This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

  Minnie surveyed the room and nodded to herself. The simple task of sorting through the chaos had calmed her anxious mind, and putting Automat up made the room feel like home. She climbed onto her freshly built bed, sat cross-legged against the wall, and opened her laptop. She typed Lucy Donohue’s name into Google—she wanted to see whether people were still commenting on her article. There were a few tweets about it on Twitter, lots of people asking if they could be Lucy’s next dinner date. Minnie groaned—of all the things she had to do, why was she spending time googling Lucy Donohue? She needed to get some fresh air. Downstairs, the house was empty; both her parents worked on Saturdays. She scrolled through the new list on her phone and moved numbers nine and ten to the top: Buy cat food, help Bev resolve existential crisis—achievable goals.

  Minnie got the tube down to a shop near Old Street station. She remembered seeing it when they’d driven past on the delivery round. It was a printing shop and in the window hung a sign reading we personalize anything. She handed the man behind the counter a USB stick and a plain matte-plastic bottle she had saved. It was an unusual request. She wanted to put a picture of Bev and a few words about her on a shampoo bottle. It was a silly gesture, but maybe it would ease Bev’s existential fears about being outlasted by a shampoo bottle. The man said it could be ready in an hour if she didn’t mind waiting. Minnie had nothing to rush home for, so she decided to spend the time meandering the streets watching other, more interesting people going about their lives.

  Minnie enjoyed speculating about strangers in the street; where they might be going, and who they were going to meet. She passed a tall woman in tiny shorts and silver tights with huge Afro hair and bright blue eye shadow. She wore a T-shirt that read queen in gold glitter. Minnie watched heads turn in the street as the woman sashayed past.

  Minnie had never been someone to turn heads in the street; she just didn’t have that head-turning quality. She knew if people talked to her, took time to acclimatize to her features, then she might be deemed ordinarily pretty, but it wasn’t the kind of beauty that would stop a stranger in their tracks. When she was with Leila, people turned to look, though usually that had more to do with Leila’s outlandish hair and outfit than anything else. Minnie wondered if people who dressed unconventionally were after the kind of attention usually reserved for the strikingly beautiful people. Leila would say it was a case of not caring, of wanting her exterior to match the way she felt inside. Minnie had no idea what a reflection of her inner self would look like. Maybe that was her problem—she didn’t know who she was.

  Minnie had always yearned to blend in, to not draw attention to herself. Attention meant criticism, attention meant being teased. She had read an article about how beautiful women, especially models, find growing older particularly hard. They are so used to turning heads in the street that as the gazes from strangers fall away, they lose their sense of identity. Maybe it was better to be invisible in the first place and never know what you were missing. Minnie’s thoughts turned to Tara. She must have been someone who turned heads when she was younger. Would aging have been harder for her than for Minnie’s mum, who had always been a little bit stocky and plain? Was it her receding beauty that caused Tara’s frailty, that air of vulnerability Minnie had sensed? Then she remembered the fear in Tara’s face at the smashed lamp, the panic in her eyes. She couldn’t imagine that kind of pain had anything to do with the outside world—there had to be something more going on.

  She walked aimlessly on, not looking where she was going. When she looked up from the pavement, she realized she was outside Tantive Consulting. Had she walked here accidentally, or had her subconscious led her here? It was five in the afternoon on a Saturday, but the lights on the fourth floor were on. Apologizing to Quinn Hamilton was the next point on her list.

  February 1, 2020

  Minnie pressed the buzzer. She didn’t expect anyone to be there at the weekend. It was probably the kind of office where lights were left on twenty-four/seven, ruining the planet one lightbulb at a time. Then again, Quinn was probably the kind of workaholic who couldn’t switch off at the weekends. She thought it with a mental sneer and then chastised herself for her hypocrisy—she was that person too.

  A sound came over the intercom.

  “Hello?” she said.

  There was a noise and the door clicked open; she’d been buzzed in. Minnie stepped tentatively into the lift and pressed the button for the fourth floor, her heart pounding in her chest. She hadn’t meant to come here, she’d meant to call him and apologize over the phone. He was going to think it was weird, her showing up at his office unannounced.

  The lift doors opened and Quinn was standing in front of her with a beaming smile, arms held wide in greeting. She’d forgotten how tall he was.

  “Hi!” he said, then his neck retracted and his arms dropped to his sides. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Sorry.” Minnie blinked her eyes closed and shook her head. “I was just passing and the lights were on and I just . . . I wanted to apologize about the other day. I don’t want to intrude if you’re expecting someone else. I can go . . .”

  “No, it’s fine.” Minnie looked up from the floor and Quinn gave her a perplexed smile. “Come in.”

  He led her over to the reception area, and waved an arm toward one of the low brown leather chairs. “Sit, sit.”

  In the glass-walled meeting room beyond, Minnie could see an open laptop and a sprawl of papers fanning out across the table. Minnie sat on her hands to stop herself from biting her nails. She couldn’t get comfortable so she decided to stand instead. This felt awkward, so she settled on splitting the difference and perching on the arm of the chair instead. Quinn watched this self-conscious dance of hers with amusement.

  “Look, I’m just going to say what I wanted to say, then I’ll leave you in peace to get on with your work. I was rude the other day. I don’t know why I was so angry with you when you’ve been nothing but nice to me and, well, I’m sorry. Maybe you are right, I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder.”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” he said, tidying the papers on the coffee table between them.

  “I really do.”

  “OK, maybe you do.”

  “I probably am doing a crap job with the business—I guess you hit a nerve.”

  “Well, I’ve had calls from clients asking how they can order from ‘the pie lady.’ You’re clearly doing something right.”

  She acknowledged the compliment with a nod. He sat watching her for a moment. His blue eyes looked soft, unfocused. “Anyway, it’s nice to see you . . . not shouting at me,” he said, and grinned.

  Minnie’s lips twitched, she didn’t want to laugh.

  “I’m not usually a big shouter. You bring out the worst in me.”

  “It’s not all bad,” he said, picking up a pen from the coffee table and twiddling it between his fingers. “You have a very sexy indignant face.”

  “A what face?” Minnie felt herself scowl.

  “That face there, sexy indignant—it’s your signature look.” Quinn watched her for a reaction, pointing the pen in her direction. She noticed his hair was ruffled and disordered.

  “Wh . . . wha . . .” Minnie floundered. This was not the same Quinn she’d met the other day.

  “Anyway, apology accepted, I’d-forgotten-all-about-it.” Quinn slurred the last few words, merging them into one. “I guess I’m sorry you think I’m obnoxious and patronizing,” he said in an odd, deep voice.

  “Why are you being strange?” Minnie frowned. Then it dawned on her—his glassy eyes, his languid body movement. “Are you drunk?”

  “Am I drunk? Am I drunk?” Quinn screwed up his face, leaned forward, and then flung his body back in the chair. His eyes darted over to the sideboard. Minnie followed his gaze and saw an open bottle of whisky sitting there.

  “Look, it’s none of my business,”
said Minnie. “You’re free to drink alone in your office on a Saturday afternoon if you want to. It just explains a lot.”

  “Do you want a drink, Minnie Cooper?” Quinn asked, leaping to his feet and doing a little dance around the reception chairs before landing next to the sideboard where the whisky stood. “Non-whisky-based beverages are also available.”

  Minnie shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  She had nowhere else to be and she was intrigued to hear more from drunk Quinn. He poured her a whisky over ice. He had a drinks cabinet hidden behind a black lacquered bureau, complete with vintage silver ice bucket and tongs. He poured himself another at the same time. Minnie sat back down in the armchair properly. She felt more relaxed now she knew Quinn had been drinking—the drunk version of Quinn was less intimidating, less virtuous. She felt her mental guard slacken.

  “So why the office? Secret drinker not a social drinker?” Minnie asked.

  “You drove me to drink, Minnie Cooper—your elusive enigmatic quality.” He said it with a wry smile, toasting her with his glass in midair.

  “Ha-ha.”

  He locked his gaze on hers, unblinking. For a moment he looked entirely serious and sober. Minnie felt as though she were in an elevator plummeting several floors. She put a hand to her stomach, recalibrating her balance by studying the cracks in her ice cube.

  “Are you drowning your sorrows about Lucy Donohue’s article?” she ventured.

  “Not especially,” said Quinn, “but I’m still dealing with damage limitation.”

  “It was pretty harsh,” said Minnie.

  Quinn shrugged. “Better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you’re not.”

  “Profound,” said Minnie. “Where did you read that—the back of a cereal packet?”

  “I thought it was incredibly lucid and poetic for four whiskies in.” Quinn grinned, inhaling the rest of his drink in one mouthful. “So, tell me about you, Minnie Cooper—what’s happening in your life? Funny Greg still making you chuckle in all the right places? Still too principled to cook for obnoxious arseholes like me?” Quinn sniffed, and the dimple on his cheek creased into life.

  “Greg and I broke up.”

  She watched Quinn’s face for a reaction. He slowly raised one eyebrow. “Stopped being funny, did he?”

  “No. Maybe I just need more than jokes right now.”

  “Ouch. Poor Greg,” Quinn said, wincing theatrically.

  “So what did Lucy do to get binned? All the posh meals got a bit rich for you? Found yourself getting paunchy?”

  Quinn rubbed his washboard stomach and frowned. “There’s no paunch here, and recently I’ve been eating more of your pies than anything else.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. Minnie regretted asking him about Lucy. He clearly wasn’t going to elaborate and now she felt foolish for prying. Then again, he’d asked about Greg and she hadn’t volunteered many details. Maybe they didn’t know each other well enough to be honest about such things, or maybe the answers were too loaded with meaning.

  It had been the conversation with Ian that made Minnie realize things with Greg weren’t right, but if Minnie was honest with herself, the fluttering-owl feeling she had around Quinn was also a factor. Logically, she knew the owl effect was simply a chemical reaction based on pheromones, some ancient animal instinct. It did not mean he was viable boyfriend material, or that the feeling was mutual. No, the owl effect simply served to remind her of what she no longer had with Greg.

  All of it faded eventually. In every relationship, that initial fluttering feeling would simmer down and then disappear. She imagined the young excitable owls inside her aging into wise old birds; they’d wear spectacles and have less energy for flapping about. The ephemeral nature of it meant you had to think with your head. You had to choose a partner based on logic; someone with similar life experience who would share your point of view and your interests. Quinn did not fulfill any of these criteria.

  “You know the truth is, I don’t find it easy to commit to anyone,” Quinn said, looking up at her with glassy eyes. He swallowed, pinching his lower lip back with his top teeth. “Apparently I have ‘commitment issues.’”

  He whispered the last words, as though confiding a secret. Then he blinked, collecting himself.

  “We can talk about it if you want?” Minnie prompted softly.

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin, Minnie.”

  “Try me,” she said, leaning forward in her chair.

  Quinn looked pensive, his features halting as though steeling themselves to take a plunge from a high board. Then he leaned back in his chair, pulling away from the brink, the opportunity to jump missed.

  “Then you’d know things about me, Minnie Cooper, and I know next to nothing about you. You need to trade some emotional currency first.”

  “OK.” Minnie tilted her head to one side and took a slow sip of her drink. She felt the warming whisky loosen her tongue. “My best friend’s boyfriend just told me he’s going to propose. He also told me the stress of work is killing Leila, and he wants me to fold the business. He wants her to be free to thrive and he doesn’t think she’ll thrive while she’s having sleepless nights over No Hard Fillings.”

  Quinn was watching her intently as she spoke. She plunged on. “I might have been cross that he was interfering, or sad that he might be right. Mainly, I just felt happy that my friend has someone who thinks about her that way.” Minnie paused. “I guess I was cross and sad but also happy and a bit jealous. I think I decided if I can’t have a relationship like that, then maybe I’d rather be on my own.” Minnie paused again and then added, “Greg didn’t like me to call him unannounced. He liked me to text first, can you believe that? When you love someone, you want to be able to call them without having to make an appointment.”

  Quinn looked incredibly sad for a moment; she saw it flash across his face. His eyes, usually flickering on the brink of amusement, took on this rheumy, lifeless quality, a distillation of misery. Minnie had said too much. She shuffled back in her chair, putting the glass in her hand down on the side table with a bang. “Come on then, I got all serious on you. Spill your guts, Hamilton; what’s your emotional constipation about? Not a misguided romantic like me?”

  He brushed a shaking hand through his hair and then the look was gone. A shrill, buzzing noise pierced the air, and Quinn and Minnie both jumped in surprise.

  “It’s the intercom,” said Quinn.

  “Expecting someone?” asked Minnie.

  Quinn looked confused, then his eyes bulged and he slapped a hand to his mouth.

  “Shit,” he said. “I arranged a Tinder date.”

  Minnie laughed awkwardly. She felt her cheeks prickle.

  “I’ll cancel, I’ll tell her to go.”

  “No, no, you can’t do that. Poor girl!” said Minnie, standing up and brushing down her creased jeans. “I’ll leave.”

  “This is awkward.” Quinn grimaced.

  “It’s fine; it’s none of my business how you spend your afternoons—whisky and Tinder is an excellent combination.”

  Minnie brushed her hair out from behind her ears in an attempt to cover her burning cheeks. Quinn stood up and followed her to the lift, where he answered the intercom with a shaking hand.

  “Hello, Quinn?” came a woman’s voice.

  “Yeah, I’ll be right down,” he drawled.

  Minnie called the lift, the doors opened, and they both stepped in. She fiddled with her hands and fixed her stare on the silver reflective doors as they closed.

  “Do I smell of whisky?” Quinn whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

  Minnie turned to look at him and then leaned over to sniff him.

  “Only like you bathed in it.”

  He did smell of whisky, but he also had this manly, hot sort-of Christmassy smell that made Minnie
inexplicably want to nuzzle into his neck. No, she mustn’t think like that; Quinn was a player with commitment issues, and she had just broken up with someone—neck nuzzling was not an option.

  The lift opened onto the street and a girl was waiting there. She was tall with long blond hair, impossibly bee-stung lips, and large breasts on display. Clearly Quinn had a type—this woman was a bustier, younger version of Lucy Donohue. The girl’s eyes lit up when she saw Quinn, then she saw Minnie and her delicate features tensed in confusion.

  “Hi, Amanda?” Quinn greeted her politely with a kiss on the cheek.

  “And this is . . . ?” Amanda asked in an airy voice, pointing a taut, unblinking smile at Minnie.

  “This is Minnie, she’s . . .” Quinn faltered.

  “I’m nobody, I’m the caterer.”

  Quinn winced. Minnie stood between them and they both turned toward her. She was the third wheel; she needed to leave, but her feet were glued to the ground; she physically couldn’t make herself walk away.

  “Well, what would you like to do then?” said Amanda in a squeaky, youthful voice. She tilted her body away from Minnie, closer to Quinn. “There’s an Edward Hopper exhibition on around the corner that I thought we might go to?”

  Minnie did a double take. Edward Hopper was the artist who painted Automat—he was Minnie’s favorite artist. She was impressed Amanda was a fan. That would teach her not to judge a book by its busty cover.

  “You like Edward Hopper?” Quinn asked in exactly the tone Minnie had been thinking it.

  Amanda blushed. “Oh no, I don’t know who he is, but I saw in your profile he was on your list of interests. I thought maybe you could educate me?” Amanda gave Quinn a flirtatious little smile.

  “I love Edward Hopper,” Minnie chipped in without thinking. Amanda and Quinn both turned to look at her with what-are-you-still-doing-here expressions. “Sorry, I should go. Enjoy yourselves, kids, play safe, ha-ha.”