“Thank you for meeting with me,” Minnie said, shaking Lucy’s hand while fastidiously keeping eye contact. She wanted to say that she knew Lucy was busy, that she wouldn’t keep them long, but she stopped herself—that would be old Minnie talking.
“We’ve met before, right?” said Lucy, squinting, trying to place her. “Greg was rather vague on the phone.”
“Yes—last New Year’s Eve,” Minnie said. “At the Night Jam.”
Lucy cocked her head to one side and then slowly looked Minnie up and down.
“Oh yes . . .” A glimmer of recognition. “I hardly recognized you, have you changed your hair?”
Minnie launched into the presentation. She’d rehearsed it so many times over the last few days. She had all the stats and figures. She’d even made a short video of her old clients explaining what a difference it made to their lives, having her pies delivered.
It went without a hitch—well, except for a glitch with the PowerPoint when the screen froze. When she tried to reset it, a picture of her and Leila on a beach in Goa popped up instead. She was holding Fleabag Dog with one hand and a cocktail in the other—she looked sunburnt and happy.
“Sorry, technical difficulties,” Minnie blustered.
Lucy and her colleague Rupert asked questions and listened politely. They both tasted samples of the pies she had brought and Minnie left them with a bound presentation of her proposal.
“Well, thank you for coming in; we’ll be in touch,” said Lucy. “Great jumpsuit, by the way.”
Minnie skipped all the way home. She wasn’t sure, but it felt as though the pitch had gone well. If Lexon said no, she would try someone else—she was going to make this happen. On her phone, she had a text from her mother: I hope it went well, love. I’ve got my course this afternoon, but call me later and let me know. xxx.
Her mother was retraining to be a midwife. She’d surprised them all at dinner the other week by saying it was something she’d always wanted to do. Tara had researched a course for her online, specifically for nurses wanting to retrain, and she’d signed herself up. She made Dad sell another of his clocks to pay for it. Number thirteen was getting quieter and quieter with all the family’s changing career plans.
Back at her flat in Willesden, Minnie let herself in and flopped on the sofa. She took out her phone. She should reply to Jake, one of the chefs from the catering firm she’d been on a date with last week. Jake was attractive, kind, and popular with the waitresses. He’d surfed his way around Mexico in a van last year, and was off base-jumping in Yosemite once he pulled some more cash together. He was the kind of happy-go-lucky adventurer it was impossible not to like. There was no reason not to go on another date with him. Minnie’s owls were not overly enthusiastic, but the owls had not proved helpful in the past.
Just as she was typing out a reply to Jake, a text came through on the No Hard Fillings WhatsApp group. It was a link from Fleur. Her producer friend who’d filmed the video of Leila’s engagement had finally sent through an edit, and she’d uploaded it to her YouTube channel. Minnie watched the video and laughed out loud; it perfectly captured the joyful madness of the occasion. Minnie watched the close-up of Leila’s delighted face and kissed the screen.
“We’ve gone viral!” read Fleur’s message beneath the link. “We’ve 60,000 views and counting!”
As she was watching the video a second time, her phone began to ring.
“Hello, Minnie? It’s Lucy Donohue.”
“Oh, hi, Lucy.”
Lucy coughed on the line. Oh god, what if Minnie had given her food poisoning? Did that sound like a food-poisoning cough? What if Lucy had just spent the last hour on the toilet, Rupert vomiting next to her or holding her hair back? What if she was calling to say she planned to sue?
“We loved your pitch, Minnie. We want you to cater for all our London offices if you think you could develop that capacity? And we’d like Lexon employees to help you deliver the pies to the community as part of our ‘giving back’ initiative. We can pick over the finer details later, but I wanted to give you the good news before you pitched the idea to someone else.”
Minnie wanted to squeal down the line, “Thank you, oh thank you, Lucy! You don’t know what this means to me!” but she contained herself—pushing away Lucky, who was pawing at her leg and meowing for attention—and she thanked Lucy as professionally as possible. They arranged a follow-up meeting for Monday.
As she hung up the phone, Minnie heard a scratching noise and walked through to see Lucky scrabbling at the front door. Minnie had forgotten to keep the bathroom door ajar so that he could get to his cat litter.
“Don’t scratch, Lucky! You’ll lose me my deposit again,” she said, pushing the bathroom door open, and trying to pick up the cat. Lucky sprang forward and Minnie watched in horror as he started peeing all over her doormat. “Eugh, Lucky! What are you doing? Bad cat!” Minnie scolded.
She picked up the mat to rinse it out in the kitchen sink. As she did so, she noticed an envelope on the floor. It must have come through the postbox and slipped beneath the mat. She picked it up—the letter was soaked in cat urine. On the front, the name “Minnie” had been handwritten.
How long had this been here? She opened it quickly, grimacing at the smell. “Lucky, what the hell have you been eating?”
Minnie quickly scanned the writing down to the end—it was from Quinn. The ink was starting to run so she read the note as fast as she could.
Dear Minnie,
I tried to call you, but I think you’ve blocked my number. You’ve also blocked me on, well everywhere else, and I don’t blame you. So I’ve reverted to the old-fashioned form of communication. I have behaved . . . (Minnie couldn’t make out the next word, it was either terribly or teriyaki—terribly probably made more sense.) I’d like to see you, to explain. I know you might not want to see me, but I’ll be at our pond on Sunday at . . .
And then the rest of the words had dissolved in the acidity of the cat pee and the letter began to disintegrate in her hand.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Minnie cried. She hardly ever swore. “Lucky, you’ve peed on the most important part of the letter!” Then Minnie remembered she might never have found the letter if it hadn’t been for Lucky peeing on it, so she couldn’t be too cross.
She went to wash her hands, scrubbing them with Brillo pads until she was confident they were cat-pee free. Why did Quinn want to see her? It had been months. How long had that letter been there? Maybe weeks; maybe he’d been to the pond and she hadn’t been there? Had there been a date on the letter?
Minnie pulled the letter out of the bin. There was a date, but it was now covered in peanut butter, the remnants of her pre-presentation snack. She tried to scrape it off, but the letter was too far gone.
Maybe the rest of the letter just said something like, “You’ve still got my favorite T-shirt, so can you meet me at the ponds to return it?” Maybe it said, “I’m still not into you, but I wanted to apologize in person for being a dick about it.” Maybe it said a lot of things.
Would she go on Sunday? Did she even want to hear what he had to say? After that excruciating phone call at Tara’s house, Minnie had made a pact with herself—no more mooning over Quinn Hamilton; in fact, no more mooning over anyone. She needed to take back control of her life, her happiness. She resolved to be more like Leila, to stop letting other people mess with her self-esteem.
The letter put a cloud over Minnie’s week. She had been in such a jubilant mood after the pitch with Lucy, and now she was spending all her time speculating, weighing up whether she should go to Hampstead Heath on Sunday. She could just unblock his number and text him. “Hey, Quinn, thanks for the letter, I don’t know when you sent it because it’s now covered in cat piss and peanut butter. I know, it’s disgusting—clearly I live like an animal. Anyway, could you recap the content over text? Ta.” What would Meg Rya
n do?
October 25, 2020
She went that Sunday. Of course she did. Her curiosity got the better of her. At seven thirty she was on Hampstead Heath, skulking in the bushes near the entrance to the Mixed Pond. It was a cold, crisp morning and this pond was now closed for the winter. No one was around. Eight o’clock came and went. Minnie sat down on a bench nearby and kicked a pile of autumn leaves at her feet. The letter must have been sent over a week ago. She could unblock him, call him, but she didn’t want to. She’d already spent too many hours fixated on this particular cardboard girl.
She strolled up to Parliament Hill, wrapping her scarf tighter around her neck and tucking her hands deep into the pockets of her new woolen coat. She hadn’t been back here since that day in August; she’d taken to swimming at the indoor pool instead. The heath looked so different with its autumnal clothes on. An orange carpet of leaves covered the footpaths and a crisp, low light shone through the tangle of tree boughs above her head. She picked up a perfect red leaf from the ground, examining the intricate pattern of vessels mapping its thin surface. So beautiful, yet only created to last such a short time before its role on this planet was over, and it would decay into mulch. An unremarkable existence, and yet to look at it—how remarkable.
“Minnie?”
Minnie jumped, dropping the leaf. She looked up to see Quinn standing in front of her.
“Oh, you scared me,” she said, clutching a hand to her chest.
Quinn wore a thick green woolen jumper, a camel coat, and dark navy jeans. She hadn’t seen him for months. When you see someone often, you can forget to take in what they look like—they just become a configuration of features and foibles. Then, after an absence, you see them again as though for the very first time. With Quinn, this was like a sledgehammer hitting you with how handsome he was.
“Sorry, you were looking very intently at that leaf,” said Quinn, with a cautious smile.
Minnie looked for the leaf she had dropped. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.
“It’s a great leaf,” she said, then berated herself for saying something so stupid.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” said Quinn.
“I got your letter,” said Minnie, “but I didn’t know when you’d sent it. It got a bit . . . damaged.”
“Oh.” Quinn looked relieved. “I sent it three weeks ago, but I still come here every week, on the off chance I might run into you.”
He fell into step next to Minnie as they walked down the tree-lined avenue.
“I tried to call you, then I couldn’t get through. I didn’t want to turn up on your doorstep, but I . . . I needed to explain . . .” Quinn paused; he was nervous.
Minnie scuffed up a pile of leaves with her feet and it gave a satisfying crunch. She stayed quiet, letting him talk.
“I guess I’m a bit of a screwup, Minnie. I have issues with feeling needed.” Quinn blinked and thrust his hands into his pockets. They both walked with their eyes on the path ahead. It was sometimes easier to speak when you weren’t looking at someone. “I think I’ve grown up with a messed-up view of what love is. I thought it was love that destroyed my mother, but I realize now, it wasn’t that.” Quinn shook his head.
“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching, Quinn,” Minnie said.
“I have.” He frowned. “I started seeing a therapist at the beginning of the year, started talking through some stuff I’ve never talked about before. I quit after a few months, though; thought I could handle it myself. Then, running out on you like that, I knew I had to go back. I don’t want to be that person, Minnie, not anymore. I’ve finally come to a few important decisions.”
“Like what?”
“I need to move away from Primrose Hill. I need to apologize to you for the way I behaved. I need to start being open to letting people in.”
In her peripheral vision, Minnie could see him looking sideways at her with hopeful eyes. She kept her eyes on the path ahead.
“Is this some therapy thing where you go around apologizing to all the girls you’ve ghosted?” Quinn made a short “huh” exhaling sound. “I understand if you need to get on. It must be a very long list.” Minnie elbowed him gently.
“That’s not what this is. I meant every word I wrote in that letter. I knew I’d done the wrong thing the second I left your flat, but I couldn’t start something with you, Minnie, not until I knew I could do it properly.” He stopped in his tracks and she turned to face him. He tapped a fist against his chest. “From the minute I met you, you’ve burrowed your way in here like a song stuck in my head. I can’t get you out.”
“That must be very annoying,” said Minnie with a little shake of her head.
“It’s not annoying.”
“Well, that’s not a good analogy then, because getting a song stuck in your head is incredibly annoying.”
“Not if you like the song.”
“Especially if you like the song. Best way to ruin a good song, having it go round and round in your head all day. It ruined Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ for me.”
Quinn reached out to take Minnie’s hands. “OK, it’s a bad analogy. Look, I’m clearly no good at this.” Quinn let out a sharp exhale of frustration, then took a breath and tried again. “Minnie, you were like this light coming into my life—you dazzle me. But your light also made me see all these shadows in my own life, shadows I finally realized I had to deal with.” He frowned. “You see how I’ve moved from song to light analogies?”
“Better.” Minnie nodded, her mouth twitching into a smile.
“I’ve only ever kept people at arm’s length before. With you, as soon as we talked, you refused to be arm’s length, you were right here.” He put a palm over his chest. “Look, I don’t know what I’m asking. I guess I’m saying I might screw up, but I want to give it a chance. I think I love you, if that doesn’t sound too nuts.”
He looked up at Minnie—his eyes meeting hers, willing her to say something.
Minnie felt her stomach tense. This was everything she’d wanted to hear—two months ago. He was saying he was ready to take a leap off a high board with her, but for some reason, she no longer felt prepared to jump. She squeezed her hands into balls. Hadn’t she expected this? Didn’t she know from the letter that he’d changed his mind? But when she heard him say it out loud, her first instinct was to step back, not leap in.
“I’m glad you’ve worked through some things, Quinn, and it doesn’t sound nuts—I felt the same about you.”
“Felt?” Quinn said, the fire in his eyes already dampened by disappointment.
“I’m sorry, but things have changed for me since I last saw you.”
“Oh.” Quinn hung his head.
Minnie wrapped an arm through his and pulled him into stride next to her. It was easier to talk while walking.
“Not like that. I’ve just been doing a lot of soul-searching too, I guess. What you said about being the cardboard girl . . .”
“I’m not the cardboard girl; I don’t want to be the cardboard girl.”
“Maybe not, but I think I’ve always been that penguin, always looking beyond the penguin enclosure for someone else to make me happy.”
They walked a few steps in silence. Minnie loved the feeling of his arm in hers. Physically it felt so right to be here next to him, but she had to fight that feeling—she needed to think with her head. It was something Fleur once said to her, which stuck in her mind: “You need to be a ‘me’ before you can be a ‘we.’” It sounded twee, but Minnie felt it to be true. This last month she’d felt more “me” than she’d felt in her whole life: more contained, more comfortable in her own skin. She had a new confidence, an inner fire, and she didn’t want it to go out. It was that quote on the back of her print: “Be a good companion to yourself and you will never be lonely”—that had to be the aspiration. She wanted to fuel her
own fire. If you got your fuel from men, they could leave, and you’d be left alone in the cold.
“I’ve been getting on with my parents,” she said. “I have you to thank for that. My mum is a different person since she’s been spending time with yours.”
“The vegetable project,” Quinn said with a nod.
“‘Gardening their way through anxiety,’” said Minnie, making air quotes with her free hand.
“Yes, she told me about their blog project; it’s all she can talk about.” Quinn smiled.
“I can’t describe how much she’s changed, Quinn—it’s like she’s put down this sack of resentment she’s been carrying around for decades. And when she put it down, for some reason it made me feel so much lighter.” Minnie shook her head. “I know it sounds ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t,” said Quinn.
“I pitched this new business idea to Lucy Donohue last week, a way to get my pies funded again. She loved it; Lexon is going to sponsor the whole thing. We’ll cater for their staff canteens, and they’ll subsidize pies for people in the community.”
“Lucy? Wow.” Quinn gave a perplexed smile, his eyebrows knitting in confusion. Then he nodded. “Minnie, that’s great, I’m so impressed. Lucy’s got a great eye for business.”
“I know you didn’t end things on the best terms with her,” said Minnie.
“I owe that woman a lot—I’ll always be grateful to her for dragging me to therapy in the first place.”
“This year, turning thirty, I don’t know—I feel like I’ve finally been given the keys to my own car and I just want to drive. I’m happy to be me, and I’ve never felt like that before.”
Quinn took a loud, slow inhale. “And you’re not ready to take any passengers in this new car of yours. Especially not messed-up weirdos who’d scuff the interior and play all the wrong music on the radio.”
This Time Next Year Page 30