This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

  Lucy forced a smile and then turned to open the sliding door back to the party.

  “Fine, but we need to decide. Now, make sure you mingle, you should talk to everyone here for at least three minutes, then everyone feels that they’ve seen you.”

  Quinn looked around the room. Who did he want to talk to? Over by the bar were the few school friends he still kept up with: Matt, Jonesy, Deepak. On the dance floor, his work colleagues and a handful of faces from UCL and Cambridge days. Mike was busy chatting up Lucy’s friend Flaky Amy. Three minutes. Could anyone really see him in three minutes? Would anyone see him in three hundred minutes? In a room full of his friends, Quinn didn’t think he’d ever felt so lonely.

  Quinn watched Lucy strutting over to reprimand a waiter for standing idle. The man looked terrified and launched into action, knocking straight into a girl walking toward him. The girl had brown curly hair and was dressed in a strangely casual tank top. The plainness of her clothes only made it more apparent how striking she was. The waiter dropped his tray and the canapés flew into the air. Quinn watched the girl with the curly hair stop to help the waiter pick them up, apologizing as though it was her fault. She got down on her hands and knees and helped brush off the goat’s cheese stuck to the waiter’s tie. Then she cleaned his glasses on her top. Quinn smiled to himself as he watched the scene. He didn’t know anyone here who would help a waiter like that.

  The girl stood up and brushed herself down, then picked a piece of goat’s cheese from her hair. The waiter scurried away and she stood there, alone, watching the party as though she wasn’t a part of it. Something about this girl didn’t fit here; she stood out like a swan in a pond full of geese.

  Quinn turned his head to see Lucy letting out one of her overblown, mirthless laughs, and he knew then—whether it was to do with his past, their present, or something else entirely—he did not love Lucy. He was going to choose Carol. He wanted to get out of this rabbit hole.

  September 13, 2020

  Minnie was in the garden helping her parents knock down her father’s shed. Now that he’d turned the loft into a fully functioning, damp-proof repair studio, he didn’t have any need for the shed, which was taking up valuable space that could be used for her mum’s vegetable project. Minnie’s mother had caught the vegetable-growing bug from Tara.

  “Global warming means we should all be growing our own,” she said by way of explanation.

  “What’s global warming got to do with it, except things grow quicker?” asked her dad.

  “Well, when tomatoes go up to ten pound a punnet because there’s no land to grow food on, you’ll be glad we got some in our backyard, won’t you?” said her mum, wiping strands of sweaty hair from her eyes with her free hand.

  “If we’re all gonna be living underwater, you’d be better off learning how to build submarines or growing gills,” said her dad.

  “It’s strange taking the shed down, the house looks so different without it,” said Minnie, taking a step back to survey the scene. She was wearing blue dungarees and had a shoebox-sized mallet in her hand. “I never realized how much light it was blocking. Look how much sun you’ve got going into the kitchen now.”

  “Perfect for growing things,” said her mum, eyes wide with delight.

  “I’m going to miss that shed. You know how many clocks I fixed up in there?”

  “You’re just as happy in the loft,” her mum said quickly.

  “There’s not as much light in the loft, though,” her dad grumbled.

  “Well, you were hogging it all down here, weren’t you?”

  * * *

  —

  Once the shed had been dismantled and the wood piled high in the back of her dad’s van, Minnie went inside to boil the kettle and cut up the fruitcake she’d brought. As she stood waiting for the kettle to boil, her eyes wandered along the shelf, scanning her mum’s cookery books. Stashed between Nigella and Jamie Oliver she noticed her mum’s old gray file of clippings. She pulled it out, absentmindedly flicking through the contents. She’d never looked through it herself. She’d only been shown the odd article or certificate when her mum brought it out at special occasions.

  Minnie flicked through Will’s spelling bee certificate and the article he wrote for the local paper about the resurgence of drum and bass. Minnie shook her head and smiled. There was the newspaper article about Quinn being the first nineties baby, then the next piece of paper in the file made her freeze—it was the menu from Victor’s, the first one she’d cooked. Behind it was the Christmas Day tasting menu from Le Lieu de Rencontre; Minnie had brought it home to show her parents what she was working on. Then there was the first flyer they’d designed to advertise No Hard Fillings, and some pie recipe ideas she’d brought home to show her parents. Minnie flicked through the rest of the file—everything she had ever worked on was here, her mum had kept it all. Minnie quickly covered her mouth with her hand to stop a sob from escaping. Maybe her mother wasn’t so disappointed in her after all.

  “You bringing us a cuppa or what, love?” came her mother’s voice from the garden.

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” she said, her voice coming out at a peculiar pitch. Minnie quickly stuffed everything back into the folder and returned it to the shelf.

  “Heaven’s pajamas, this is a hell of a cake, love,” said her dad, as they all sat on the back step with thick slices of fruitcake.

  “Thanks. I put extra cherries in, just the way you like it, Dad,” said Minnie, then she turned to look at her mother, her eyes flushed with affection.

  “What you looking at me like that for?” her mother asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing.” Minnie smiled, reaching out to squeeze her mum’s hand. “It’s just nice being here with you both.”

  “Well, I’ll say this is one of your best, Minnie. Do you miss baking all day?” asked her mum, collecting crumbs in her palm as she took another bite.

  “Yeah, I do,” Minnie said wistfully. “I miss baking, but I miss my customers more. I had a day off last week so I popped up to the social club to see everyone. Old Mavis Mahoney died; I didn’t even know she was ill.”

  “Well, at least she had good innings. A woman on my ward died yesterday, she was twenty-four, poor love. Life’s a precious gift, there’s no time to waste in regrets.”

  Minnie’s dad choked on his piece of cake.

  “You’ve changed your tune, Con.” He coughed. “What’s come over you?”

  “She’s ‘gardening her way through anxiety,’ Dad,” said Minnie, sucking her cheeks together to stop herself from smiling.

  Her dad laughed.

  “Next thing she’ll be saying she’s off on some yoga camp to have her jackras cleansed.”

  “Chakras,” said her mum with a smile, making a meditational pose and clasping her hands together in prayer.

  “Oh, here we go,” said her dad, shaking his head. “Well, I’m not sold on this new ‘no time for regrets’ woman. I thought you had a list of regrets tattooed to the inside of your eyeballs, Con? Marrying me being top of the list.”

  “No.” Her mum shook her head, and let out a sigh. “Best thing I ever did, Bill—you and my kids. I wouldn’t change you for the world.”

  Minnie’s parents both reached out to squeeze the other’s hand.

  Minnie looked back and forth between them. She couldn’t remember a time they’d been like this: teasing each other, laughing, being affectionate. As a teenager Minnie thought adult conversation revolved around lists; one person would list the jobs they had done, then list the jobs the other had not done. If her dad laughed, her mum would snipe at him for making light of something. When her mum finally got to sitting down in the evening, her dad would choose that moment to go and start some crucial piece of clock maintenance. She had rarely witnessed this kind of companionship between them. It was as if her mother had taken the antidote to some bitte
r pill she’d been swallowing all her life.

  Maybe this was what her parents’ relationship had been like before they had children? Maybe the stresses of family life had knocked the love out for a while. Last time she was here, she saw her mum rub her dad’s back when she was standing in the kitchen next to him—Minnie had never seen her do that in thirty years.

  “Anything you regret, Minnie Moo, or are you going in for this ‘no regrets’ way of thinking?” her dad asked.

  “I regret you calling me Minnie bloody Cooper,” Minnie said, elbowing her dad gently in the ribs.

  “Oi, I still say you’ll get a sponsorship deal off them one day.”

  Minnie looked up at the clear blue September sky and thought for a moment.

  “I guess I regret giving up on No Hard Fillings like I did.”

  “You had your reasons. I’m sure you did the right thing, love,” said her mum.

  Minnie wasn’t used to this reassuring, sympathetic version of her mother. She did a double take, looking over at her, turning to her dad, and then looking back again.

  “Are you sure she hasn’t got a brain tumor or something?” she said to her dad in a stage whisper. “She doesn’t seem like herself.”

  Her dad shook his head in mock solemnity. “My working theory is alien body snatchers.”

  “Oh, shut it, you two,” said her mum, swiping an arm in their direction.

  “Seriously, though,” said Minnie, “I think I was too quick to give it up. I even thought of an idea for how I could make the finances work without needing funding from charities. It’s no good thinking of these things six months too late, though, is it?”

  Minnie had been in the chemist buying shampoo when she’d had the idea. There was a “buy one get one free” offer on haircare products. It reminded her of a silly pun Greg had pitched for the business last year—“pie one get one free.” Then it hit her—what if she got the corporates to fund the pies for those in need? For every pie they bought for themselves, they’d buy another one for someone in the community who needed it. Businesses were always looking for ways to bolster their corporate responsibility, right?

  She’d been frozen to the spot in the aisle, with Coconut Bliss in one hand and Passion-Fruit Explosion in the other. She’d felt that fizz of excitement that only comes with a genuinely good idea. Then she remembered the minor obstacle to enacting this genius plan; she’d dismantled the business, sold all her equipment, and given up the kitchen lease. Even if she wanted to, she’d never get another loan to start all over again.

  Minnie found herself telling her parents about the idea, even going into detail about how she would make it work. She didn’t usually talk to her parents about ideas like this; normally she wouldn’t be able to get to the end of a sentence before her mother pointed out a flaw in the plan. But today, sitting on the step in their garden, both her parents listened to her talk until she had finished. When she ran out of things to say, she looked back and forth between them.

  “Sorry, was I going on a bit?” she said.

  “Sounds like you have to do it, Minnie,” her mother said softly. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t supportive enough before. I didn’t see how important it was to you.” Her mother reached over and put her hand on Minnie’s knee. “Maybe I didn’t always say the right things, you know. No one gives you a manual on how to be a mother.”

  She looked pained at the effort of getting the apology out. Minnie patted her hand.

  “I know, Mum, it’s OK.”

  “So, you’re going to do it then?” her mum asked, wiping the corner of her eye with a finger.

  Minnie wrinkled her nose as she shook her head. “I should have thought of it earlier. I couldn’t get the funds together now.”

  “Couldn’t you get an investor, someone who believed in the idea?” asked her mum.

  “Dragons’ Den,” said her dad, his eyebrows shooting halfway up his bald forehead.

  “I didn’t invent pies, Dad.” Minnie pushed her hair back behind her ears. They were both egging her on now, making her think it might be possible. “Even if I could persuade some investor to come in, I’d need some seed capital myself. I’d have to be invested too.”

  “How much we talking?” asked Dad.

  “How much what?” said Minnie.

  “For this seeding capital?”

  Minnie shook her head. “At least ten grand, I don’t know. More than you’ve got lying down the back of the sofa, Dad, but thank you.”

  She leaned into his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. It didn’t matter if the new pie plan didn’t happen. Just talking like this with her parents, where they both listened and believed she might be able to do something—that meant so much.

  “Come on,” said her dad, removing her head from his shoulder so he could stand up.

  “We’re done, are we? You’re not going to help me dig that concrete base out?” asked her mum.

  “Not today, my love, we need a drill to break it up first. Minnie Moo, I want to show you something.”

  “Take your shoes off!” her mum cried as they made to go in through the kitchen.

  Dad led Minnie through to the lounge and pointed up at her favorite clock, the one she had given him—Coggie. Minnie looked at him, perplexed.

  “I remember the day you bought this for me. You lugged it back in your school bag all the way on the bus, must have weighed a ton. I bet there were a million other things you could have spent your pocket money on back then.” He looked up at the clock with rheumy eyes.

  “Well, it looked like a piece of junk then. You polished it up, Dad.”

  “Only four like this left in the world, according to the internet. Apparently it’s worth four thousand quid now I got it working.”

  “No!” Minnie cried, flinging a hand over her mouth.

  “And there’s a few others around the house that collectors would like to get their mitts on.”

  “You can’t sell your clocks, Dad, not for me.” Minnie shook her head slowly. “You spent so much time on them.”

  Her dad nodded solemnly.

  “Maybe I spent too much time on them, didn’t spend enough time on what’s important.” He stretched his large hand around his chin and squeezed his cheeks together. “No regrets, though, hey.” He paused. “I see so much of myself in you, Minnie Moo,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “If you’ve got a chance, I want you to have it.”

  They stood watching Coggie for a moment.

  “Does Mum know they’re valuable?”

  “Does she heck!” Her dad laughed. “I always told her they were junk. She’s going to go category nine ballistic.”

  He rubbed both palms up and down across his eyes. Minnie couldn’t believe her dad had been sitting on a small fortune all this time, or that he’d just offered to give it to her. Her heart swelled with affection for both her parents.

  “We’ll just make sure Mum’s in one of her ‘gardening moods’ before we say anything, shall we?” said her dad.

  October 20, 2020

  Her laptop was charged, the presentation loaded, and Minnie was wearing a new black jumpsuit paired with red lipstick. One of the Instagram influencers she followed had worn an outfit just like this. She’d decided at two a.m. last Monday that this was the look that was going to win her the investment.

  She’d spent the last few weeks racking her brains as to how she could raise the rest of the money needed to set up her “Buy a Pie, Give a Pie” scheme. It was Greg’s words that rang in her head—“contacts, contacts, contacts.” Who did she know who was well connected in the corporate catering world? Lucy Donohue, that’s who.

  Greg had told her that, since leaving the newspaper, Lucy had a new job running corporate catering for Lexon, one of the biggest banks in London. She was exactly the person Minnie needed to get behind her idea. In the past, Minnie woul
d have just assumed that someone like Lucy would never give her a meeting, would never take her seriously. She would have been too intimidated to ask. Now Minnie felt differently. It would probably come to nothing, but she had to try. No regrets.

  Greg and his flatmate, Clive, had helped her put together a PowerPoint presentation with statistics and graphics.

  “Don’t be too effusive,” Clive prepped her. “Don’t act like she’s doing you a favor. You’re doing her a favor by bringing her the idea.”

  “And put your hair up,” said Greg. “Don’t hide behind your hair—you always do that, it’s annoying.”

  “And take a business plan printed out to leave with her. She’ll want to look at the numbers once you go,” said Clive.

  “And take a pie,” said Greg. “That’s your product, that’s important.”

  “And testimonials,” said Clive. “Everyone loves a testimonial.”

  “Oh god,” said Minnie, trying to take it all in.

  Greg put a hand on each shoulder. “You can do this, Minnie, I know you can.”

  Since they broke up, Greg had finally decided to start work on the book he’d always wanted to write: Jennifer Aniston’s unofficial biography. The process of writing it had led him to reassess his priorities in life. He’d called Minnie a few months ago to say that, like Jen, he was happy being single, that he didn’t need a partner to define him, and that he wanted to champion the women in his life, so if she ever needed championing, he would be there. Minnie hadn’t realized how deeply his passion for Jennifer Aniston ran, but this new, supportive, Jennified Greg was definitely an improvement.

  * * *

  —

  Walking into the shiny Lexon offices, Minnie felt like Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton rolled into one. Katy Perry’s “Roar” played in her head and she was definitely strutting as she walked—Minnie never strutted. Lucy and a man in a pinstripe suit with dark, slicked-back hair welcomed her into their boardroom. There were miniature bottles of water lined up in a row along the enormous boardroom table and huge, shiny wall-mounted TV screens at either end of the room.