In Twenty Years: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

it’s actually the offending party.
    She regrets it immediately and wishes she hadn’t been so impulsive. Because now she has to look to see what’s inside. Something’s been opened, and it’s not like she can just pretend to seal it back up like it was never opened in the first place.
    If she could, she’d check Pinterest to see how to DIY this: how to seal something back up like it was never opened in the first place! Of course, if Annie could do that, then she’d bottle up those days of October 2003, stuff them right into a mason jar, tie a gingham ribbon around the lid, and throw it off a cliff. What she’d really do is bottle up Bea’s accident and breathe her dear back friend to life.
    Annie eyes the FedEx.
    No.
    Bea is dead. There will never be a Pinterest board for such things.
From the desk of: David Monroe, Esq.
To: Former Residents of 4120 Walnut Street
Dear Ms. Armstrong, Mrs. Cunningham, Mr. and Mrs. Grant, and Mr. Radcliffe,
I am writing at the request of one Ms. Beatrice “Bea” Shoemaker. She designated me as the executor of her will on September 15, 2003, and asked that this notice be sent to you in June of 2016.
Ms. Shoemaker approached me at the behest of her grandmother, whose estate I have managed for forty years. I tell you this so you understand that this letter is not a joke, nor a prank, and our firm’s relationship with the Shoemaker family is easily verifiable. If you have doubts, please, by all means, feel free to ask questions.
Shortly after your graduation, Ms. Shoemaker purchased your former residence, 4120 Walnut Street, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, and henceforth, it has been used as an investment opportunity. Since her death I have managed the row house, and per her will I have vacated the premises for the summer of 2016 and am officially extending an invitation (at Bea’s request) for the weekend of July 3–6, on the eve of Bea’s July 4th birthday—her fortieth. Bea has set aside something important for you all, and at her request you cannot receive said item until the five of you are together on her birthday.
Your travel expenses will be covered via Bea’s trust. Please call my office to make travel arrangements.
It was her deepest wish, expressed in her will, that all of you are able to return to campus and to the house on Walnut Street. If you are unable to do so, please let me know at your earliest convenience, and I will attempt to rectify any roadblocks. Though again, she reiterated that she hoped for and expected attendance. She expressed that she thought you would understand.
At Ms. Shoemaker’s request, I am at your service to assist in any way.
Yours,
David Monroe, Esq.
Webster, Monroe, and Proctor
Attorneys-at-Law
New York, New York

2
    LINDY
    Lindy’s trying to find her groove but failing. It’s been this way for a couple of weeks, and though she’s suffered through occasional bouts of writer’s block before, she’s usually able to shake it off through her tried-and-true methods: tequila, casual sex, sometimes a decent three-mile jog (if she isn’t half-dead from the tequila).
    This time, though, she’s off tequila, and for all intents and purposes, she’s now committed to Tatiana, though there was that hiccup (hiccups, plural, if you want to be technical about it) with Napoleon a few months ago (and then again a couple of weeks ago) after the recording session in New York for her new album. So booze and casual sex are out, and she’s too exhausted to drag herself over to the treadmill, which stands dormant in her guesthouse/office/writing studio.
    She knows she has something here in the chorus. She rattles the pencil against her desk like a drumstick—trying to stir up the magic—but she can’t draw out the verses, can’t pin down the melody or the lyric that will elevate this song above the rest of her catalog. Not that it matters, really. The label sends over manufactured pop songs these days. No one is interested