This Time Next Year - Bonus Chapter

New Year, New Perspective

New Year’s Eve 2017

Just that very morning Minnie had read an article in the paper about New Year’s Eve being one of the worst days of the year to have an accident. Now, sitting in A&E she could see why; the place was packed with drunken revellers and harassed triage nurses struggling to cope. Minnie was almost certain her ankle was only sprained, but everyone at the party had insisted she have it looked at; it had been quite a fall. 

Her friend Leila had brought her to A&E in a cab, but she’d had too much fizz to be of any sensible assistance. Twisting her head, Minnie could just see Leila at the far end of the waiting room, dressed as a pink unicorn, whinnying and twirling her tail to entertain two youngsters.

They’d been at her uncle’s animal themed fancy-dress party. Minnie was dressed in a black fur tube dress, with white tights, one foot now bare, where she’d ripped her tights to examine the extent of the swelling. She had black and white makeup covering her face in three long stripes, black eye shadow, and a furry shower cap with ears concealing her hair. She was supposed to be a badger, but she’d lost confidence in her outfit after so many people had failed to guess what she had come as.  

Minnie had almost been relieved to have an excuse to leave the party, even if that excuse entailed a painful fall down a flight of stairs. She wasn’t good at talking to new people, especially when the other party guests were all so glamorously. Aunt Margie had gone to town with a peacock themed ballgown, while many of the guests donned chic animal masks. Everyone had stories to tell, laughter to expend. Minnie had never felt more invisible or uninteresting by comparison.

As Minnie nursed her ankle and felt sorry for herself, the large hospital doors swept open, letting in a gust of cold air, and two strangely dressed men. One, covered from head to toe in newspaper, was being helped through the door by, Minnie blinked; another badger. The newspaper man was doubled over in pain. Nurses rushed to help him straight through the metal swing doors, to the hospital’s inner sanctum. The badger man was left, standing alone, watching in concern as his friend was whisked away. Then he turned and looked squarely at Minnie.

            She quickly turned her head away, feeling she’d been caught staring. The only spare seat left in the waiting room was next to her, the seat Leila had been occupying until a few moments ago.

            ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ asked the badger man, who was now standing in front of Minnie. She looked up at him. He was pulling off this look far better than she was. Minnie’s costume was home-made, whereas this man’s make up looked to have been done by a professional. His face had been perfectly contoured to look remarkably like a real badger. He wore fitted black jeans, a crisp white shirt, and black leather shoes. His hair was slicked back with dark gel and a hairband with ears attached. Despite the disguise, she could see that he was handsome.

            ‘Were you at the same party as us?’ he asked, sitting down next to Minnie as she nodded that he could sit there.

            ‘I don’t think so,’ she said quietly, suddenly glad to be wearing face paint to hide her blushes.

            ‘Not the Black and White party around the corner?’ he asked. ‘My mate had this sudden stomach pain, thinks it’s appendicitis. Poor guy,’ he paused, shaking his head thoughtfully for a moment. Then he turned, looked direct at Minnie and gave her a broad, confident smile. ‘There wasn’t one other badger at our party you know, I was sure everyone would have the same idea as me.’

            ‘I’m glad you recognise me as a badger, I’ve had “penguin”, “panda” and “harassed waitress” tonight.’

            ‘Oh, I’d know a badger’s stripes anywhere.’ Then the man glanced down at Minnie’s foot. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you were hurt, I shall stop chatting you up immediately,’ he said, pulling an imaginary zip across his lips.

            Minnie couldn’t help but smile that he’d said he was chatting her up. His voice was laden with an infectious energy and his eyes sparkled with interest.

            ‘Do you usually chat up injured girls in A&E?’ she asked, biting her lip as she smiled back at him.  

            ‘Only badger girls. What happened, to your ankle?’

            ‘A staircase, a drunk uncle dressed as a flamingo, hopping into me just as I reached the top.’

            ‘Oh dear,’ he grimaced, the most charming grimace she’d ever seen.

Minnie knew this man wasn’t her type. His cocky confidence and direct flattery, it wasn’t anything she’d ever go for in a guy, but his charming demeanour, and his twinkly eyes, awoke something in her stomach akin to excitement. He was the first person, besides Leila, to have held eye contact with her all evening.

‘Oh look, you made a friend,’ said Leila, prancing back towards them.

‘Wow, it’s a real menagerie in here,’ said the man, looking at Leila with amusement.

‘What can I get you? I don’t feel I’m being a very helpful friend,’ Leila said, tilting her head to one side in sympathy.

‘You know what I’d love Leils, is a Twix bar,’ Minnie said, giving her friend a grateful smile. ‘I think I need a sugar hit.’

‘Twix bar coming up. Hot badger man, do you want one?’ Leila said, clapping her hoof hands together.

‘I’m good,’ he laughed.

Once Leila had galloped off to find a vending machine, the man said,

‘So, do you come here often?’ in a purposefully deep, sultry voice.  

‘Is that the best line you can come up with?’ Minnie smiled.

‘It’s a classic,’ he laughed, ‘what would you have gone for?’

‘You can’t expect me to be sparkling and engaging when I’m injured,’ she said, eyes wide in mock indignation, ‘and no, I don’t come here often, I can’t think of a more depressing place to hang out on New Year’s Eve.’

Minnie waved a hand across the reception; there was a man crying as he clasped his shoulder, an older woman in a wheelchair, staring at the floor, waiting to be taken somewhere, an elderly man in dishevelled clothing, with dried blood on the front of his shirt.  ‘New Year’s Eve is supposed to be about new beginnings, new hope for what lies ahead, but for anyone in here, well, no doubt the year already feels hopeless before it’s even begun.’

The man let out a loud exhale of air, then lent forward in his chair and said,

‘That’s a very pessimistic outlook. You’re just not reading the room right.’ He leant his head in towards Minnie so he could talk quietly as he pointed to people around the waiting room. ‘You see that man over there next to the door, doing the crossword with his wife? I’ll bet he’s only doing that to take her mind off things as they wait for news. That girl over there by reception, playing snap with her little brother - she’s keeping him quiet so her mum can talk to that doctor in peace. That man who’s just taken his coat off, you can see he’s cold, but he’s tucked it over his friends lap to make him more comfortable – this room is filled with small acts of human kindness.’

Minnie looked across at the man’s face as his eyes darted around the room, documenting these miniature dramas.

‘You’re right,’ she smiled, ‘I think I put on my blue tinted glasses today by mistake.’

The man reached his hands towards Minnie’s face, and for a split second, she didn’t know what he was about to do, her body tensed in anticipation of his touch, but he simply removed an imaginary pair of glasses from her face, then mimed crushing them in his hands.

‘I’ll let you off, since you’re the ones who’s hurt. In the meantime - ’ he mimed taking off his own glasses and handing them to her. She pretended to put them on.

‘Much rosier.’

‘Now look up,’ the man said, dropping his head backwards, Minnie raised her gaze to see an explosion of golden fireworks through the skylight above them, a skylight she hadn’t even noticed was there. Minnie looked back at the man and they grinned at each other, her arm grazed his and she felt a fizz of electricity where they’d made contact. For a moment she forgot all about her throbbing ankle.

‘No Twix, in fact no chocolate bars at all,’ said Leila bounding back over, ‘vending machine’s bust.’      

‘Would you like your seat back Miss Unicorn?’ asked the man, leaping to his feet.

Leila raised her eyebrows at Minnie and did a nervous little bounce on the spot.

‘No, no, don’t let me interrupt, I’m er, I’m desperate for the loo. Stay exactly where you are,’ Leila gave her friend a wide-eyed look as she skipped off again.

The two badgers sat in companionable silence for a moment. Minnie felt she should introduce herself, but there was something she quite liked about simply being a badger, residing in this small personal drama of their own, not letting the outside world in.

Looking down at her foot again, Minnie let out a sigh.

‘Oh no, I left one of my shoes at the party. I must have been helped to the cab without it,’ Minnie groaned, ‘my best shoes.’ Then she looked across at the man and said, ‘I think I broke your rose-tinted glasses.’

‘No, OK, wait right here,’ he said, shaking his head, then jumping up in a burst of enthusiasm, ‘I’ll be back.’ He disappeared through the hospital doors, out into the night. The minute he’d gone Minnie was called forward by the triage nurse. She couldn’t very well say she’d forgo her turn to be seen, that she wanted to wait until the other badger came back.

Furnished with crutched and reassured by the doctor that her ankle wasn’t broken, Minnie limped back to the waiting room where she found Leila.

‘Is he here? Did he go?’ she asked her friend.

‘No, I was hiding in the loo to give you time to charm him in peace. When I came back you were both gone,’ Leila said with a shrug, shaking her rainbow mane over her shoulder. ‘How’s the ankle?’

‘Fine,’ Minnie felt the crush of disappointment.

‘Excuse me, are you the badger girl?’ asked the receptionist, looking suspiciously at Minnie.

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Your friend left something for you,’ said the woman, and she handed over one of the man’s shoes, the ones he’d been wearing. Inside was a Twix bar, and a note.

‘I couldn’t find any other shoes for you, but hopefully this will get you home. Happy New Year Badgerella.’ Then his number, right there in black ink.

Minnie bit her lip. The mood she was in earlier, she might have felt annoyed to have missed him, but now, perhaps it was the new glasses, but she simply felt touched by his kindness and excited by the prospect of calling him. She looked up to see more fireworks erupt in the skylight overhead, and she smiled at the image of the badger man getting home with only one shoe.