This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

  The catering company Minnie now worked for was a production line of salmon en croûte and goat’s cheese tarts with a balsamic glaze. She worked in a rotation of venues, creating meals for weddings, parties, lunches, and functions. She didn’t have much to do with the people who ate her food, or even the people who served it. She cooked, cleaned up, got paid, and went home. She liked the impersonal nature of it. She didn’t have to think about the business model, about other people’s livelihoods depending on her. She didn’t have to think at all.

  She’d stayed in touch with Alan and Bev. Letting them down had been the worst part of the whole thing.

  “We’ll be fine, don’t be thinking about us,” Bev said, once she’d told them the news.

  “Ah, we’ll find another ship to rig in no time,” said Alan.

  As it turned out they had; the chicken shop had taken them both on, wanting staff who knew the premises. Alan was on deliveries, Bev worked the deep-fat fryer.

  Fleur had disappeared, Minnie wasn’t sure where to. Perhaps she was living offline at home in her parents’ Wi-Fi-free zone, or maybe she’d finally set up that horoscope-themed dating app she’d always talked about. Minnie was surprised how much she found herself missing Fleur, of all people.

  Giving up the business had been a seismic shift. Like tectonic plates grinding against each other, this small earthquake had released the pressure, preventing more cataclysmic consequences. It had been the right thing to do, she was sure of it. Yet she missed her colleagues, she missed her customers; she missed hearing about Mr. Marchbanks’s cats and Mrs. Mentis’s bunions. Most of all she missed Leila, and she missed her with a yearning she could only describe as heartache.

  They still communicated, sent texts, occasionally exchanged news over the phone. But something had changed between them since their argument. Leila worked days, Minnie worked evenings. They’d met up for Saturday morning coffee a few times, but a polite distance had settled between them. Minnie felt she was catching up with an old acquaintance, exchanging information. She found herself commenting on the coffee, which was never a good sign. Patching together pieces of their friendship in a semblance of repair had not healed the underlying wound.

  So Minnie worked and she swam and she saved and she swam, and she kept her head down and she held her breath. Swimming and breathing, living and working, waiting for the next seismic shift to move the ground beneath her feet and right everything again. Or perhaps to suck her under and drown her.

  Minnie took four long strokes beneath the dark, cold water, then another, then another. As she ran out of air she felt the fight in her lungs push her to the surface. Survival took over and she broke the surface with a gasp of relief. As she climbed out of the pond onto the jetty, she saw that her towel was not on the bank where she’d left it. She shivered, looking for who might have taken it—a cruel trick at this time of year. A few yards away stood a man, rubbing his face with her blue swimming towel.

  “Excuse me,” she said, striding over to him, “I think that’s my towel.”

  The man pulled the towel down from his face. Quinn.

  Minnie’s eyes fell unconsciously onto his sculpted torso and she quickly forced her gaze back to his face.

  “Minnie? Hi.” He grinned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Freezing.” She shivered. “That’s my towel.”

  She pulled it away from him and quickly wrapped it around herself. Quinn looked around and then picked up another blue towel from the bank a few yards away.

  “Not this one?” he offered.

  Minnie looked at the towel. It did look pretty similar to the one she’d just seized. Now she came to think about it, this one was a little fluffier than she remembered hers being.

  “Oh,” she said with a frown. “Here you go.” She tried to swap back.

  Quinn laughed. “Um, you made mine all wet now. I’ll use your dry one, thanks.”

  They looked at each other, amused smiles on both their faces. It was strange running into Quinn again now. Though they’d only met a handful of times, something in his demeanor and body language felt so familiar to Minnie, like sinking into a favorite armchair.

  “So is this a normal Sunday morning activity for you—stealing people’s towels from Hampstead ponds?” Quinn asked.

  Minnie started towel-drying her hair. “No, I just come here to get my fix of hot naked men.” She nodded toward a man in his seventies with a large belly just emerging from the water in tight brown Speedos. “Phwoar.”

  Quinn laughed. He opened his mouth to speak and then paused. Finally he spoke.

  “Have you got plans now? I know you’ve turned me down for breakfast in the past.” Quinn started towel-drying his own hair with Minnie’s towel, and Minnie couldn’t help glancing again at his bare chest and his skintight black swim shorts. She wrapped his towel back around her own body self-consciously.

  “I could do breakfast. Or at least coffee until your next Tinder date turns up.” Minnie raised her eyebrows at him, brushing a hand through her wet hair. Quinn pushed a tongue into his cheek, his pupils flushed wide. Minnie wondered whether it was the thrill of an early morning swim, or if he enjoyed being teased by her.

  “My mum used to bring me up here when I was little,” Quinn said, as they walked side by side back through the park after retrieving their clothes. “I would sit on the bank reading while she swam.”

  “I find places like this so packed with memories. Visiting them can be like opening a memory jar. You take off the lid and the smells and sounds of a place hit you, unlocking things folded away deep in your brain,” Minnie said, swinging her towel as she walked. Quinn didn’t respond and she looked over at him. “Sorry, that sounded pretentious,” she said, shaking her head.

  “No”—Quinn was watching her with an unblinking gaze—“that’s exactly how I feel coming here—it’s a memory jar.”

  They walked a little farther in silence, their footsteps falling into rhythm.

  “You know, for someone so uncompromising in their business vision, you have a lot of self-doubt,” Quinn said.

  Minnie looked at him sideways without turning her head.

  “You said something beautifully evocative, then undercut yourself saying it was pretentious. I’ve noticed you do that.”

  “Don’t try to analyze me, Dr. Hamilton.”

  Minnie gave him a friendly frown and flicked her wet towel in his direction. She only meant to tap him, but her wrist got it exactly right and the towel landed a resounding smack on Quinn’s behind. He let out a yelp, clutching his bottom.

  “Oh god, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that so hard!” Minnie laughed, covering her mouth with her hand and clutching her stomach with the other.

  “My god, woman, remind me to never really piss you off,” said Quinn, putting on an exaggerated limp as he clutched his wounded buttock.

  Minnie got the giggles and had to stop walking.

  “Seriously, I’ve never done a successful towel whip in my life. I don’t know how that landed so hard.”

  “Let’s hope you didn’t leave a permanent mark,” he said wryly, peering down the back of his trousers. “Or my days of bottom modeling are over.”

  They walked down toward Hampstead Heath railway station. A mobile food van was parked next to the car park, selling breakfast baps—bread rolls filled with a choice of egg, sausage, or bacon—and instant coffee in small polystyrene cups.

  “Oh, shall we just get something from here?” Minnie suggested. “Then we can sit on the heath.”

  Quinn looked at the van then turned to look down at the row of smart coffee shops by the station. “Unless you wanted something a bit fancier?” Minnie asked, following his gaze.

  “This is perfect,” said Quinn.

  “Hi, Barney,” said Minnie to the burly bearded man who ran the van. “How are things?”

  �
��I’m good, Minnie—how was your swim?”

  “Bracing,” said Minnie. “We’d like two bacon rolls and your best cup of something hot please.”

  They walked back up to the top of the heath with their breakfast.

  “So, how’s business going?” asked Quinn.

  “Well, we closed,” said Minnie.

  Quinn frowned. “That’s a shame.”

  “It got too hard walking a financial tightrope all the time. Let’s not talk about work, you’ll probably start trying to charge me by the hour for your insights again.”

  Quinn laughed.

  “How was your date at the art gallery?” Minnie asked. “What was her name? Amanda?” She said it as though struggling to remember.

  “I’m embarrassed you had to witness that,” Quinn said, holding a hand to his forehead.

  “Which part, the office drinking or the dial-a-date?”

  “Both.”

  He gave her an embarrassed grimace. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, he just took a large bite of his bacon roll.

  “How’s your mother doing?” Minnie asked.

  Quinn paused as he finished his mouthful. “OK.”

  “You don’t like talking about her.”

  “It’s been a while since anyone asked me about my mother.”

  “I’d like to hear more about her,” said Minnie softly, looking over the rim of her coffee cup at him. “You mentioned she struggles with some things.”

  Quinn puffed out his cheeks, exhaling. He put his cup down on the grass and started massaging one wrist with his palm.

  “OK, well, the potted version—she suffers from anxiety; sometimes she struggles with leaving the house. She wasn’t so bad when I was a child, but when my father left it got ten times worse.” Quinn stared down at his hands.

  “I’m sorry, that sounds tough. Does she see someone? Do you have anyone to help look after her?” Minnie asked gently.

  “She sees a therapist, a doctor. I’ve paid for carers in the past, but she takes against them all in the end. She’s up and down. And when she’s down she’ll only see me.”

  “That must be hard,” said Minnie, “to be that relied upon.”

  Quinn brushed a hand through his hair; he sat up and pulled his knees to his chest.

  “Enough about me.” He picked up his coffee again. “I’m sure it’s very boring. People have bigger problems.”

  Minnie watched him, waiting for him to look over at her again.

  “I don’t think the scale of other people’s problems makes your own any easier to live with.”

  Quinn paused, dropping his gaze to the grass between them.

  “I think what I find hardest is that I often feel I’m enabling her to be a prisoner. I do errands for her, order her shopping, I come running when she needs something. She has this ongoing anxiety about house security, the locks not working, or paranoia that someone’s in the garden. Every time I’ll come over to check, just to ease her mind.” Quinn’s brow puckered as he stared down at his empty cup. “Once I didn’t go when she called. I just said, ‘No, walk out of the front door and go to the pharmacy yourself, it’s a three-minute walk.’” Quinn paused. “I’d had enough.”

  “That’s understandable,” said Minnie.

  “She had this terrible anxiety attack, fell down the stairs, twisted her ankle. The cleaning lady found her the next morning, still lying there. God, why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because I asked.” Minnie put an arm on his shoulder.

  “What kind of monster leaves an agoraphobic alone in the house without her medication?” he said, turning to look at her, his eyes burning with emotion.

  “Someone who tried everything else and didn’t know what else to try.”

  This confident, sure-footed man suddenly just looked like someone in desperate need of a hug, but Minnie didn’t dare initiate one.

  “The worst thing is, I can’t sympathize anymore. I know she can’t help it, but part of me thinks, ‘Come on, just try, do the steps!’ There’s this treatment strategy for agoraphobics; they take small steps to face their fear, open the door, on to the street, walk one block. Baby steps every day and gradually you see progress. She did it before—there were a few years when she wasn’t so bad. Now, it’s like she doesn’t even want to try. She’s given up, and I let her.”

  Minnie looked over at him. She didn’t know what to say so they sat in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence; it was one of those companionable silences when you don’t need to speak in order to communicate.

  They finished their breakfast, walked up Parliament Hill to see the view of London, and then back down toward the train station. Minnie looked sideways at Quinn as they passed the cafés and shops near Hampstead Heath train station. His mother’s health issues were clearly a lot worse than she’d imagined. How had her first impressions of Quinn been so wrong? This man who she’d assumed must’ve had such an easy life; clearly it had not been easy at all. Minnie always thought about her own upbringing with a sense of regret. She regretted not having a better relationship with her mother. She regretted that everything felt like a battle with her family—battling to get away, battling to stay, battling to be heard. Then again, maybe everyone had something to complain about when it came to family—at least her mother was able to leave the house.

  As they got to the train station, Minnie turned to Quinn with a hopeful look. She didn’t want the morning to end.

  “So what are you up to now?” she said, brushing away a chunk of tangled hair.

  “I was going to go to my office. I need to sign some paperwork,” Quinn said. “I know, Fun-Time Quinn, aren’t I?” He rubbed the stubble on his chin with a palm.

  “OK,” said Minnie, biting her lip and looking away.

  “I’m sorry about all that back there, I didn’t mean to get so heavy on you. I don’t tend to talk about her with my friends anymore; I’ve bored them all to death over the years.”

  “I’m glad you did,” she said.

  Neither of them made a move to go. Quinn swayed his weight slightly from side to side.

  “There is this other thing I need to do. Maybe you could help?”

  Minnie’s head sprung up to look at him. She couldn’t temper her smile. “Oh?”

  “I need to adopt a penguin from the zoo.”

  Minnie burst out laughing. Of all the things she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. Quinn explained that every year his mother struggled with what to get him for his birthday. She’d set upon adopting a different animal each year. He now supported a snow leopard, an orangutan, and a rare breed of Chilean bat. This year, she’d suggested a penguin. Quinn liked to do his research, so he’d been meaning to check out the ones at London Zoo.

  “You know you don’t actually get to take a penguin home from the zoo, right?” Minnie said as they went through the station ticket barrier together.

  “Really?” Quinn’s eyes darted back and forth in alarm. “I’ve got a bath full of fish at home, and I downloaded Happy Feet—in HD.”

  “Oh high-definition, in that case . . . You know, it’s lucky you asked for my help, I am amazing at picking out penguins.”

  “You know, that was one of the first things I thought when we met—I bet she knows a good penguin when she sees one.”

  Quinn placed his hand on the base of her back as he steered her out of the way of a family running for the train. Minnie felt a tingle down her spine and curled in toward him as they stood inches apart on the busy platform. The fluttering owls had woken up, but instead of making her dizzy and anxious, she now felt these nesting birds like a warm comfort blanket, as though some dwindling hearth inside her had been rekindled with a gentle puff of oxygen.

  She was going to the zoo with Quinn Hamilton. She felt like an excited child, full of bubbling anticipation and expec
tation. There was nothing she would rather be doing right now, no one she would rather be with; and it felt liberating to admit that to herself.

  May 17, 2020

  Quinn bought them tickets and they meandered along the little zoo streets looking at animals.

  “I have never been to the zoo before,” Minnie confessed.

  Quinn did a double take. “You poor deprived child. Do you even know what a giraffe looks like?” Quinn pointed at an enclosure of warthogs. “You know they’re not giraffes, right?”

  “Ha-ha.” Minnie elbowed him in the ribs. “No doubt you’re an expert after all those childhood holidays on African safaris. Both my parents worked at the weekend; they never had time to take me to the zoo.”

  Quinn made a face of mock sympathy. “Poor little Olivia Twist—such a deprived, Dickensian upbringing.”

  Minnie stuck her tongue out and gave him a friendly glower.

  When they reached the penguin enclosure, Minnie let out a cry of delight. “Oh, look at them, they’re so sweet! Look at their waddly little legs. Oh, and look at that one with the silly hair sprouting out of his head!” she cried, pointing out one of the penguins. Quinn didn’t say anything. She turned to check he was still there and found him gazing down at her with a look of charmed amusement.

  “What?” she said.

  “You’re very sweet,” he said softly, his eyes locking onto hers.

  Minnie’s stomach flipped.