In Twenty Years: A Novel by Allison Winn Scotch

Author:Allison Winn Scotch [Scotch, Allison Winn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

16

ANNIE

Annie, Colin, and Owen hover over the box, peering at it. The banister rattles, and then Lindy is there too. Then Leon.

“This is it,” Colin says. “This is what she had for us.”

No one moves; no one is particularly inclined to delve into the unknown, a time capsule that’s akin to a time bomb, really.

“Let’s wait for Catherine,” Annie suggests, her pulse racing. Let’s just wait forever.

“No, she might be a while.” Owen looks like he’s used to waiting for Catherine, looks like he’s not particularly interested in waiting another second for her.

Colin spears a knife from the kitchen into the packing tape and peels back the wrapping, gently opening the flaps of the box, making Annie wonder what he must look like in surgery. He plunges his surgical hands inside, beneath the packing peanuts, and pulls out his first, then Lindy’s. Their letters to their younger selves. Framed, preserved forever.

“Oh my God!” he says. “I’d forgotten!” He looks closer. “They’re all here. Wow.”

Annie had forgotten too, and now her stomach plunges, like an elevator dropping from a penthouse, straight into her guts.

“But it hasn’t been twenty years,” Annie protests. “She said twenty.”

“Close enough,” Lindy scoffs. “Don’t be such a stickler.”

Annie barely hears her. Instead, her guts rumble, and she swallows hard and excuses herself to go to the second-floor bathroom.

Her hands are clammy, her breathing too fast. She lowers the cover on the toilet, then sits and drops her head between her knees.

She’s certain that she threw hers out. She has no idea how Bea got ahold of her copy, and why she encased it behind glass and sterling silver. And further, why Bea now (or then) packaged it into this messengered box and delivered it smack in the middle of the afternoon of what would have been her fortieth birthday.

Bea had made them do it. The last night of senior year before they all journeyed to different corners of the country (though Lindy and Annie pushed off to the same tiny corner apartment in New York City), the last night before they would have to juggle schedules and new friends and random lovers and career commitments and, well, more important priorities. The last night they’d all slept under the same roof.

Write down what you hope for your life in twenty years.

Colin laughed like this was the most ridiculous thing, and he was also probably already drunk in preparation for the evening’s pregraduation revelry. But Bea shot him a look that said, This matters, and he abruptly stopped laughing and picked up one of the pens she’d set out on the table. Annie still remembers this obedience, this understood language between the two of them. Annie also still remembers how much that moment gutted her. How Bea had something she wanted—his dutiful attention—and for a moment, it felt like she had everything Annie wanted. Colin. A trust fund. An adventurous spirit. A full heart. Lots of things, really.

Annie didn’t covet much, wasn’t the envious type. She’d made do with

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