This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

  Quinn stood up and closed the bathroom door—he didn’t like to think about all that. He padded quietly downstairs and went to the laundry room in the basement. He took the stool from the corner and opened the cupboard where all the cleaning things were kept. He pulled out a bottle of bleach and behind it he saw a paper bag. It was where she always hid things she didn’t want him to find. He wouldn’t open it—he just wanted to know if it was a Falcon.

  He pulled out the bag and there was one large Falcon-shaped box and three smaller presents all wrapped in matching blue wrapping paper. He peeled away a corner of the largest box. He knew straightaway it wasn’t Lego. He knew the texture of a Lego box, he knew the colors—this was too bright, too neon. He pulled away a little more paper—walkie-talkies. Who was he going to talk to on a walkie-talkie? He carefully pressed back the edge of the paper and returned the bag to the shelf.

  Upstairs Quinn poured himself a lemon squash and turned on the computer in the kitchen. He picked up the postcard from his father that had arrived last week. It had a picture of the Empire State Building on the front. He turned it over and reread his father’s words.

  Quinn,

  The Empire State Building is 102 stories high. It was completed in 1931. The building has a roof height of 1,250 ft and stands a total of 1,454 ft tall. Impressive isn’t it!

  Maeve and I can see it from our apartment.

  Dad

  This was a standard postcard from him—a picture with some facts. Quinn saw him sometimes when he came to London for work, but the talk of Quinn visiting New York had stopped; he didn’t know why. There was no birthday card from his father today. He usually sent one about a week late. Last year he’d sent Quinn twenty dollars in the envelope. Quinn still had it, because his mother couldn’t get to the bank to change it into something he could spend.

  The computer dial tone finally connected and Quinn logged on to his favorite website—a site that hosted chat forums for Star Wars fans. This is where Quinn went when he felt lonely. Talking to other people about the world of Obi-Wan and Princess Leia distracted him from the silence of his own.

  He clicked on the chat forum tab and a little black box popped up on the screen:

 

  Jedi454: LukeQ, welcome back you are. How U?

  Jedi454 was a regular forum user whom Quinn had chatted to before.

  LukeQ: Feeling Lego Falconless, Quinn typed back.

  He didn’t know who Jedi454 was, but he knew he would understand.

  Jedi454: FanGirl90 is building one now. Wait, I’ll intro.

  A new chat screen opened and Jedi454 started typing.

  Jedi454: FanGirl90, meet LukeQ. He’s Falconless. She’s just landed one.

 

  LukeQ: Hi, FanGirl90, why r you online if you have a Falcon to build?

  FanGirl90: Had to log on here for instructions—mine is secondhand, doesn’t have all the pages!

  LukeQ: How far you got?

  FanGirl90: Page 11. Rest missing.

  LukeQ: Send me pic.

  FanGirl90:

  LukeQ: Wow, pretty good going for a girl—assume girl you are?

  FanGirl90: GirlsLikeStarWarsToo

  LukeQ: None I’ve ever met.

  FanGirl90: Because they are at home trying to build Millennium Falcons without instructions.

  LukeQ: Do or do not, there is no try.

  FanGirl90: Nice! My dad bought it secondhand for my birthday. Said “how hard can it be?” Answer: very.

  LukeQ: Your dad sounds cool. I wanted one for my birthday but . . . walkie-talkies.

  FanGirl90: Ugh.

  LukeQ: Ugh.

  FanGirl90: Luckily lots of Star Warriors on here helping me out with photos of instructions.

  LukeQ: Resourceful you are.

  FanGirl90: Wish me luck, LukeQ?

  LukeQ: In my experience there is no such thing as luck.

  FanGirl90: I think Yoda is wrong on that one.

  LukeQ: Yoda is never wrong.

  FanGirl90: Got to go, Mum shouting up the stairs. Maybe see you in another galaxy, LukeQ. Until then, may the force be with you.

  blinked on the screen.

  Quinn was disappointed she had gone. He smiled to himself—who tried to build something that complicated without instructions?

  January 15, 2020

  “So let me get this straight, the guy spent a day driving you around London to help you out, introduced you to his mother, spent thousands of pounds bailing out our business—and you shouted at him and called him a spoiled brat?” Leila asked.

  “Kind of,” said Minnie, burying her face in one of Leila’s scatter cushions.

  They were in Leila’s front room going through paperwork.

  “Minnie, with all this self-sabotaging behavior, you’re ruining the fun of living vicariously through you. I really thought you might have slept with the love twin by now, or at least had a cheeky snog.”

  “Leila! I have a boyfriend? What do you take me for?”

  “Boyfriend schmoyfriend, Bathroom Abandoner doesn’t deserve you, and Love Twin clearly fancies you. No one buys a thousand pies from someone they don’t want to sleep with.”

  Minnie slumped back against the sofa arm.

  “I don’t know what is wrong with me. He was just being so arrogant and annoying, trying to give me all this advice, telling me I should be grateful to get his opinion because he earns ‘five hundred pounds an hour,’” Minnie said, imitating Quinn’s voice.

  “Maybe you should be grateful for his opinion,” said Leila, closing the pink ring binder of accounts and rubbing her eyes with her palms. Her hair was scraped back in a messy bun, her eyes looked sunken and tired. “One month of good orders doesn’t put us in the clear, you know. It’s going to be an uphill slog to build any kind of financial buffer.”

  Minnie stretched out on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling.

  “I could hear myself sounding all bitter and bitchy—I don’t know where it came from. Do you think I walk around with a chip on my shoulder?”

  Leila scrunched up her nose and stuck her teeth over her front lip like a rabbit.

  “What?” said Minnie, leaning up on her elbows. “What’s that face?”

  “I wouldn’t say a whole chip, not a thick-cut chip-shop chip anyway, maybe a skinny fry,” said Leila. “A McDonald’s chip.”

  Minnie picked up the sofa cushion and threw it at Leila. They both laughed.

  “Working hard?” asked Ian, coming through to the living room holding a burrito in one hand. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read don’t grow up—it’s a trap, in a messy white font.

  Leila looked at the clock on her phone.

  “Right,” she said, jumping to her feet, “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting with Monsieur Bank Manager.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come?” asked Minnie.

  “No, our bank manager is quite hot—I don’t want you smashing his lamps or starting some sort of sexy slagging match.”

  Leila winked and jumped out of the room before Minnie could land another blow with a cushion.

  “Who’s hot?” mumbled Ian through a mouthful of burrito. He sat down next to Minnie on the sofa. “Want to play two-player mode, Minnie?”

  Minnie picked up the two controllers from the floor and passed one to him.

  “If we can play Star Wars Battlefront, but only one game then I have to go bake.”

  Ian leaned forward, put his leaking burrito on the coffee table, and started riffling through the games drawer beneath the TV.

  “Something I wanted to talk to you about, Minnie,” said Ian, loading the game into his Xbox.

  “If this is a coming-out speech, you’re telling
the wrong person,” she said, tilting her chin and looking down at him with wide, serious eyes. Ian leaned back and gently punched her on the shin.

  “No, dickhead.”

  The game clicked through to split screen and they both started selecting their weapons. “You always choose the wrong weapons; you need better rate of fire on your blasters,” said Ian, shaking his head.

  “Not if you’ve got an accurate aim, you don’t.”

  “I know you’re going to die first,” said Ian, scooting backward onto the sofa next to her.

  The game jumped into life. Ian and Minnie both leaned forward, hands clasped on their controllers, blasting at storm troopers.

  “I’m going to ask Leila to marry me,” said Ian, eyes still locked on the screen.

  “What?” squealed Minnie, turning to face him.

  There was a huge explosion on the screen as her avatar was hit by a grenade and blown into a thousand pieces.

  “Didn’t I say you’d die first?” said Ian with a smirk.

  “This is not a game-play conversation!” cried Minnie, reaching out to take Ian’s controller from him. “You’re going to ask her to marry you? When, how? Have you bought a ring? This is so exciting!”

  Ian shifted uncomfortably next to her.

  “Yes. Don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know how to do it, that’s what I wanted to ask you. You know what Leila’s like, she won’t be happy with a bent knee in the bathroom.”

  “No, she definitely would not be happy if you proposed in the bathroom,” said Minnie. She clasped her hands together, shuffling forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

  “She likes a bit of pizzazz. She’d want something original, I know that, but I’ve got no idea what kind of pizzazz, what kind of original.” Ian scratched his head.

  Minnie jumped up off the sofa and clapped her hands together.

  “I know exactly what you need to do. Oh, Ian, I am so glad you asked me, this is going to be amazing. We’re going to plan the most brilliant proposal anyone has ever seen, she’s going to love it!”

  Ian smiled and then frowned.

  “I don’t want to do anything involving nudity.”

  “Why would it involve nudity?”

  “And no singing, I won’t do singing.”

  “How many proposals have you heard of that involve singing and nudity? Look, I’ve got it sorted; I will mastermind everything,” said Minnie. “What about a ring, you said ‘maybe’?”

  “I’ve got a ring,” said Ian, shaking his head from side to side slowly. “I dunno if it’s right, though.”

  “Show me,” Minnie said, holding out a palm.

  Ian skulked off to the bedroom and she heard drawers being opened and rummaging sounds. Minnie tapped two fists together in excitement. Over the course of their friendship, she and Leila had talked a lot about meeting “the one,” the person you’d just know you wanted to share the rest of your life with. Here was Leila’s “the one” saying he felt the same.

  Minnie felt her sixteen-year-old self squeal with delight. That wide-eyed naïve romantic, unjaded by disappointment. Ian came back with a blue velvet ring box and opened it carefully in front of her.

  “It’s my gran’s,” he said with a lopsided shrug. “My mum gave it to me when Gran died, dunno why.”

  The ring was a delicate vintage gold band with five small diamonds in a line across the top. Minnie felt a warm rush of excitement when she saw it—it was so Leila: quirky but classic. She would love the fact that it was vintage, that there was a story behind it.

  “It is perfect, Ian. This is the ring; this is definitely the ring!”

  Minnie squealed, punched the air, and started doing a little jig on the spot.

  “It’s got a mark on the back ’cause it had to be sawed off my gran when she died on account of her fingers all swelling up from the diabetes.” Ian turned the ring over in his palm to show her. “My ma said they almost didn’t know it was there when she was at her fattest, ’cause the finger just grew around it like a bird’s neck stuck in a plastic beer-can loop. It started cutting off the oxygen and her finger went all rank and blue.”

  “Don’t tell Leila that story when you propose,” said Minnie firmly, reaching out to grab Ian’s wrist. “Promise me you won’t tell that story when you give her the ring.”

  Ian tapped his nose with his free hand, as though making a mental note.

  “There’s something else,” said Ian, sitting down on the coffee table.

  “If you want to adopt me, the answer is yes,” said Minnie.

  Ian stared down at his shoes in silence. He clicked shut the ring box and started passing it between his hands like a baseball player warming up to pitch. He fumbled it, finally clasped a fist around it, and thrust it back into the pocket of his gray tracksuit bottoms.

  “I want you to think about giving up the business,” he said, closing his eyes.

  Minnie looked to see if he was serious.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because it’s killing her,” said Ian, opening his eyes again. “She’s so stressed, Minnie. She can’t sleep; she’s up half the night worrying. She’s put all her own money in just to prop it up. We want to buy a house, Min, maybe have kids; we’re never gonna get a mortgage as things stand.”

  Minnie let out a loud exhale. She had never heard Ian sound serious before.

  “She should have said something.”

  “She wouldn’t,” said Ian, shaking his head. “She’s your best mate, she wants you to have your dream. She’d run herself ragged for you.”

  “Our dream,” Minnie corrected him. “This business is our dream.”

  “Is it?” Ian looked up, his eyes finally meeting hers. “Is it Leila’s dream? Or is it the dream you told her about that she wanted to make a reality?”

  Minnie shook her head.

  “You know what she’s like, she’s like a dog shaking a rat. She won’t let it go; she won’t stop attacking with everything she’s got until you say it’s dead. You should put it out of its misery and let her move on.”

  “The business isn’t dying”—Minnie started biting her thumbnail—“and it’s not a rat. We’ve just had a few cash-flow issues.”

  “That’s what she tells you,” Ian said, staring at her with piercing, unblinking eyes.

  Minnie stood up, shaking her head.

  “She loves it as much as I do.”

  “She loves you,” said Ian.

  They stayed in silence for a moment. Ian rubbed both hands across his scalp. “You know she got offered a job at a fashion start-up last week. Did she tell you?”

  “No,” said Minnie. She suddenly felt unsteady on her feet, as though Ian had pulled a rug out from under her. Why wouldn’t Leila tell her something like that? They told each other everything.

  “You know she’d love doing something like that. She won’t even consider it as long as you need her.” Ian hung his head. “I’m not saying this to be a shit-stirrer, Min, it’s just I love her and . . . it’s like, you know when Sonic the Hedgehog is in invincibility mode and he’s in this bubble running super-fast, and the music goes all up-tempo and there’s nothing he can’t do, he’s just bashing everything straight out the park?”

  “Yes,” Minnie said slowly, unsure where this analogy was going.

  “Leila’s born to live in invincibility mode, that’s what she’s like, it’s where she thrives—dashing about in a little bubble with the music racing, totally nailing everything. Right now, it’s like she’s been hit by a Badnik and lost all her rings—all her energy’s gone.” Ian sighed then spoke more slowly. “I want to be her invincibility bubble. I want to shield her, let her live in that mode for the rest of her life if I can.” Minnie felt a tear roll down her cheek. “That probably sounds like total bollocks,” said Ian, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets.
<
br />   “No,” said Minnie, sniffing back a tear, “I think that’s one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard. You should say that about the invincibility mode when you propose.”

  Minnie hung her head; she felt a heady mix of emotions hit her all at once: fondness for Ian and how much he loved her friend, and sorrow for the fact that he might be right. If he was right, that meant the end of No Hard Fillings, the end of seeing Leila most days, four years of hard work wasted.

  Ian reached out to put both hands on her shoulders. “Minnie—I think it’s time for you to play one-player mode.”

  January 15, 2020

  That evening, as Minnie walked along Upper Street toward Greg’s flat, she couldn’t get Ian’s words out of her head. She hadn’t even considered she might be holding Leila back. She’d been so busy worrying about her own career, she hadn’t stopped to consider if this was the right path for her friend.

  Greg opened his front door and grimaced.

  “Clive is here,” he hissed.

  Minnie nodded. She had nothing against Clive, but Greg always acted indignant about his flatmate’s occasional presence in the flat. He never expressed an interest in coming to hers, even though it would mean they had the place to themselves.

  “Question for you, headline for my latest piece—I need an Africa pun. Kenya help me out?”

  Minnie groaned and pushed him backward into the flat.

  “I’m serious,” said Greg, slapping the back of a hand into his other palm, “are you Ghana help me or not?”

  They walked through to the kitchen, where Clive was making himself a coffee with Greg’s coffee machine. Clive had red hair, freckly skin, and a warm, paunchy face. He made Minnie think of a young Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.