This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

Minnie nodded. Greg glanced at his Apple Watch and made an impatient clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth.

  “Right, I’ve got to go; I’ll get a decent coffee on the way. Let yourself out?”

  Minnie got the bus to work, buzzing with irritation. Was she expecting too much from Greg? She knew he had his own pressures and concerns to deal with, but surely being with someone you loved should make both your life loads feel lighter. She was leaving his flat feeling heavier than ever. To be fair to him, she didn’t know if anyone would have been able to make her feel better about the day she had ahead—telling the others they were losing their jobs was never going to be easy.

  As she walked through the door of No Hard Fillings, heard the familiar bell chime, and breathed in the smell of pastry that clung to the air, she felt a stab of sadness. This might be one of the last times she heard that bell and smelled that comforting smell.

  “Minnie.” Leila jumped out of the kitchen and started doing star jumps on the spot. She was wearing a bright pink boilersuit and neon-yellow-framed glasses. “Jump with me, Minnie!”

  “Is this some kind of money rain dance?” said Minnie, shaking her head from side to side.

  “Do it, jump with me,” Leila cried, reaching out to take Minnie’s hands and lifting them over her head.

  “OK, we’re jumping,” said Minnie, shaking off Leila’s hands and joining in with the star jumps. “Is this a new fad—jump meetings? The endorphins make you feel better about the crap news you’ve got to deliver?”

  “The opposite.” Leila grinned. “I’ve got great news: star-jump-worthy news!”

  The bell chimed behind them and Bev pushed open the door to come in.

  “What the . . .” said Bev, the jowls on her neck wobbling in confusion.

  “Jump in, Bev—join the jump,” said Leila, clapping her hands in Bev’s direction and letting out a whoop. She was acting like some kind of deranged Jane Fonda.

  “No,” said Bev, looking at them as though she’d discovered them dancing naked with a corpse dressed in a ra-ra skirt. “I . . . I’ll go and warm up the ovens.”

  Bev sidestepped past without taking her eyes off them, as though if she turned her back, they might somehow involve her in their weird ritual. Leila and Minnie both giggled.

  “I’m not fit enough for this, you’d better get to it quick,” said Minnie with a smile. That was the thing about Leila—even in the worst situations she could make Minnie smile.

  “We just had an order this morning,” said Leila, stepping up the pace of the star jumps. “An enormous order, delivering pies to fifteen different offices this month.”

  Minnie stopped dead in her tracks.

  “What?”

  “No, don’t stop, there’s more.”

  The bell tinged again as Alan came through the door. He surveyed the scene for a minute, then without saying a word joined in and started jumping with them. It was a lopsided star jump on account of his bad leg, but he had a good pace.

  “And they paid up front in full. Can you believe it? It’s enough to keep us afloat and then some.” Leila started punching the air. “A stay of execution—a death row pardon!”

  Minnie burst into song, with the lyrics from Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.” And then they were both laughing and jumping and singing the words at the top of their lungs. Well, Minnie and Leila were singing the words, Alan was humming a strange beat-box-style accompaniment, and it didn’t sound as if he knew the song they were singing at all. At this point Fleur arrived, gave them a withering look, and informed them that their generation was intensely weird.

  When the dizzying excitement of the jump meeting had worn off, Minnie kissed the silver four-leaf clover necklace she wore around her neck. She couldn’t believe their luck getting an order like this, just when they needed it. Then she paused. The timing of an order like this couldn’t be luck.

  She asked Leila to see the details of the order. A woman had called, paid over the phone with a credit card, and given her the names and addresses of fifteen companies to deliver to on different dates this month. No Hard Fillings didn’t cater for corporate clients; they made pies for people who could no longer cook for themselves, for the vulnerable and socially isolated. Why would businesses like these want pies delivered from a company like theirs? How would they even have found out about them?

  “Oh, and they asked if we could bring them ready to eat, so we’ll need to buy more insulated packaging,” said Leila.

  Minnie looked down at the list of addresses Leila had given her. She only recognized one of them—the newspaper where Greg worked.

  “This has got to be someone helping us out,” said Minnie.

  “I thought the same,” said Leila.

  Minnie knew Greg didn’t have that kind of cash. Maybe these were all business affiliates connected to his newspaper somehow? Maybe he’d been able to do her a favor through work. She suddenly had a rush of affection for Greg. Maybe he was trying to lighten her life load after all.

  “Hmmm,” said Minnie, poring over the list of addresses again, “it’s just not what we’re set up for, though, is it? We’re not corporate caterers; we’re supposed to be making pies for the needy—our ability to fundraise and receive subsidies relies on that.”

  “Minnie, we’re not in a position to be picky, and we charged them a higher rate so they’re not being subsidized.” Leila shot Minnie a wide-eyed, exasperated look. “Frankly, I don’t care if Attila the Hun is ordering pies to feed a marauding tribe of murderers, or a clown school is ordering pies for face-splatting practice—they’ve paid, we’ll make them, end of.” Leila narrowed her eyes at Minnie and gave a brisk shake of her head. “I’m going to go call the bank.”

  Leila turned and stomped off to the narrow wooden desk at the back of the kitchen where her laptop was set up. Minnie pulled out her phone and typed a text to Greg. Did you order thousands of pounds’ worth of pies from us this morning by any chance?! Xxx.

  “Has Greg saved the day?” asked Fleur.

  “I don’t know,” Minnie said.

  “So predictable for a man to think he needs to rescue the situation.” Fleur made a pretend yawn. “More important, tell us what happened with that hot Quinn guy last week? And if you’re not dumping Greg for him, can I have him?”

  Leila glanced up from her screen. Minnie had given her the full Quinn debrief over the phone on Saturday. Well, perhaps not the full debrief. She’d told her about meeting Tara and breaking the lamp. She’d said Quinn was good company, but the type of guy who was friendly with everyone. She hadn’t mentioned the owls-waking-up-in-her-stomach feeling or that thoughts of him kept popping up unannounced in her head.

  “He was very helpful,” said Minnie. “But no one’s dumping anyone. Besides, he has a very pretty and successful girlfriend.”

  “Probably not as pretty as me, though, let’s be honest,” said Fleur, framing her face with her hands and fluttering her eyelashes at Minnie.

  The phone started ringing in reception.

  “Fleur, can you answer that?” Leila shouted.

  Fleur sighed and gave a little pirouette as she flounced back to the tedious task of doing her only job.

  The kitchen soon returned to its normal routine. A smell of pastry and positivity filled the air. Alan de-clamped the van and headed out with deliveries. Fleur made phone calls to customers, confirming orders for the next few weeks.

  “So, no news from the love twin?” Leila asked quietly, once the others were out of earshot. Her curiosity about Quinn clearly trumped her annoyance about Minnie’s response to the pie order.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him that. It’s not a thing.”

  “Oh, it’s a thing, trust me.”

  “Look, he’s a nice guy, he helped us out with the car, that’s it.”

  Was that it? It had ended so awkwardly between t
hem. She’d sent Quinn a text on Saturday, thanking him again for his help and apologizing for breaking his mother’s lamp. He’d replied a few hours later saying, No problem. Two words. No problem. What did that mean? No problem about the lamp? No problem about helping? No problem about her having a go at him for something that clearly wasn’t his fault? Minnie thought she’d got beyond the stage of dissecting the meaning of texts from men. Clearly she had not.

  “You haven’t spent all weekend working out how you’re going to see him again then?” Leila said with a knowing look.

  “Leila, don’t you have some Excel spreadsheet you need to create?” said Minnie, crossing her eyes at her.

  “I do. I’m going,” Leila said, picking up her laptop and snapping it shut. “I’m going to work in the coffee shop around the corner, too many delightful distractions here.”

  Once Leila had gone, Minnie went to help Bev start unpacking a box of ingredients on the workbench. Minnie had been so distracted by everything else going on, she hadn’t properly registered Bev’s appearance—she looked terrible. She had dark purple circles beneath her eyes and her body hunched in a stoop. She looked as though she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “Bev, are you OK?”

  Minnie stopped what she was doing and put a hand on Bev’s arm. Bev blinked at her through tired, heavy eyes. “Is this related to your forgetfulness, or the eco-anxiety? I’m worried about you, Bev,” Minnie said softly. “I’m here if you want to talk.”

  “You’ll think I’m nuts if I try to explain,” said Bev quietly, her head bowed over the kitchen counter.

  “Try me.”

  Bev let out a long, slow exhale.

  “It all started a couple of weeks ago when I was watching one of these Brian Cox shows on the BBC.”

  Minnie nodded encouragingly. Whatever she’d imagined Bev was about to say, she had not imagined it starting with Brian Cox.

  “He was talking about how, if the universe was a day, then our planet’s only been around for a blink of an eye, and if that blink of an eye was another day, humans have only been around for a blink in that blink. Then I got to thinking, if humans have only been around for a blink, then my lifetime is probably only a blink of that blink.”

  Minnie was listening attentively, but she was already lost. She moved her eyes from side to side, trying to keep up.

  “Right,” she said slowly.

  “And if my life is just a blink in a blink in a blink, then what’s the point in any of it? Nothing I do, nothing I say is ever going to matter in the grand scheme of things. Even if I fixed global warming or invented some spaceship that could get us all to Mars, it wouldn’t mean anything in the long run, would it? And I’m not doing any of those things, am I? I’m just fixing the house and feeding my family and making pies.” Bev’s face fell when she saw Minnie’s expression of bewilderment. “I told you you’d think I’m crazy.”

  “I definitely don’t think you’re crazy, Bev, I just, wow . . . those are pretty heavy thoughts to be having on a Monday morning.”

  Alan came back in with a plastic pallet to load up and overheard the tail end of their conversation.

  “Are you telling her about your existential midlife crisis, Bev?” he asked.

  Bev nodded.

  “She’s got it bad, Minnie. She zoomed out way too far on Google Maps and now she can’t get back.” Alan shook his head. “She needs to watch a bit more X Factor or something. Anything on ITV will sort you out, Bev. Cut down on the BBC Four for a bit.”

  “Look, I don’t think any of us should be thinking too much about our place in the grand scheme of things,” said Minnie. “I’m sure Brian Cox didn’t mean to make you question the validity of your existence. Even if you don’t invent a spaceship to Mars, that’s not to say you aren’t leading a rich and fulfilling life, Bev. Your husband loves you, your family love you, we all love you. What more can you hope to achieve in life?”

  “Wise words.” Alan nodded, loading pie boxes into his pallet. “All you can hope for is to do more good than harm in this life, that’s my motto. I’ve already sunk three boats in my lifetime, so I figure I’ve got at least four boats to float till I’m up.”

  “You’re floating quite a lot of boats at the London Fields Social Club from what I hear, Alan,” said Minnie, giving him an exaggerated wink.

  “What are you all gossiping about?” asked Fleur.

  Fleur was incapable of staying at her desk if she thought something interesting was being said in the kitchen.

  “Bev’s existential crisis,” said Alan.

  “Alan’s elderly admirers,” said Minnie.

  “Alan’s a Scorpio; Scorpios always get loads of attention,” said Fleur, twiddling her hair and pulling a stool up to the worktop.

  “I don’t want to think like this,” Bev said mournfully, unpacking more packets of flour and lining them up on the counter. “But now I’ve thought it, I can’t turn it off. Like, I was in the shower the other day and I was looking at this shampoo bottle my daughter bought me. It was made of real nice-feeling matte plastic, like someone had taken a lot of time over it. This bottle that was only made to hold shampoo for a month or two and it will probably be around on this planet longer than me. I’ll be dead in thirty years, and my kids might remember me, maybe even my grandkids, but then what? There will be no record I was ever here. But this shampoo bottle will still be existing somewhere, with its list of ingredients and its lovely matte finish.”

  Fleur, Alan, and Minnie all stared silently at Bev.

  “You got to stop having such long showers, Bev,” said Alan, lifting up his pallet of pies and heading for the door.

  “Wow, and I thought we were supposed to be the anxious generation,” said Fleur. “We’re the ones consumed by social media pressures and the fear of robots taking our jobs. We’re the ones with nowhere to live because your generation won’t recycle and eats way too much ham.”

  “Ham?” Minnie asked.

  “Only old people eat ham,” Fleur said, as though it was the most obvious point in the world.

  Minnie looked back at Bev. She felt as though some sage words were required, but she couldn’t think of anything wise to say.

  “What about going on a protest march? You could take Betty, show her you care?” she said. “There’s nothing like waving a placard in the air to make you feel like you’re doing something.”

  Bev looked up at her curiously. “What kind of march would I go on?”

  “I don’t know, something you feel strongly about,” said Minnie.

  “I’ll tell you what’s coming up,” said Fleur, scrolling through a website on her phone. “Right, you’ve got Climate Action on the twelfth, Action on Climate on the fifteenth—bit basic; Save the Badgers, blah blah blah, Rage Against Palm Oil, politics, politics, blah blah politics, Save the Bees . . . Oh, here we go, Ban Single-Use Plastics on the thirtieth: that sounds like your cup of tea, Bev.”

  “There you go,” said Minnie cheerfully, “there’s something for everyone to get angry about, isn’t there.”

  “You really think that might help?” said Bev, looking up at Minnie with hopeful eyes.

  “No one’s too small to make a difference, just ask Greta Thunberg,” said Minnie.

  “Make sure you take a compact; there’s never anywhere to check your makeup on a protest march. Also, throat lozenges and water, you get hoarse from all the chanting, ‘WE WANT THIS! WE WANT THAT!’” said Fleur.

  “Do I need to buy a ticket in advance?” asked Bev.

  “No, Bev, you don’t need to buy a ticket,” said Minnie.

  “Such a classic Pisces.” Fleur nodded. “All this anxiety about helping everyone.”

  “I’m not a Pisces,” said Bev.

  “Really? You definitely should be,” said Fleur, squinting her eyes. “While we’re on the t
opic of star signs, Minnie, I’ve been looking up Capricorn compatibility and it’s not good news. Don’t dump Greg for your hot love twin; the stars say it will never work.”

  Minnie frowned at Fleur. Why was she spending time googling Minnie’s compatibility with people? She also felt an inexplicable stab of irritation that Fleur had decreed her and Quinn incompatible, which was ridiculous—Minnie didn’t even believe in astrology.

  Minnie’s phone pinged, a reply from Greg. No, did not order pies. Do you want to watch Life of Pi tonight, though? Then another text pinged through. Or The Pie Who Loved Me? With Nail and Pie? Pieture Perfect? (Jennifer Aniston!)

  Greg had a bit of a thing about Jennifer Aniston. Minnie frowned.

  “What star sign is Greg if his birthday is twenty-fifth of April?” she asked Fleur.

  “Taurus,” said Fleur. “Perfect for you, Minnie.”

  January 14, 2020

  Alan pulled the van into the next address on their delivery list, a private car park just off Old Street.

  “Private car park, très fancy,” said Alan, buzzing the intercom through the driver’s-side window.

  Minnie looked out the window at the silver plaque that listed the businesses in the building. They were delivering to Tantive Consulting on level four.

  “Huh.” Minnie made a nondescript noise.

  “What’s that?” asked Alan.

  “Nothing.” Minnie shook her head. “It’s just the name of this company. I think it’s a Star Wars reference. It’s the name of one of the ships.”

  “Minnie, I do believe behind that pretty face of yours you are hiding an inner geek.”

  They both carried a pallet of pies into the lift and headed up to the fourth floor. A striking redhead welcomed them at reception as if they were valuable clients rather than caterers delivering lunch.

  “If you could just lay them out in the boardroom, there’s a table set up already,” said the receptionist with quick, blinking eyes and a Julia Roberts smile.

  Tantive Consulting’s office space was smart and modern. The place was furnished tastefully and, by the looks of things, expensively. There were Chesterfield armchairs made from soft, worn-looking leather, and plush thick pile carpet throughout. The vibe was professional and minimalist, yet homely and welcoming. On the walls hung framed photographs of strange landscapes and interesting faces; art that drew your attention, not the generic abstracts you’d normally see in an office such as this.