrey still looked a little uncertain.
"Do you think I'll get to see grass?" She asked.
Seymour nodded. "I'm sure you will. It'd be hard to take a trip around Earth and not come across grass somewhere."
Audrey started to say something else, seemed to pause and reconsider, and then took a deep breath and worked up the nerve to say it after all.
"The tours sound great, but do you think you could show me around the places where people really live? Maybe the suburbs? I've always wanted to see suburbs."
Seymour didn't think he'd ever met anyone who was more interested in small-town neighborhoods than famous landmarks, but if she was going to travel all that way, it only seemed right that she got a chance to see whatever would make her happy.
"I can definitely make sure we find suburbs to look around."
That finally got Audrey to break into a bright smile, and Seymour wished they weren't still several months and many stops away from arriving on Earth. To be honest, he'd been so relieved to leave his old street behind that he'd hardly even thought about going back again. But if Audrey was going to be there with him, the idea suddenly felt like something to look forward to.