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Everyone had grown up now, their paths diverging as they graduated from high school and moved away, one by one.
Charlie Brown had taken his little sister away with him when they moved to Las Vegas, where Sally Brown thrived as a casino owner with her good business senses and sweet words. He supported her as best as he could, but his own career as a real estate agent occupied more of his time. Her own brother, Linus, had gone with them after impregnating and eventually marrying Sally. (Lucy had called it a decade ago, but then again, so had literally everyone else except her blockhead of a little brother.)
Marcie and Peppermint Patty (although she dropped the 'Peppermint' part now) had gotten together and fled for Paris before their disapproving families could do anything to them, and lived happily together with their dog, which they named Snoopy in honor of Charlie Brown's beloved pet. Lucy had received many a letter and postcard from the two, learning that Marcie had pursued her literary interests and had two published novels under her belt, which she personally translated into French. Peppermint Patty, however, had joined up with the French national baseball team and - if the captions to the pictures in the paper weren't misleading - had recently become their first female captain.
Franklin and Eudora had fallen in love and married soon after the latter graduated from high school, the two of them staying in Minneapolis and becoming an English teacher and a chemistry teacher, respectively. (Lucy would never have guessed ditsy little Eudora had it in her to get her chemistry degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford, but she supposed even she was wrong sometimes.) They had two sets of triplets, all of them named after deceased saints, all of them giving their parents hell day in and day out.
As for Lucy herself, she had become a proper psychiatrist who earned far more money than she used to as a child. She had grown into her looks during puberty and was now considered a great beauty, or a bombshell as many an admirer had told her. Despite being able to get any man she wanted, she had never pursued anybody, knowing all too well what happened when you were too insistent. Instead she threw herself into her now-close relationships with her brothers and the friendships she had maintained throughout her life, making sure they knew that she cared for them. She rose quickly in her career and, just like in her youthful dreams, numerous clients begged to see her.
She hadn't contacted Schroeder for years, and he hadn't contacted her. It had taken her six years for her to realize that he wasn't going to love her the way she wanted him to, but she'd gotten it at last and left him well enough alone. She wouldn't approach or speak to him and he didn't speak to or approach her. Their friends had been confused for a while until they rolled with it, making sure to orchestrate things so they wouldn't be alone together at all. They had gradually turned into strangers with memories, neither of them quite knowing how to communicate to the other anymore.
Which is why it had shocked her to the core to receive an invitation to his wife's baby shower. Apparently, according to the letter that he had slipped into the envelope along with the invite, he had met this woman named Lily in university. She was also studying for a degree in music and, like him, she played the piano (as well as nine other instruments, a piece of information which made Lucy's jaw fall open). He had pursued her, but she dated many boys before she accepted him. They were together throughout the remainder of their time at university and she fell pregnant the year they graduated, so he had married her. It was the final sentence, that the two of them had moved back to Minneapolis to hide from the fame they had achieved in Los Angeles, that made Lucy roll her eyes so as to avoid the tears that prickled behind them.
Of course she should have seen this coming. She had never been all that compatible with Schroeder, but she had definitely loved him as best as her little-girl heart was able to. It was with this thought in mind that she applied makeup for the first time in a decade and dressed in her man-eating outfit, as her brothers so affectionately deemed it: a skintight black dress that clung to her voluptuous figure, with a low sweetheart neckline and a single slit up her leg to expose her perfectly tanned skin. Paired with bejeweled black pumps, she knew she looked good enough to eat. The question now, of course, was whether or not he would - for once in his life - agree with her. With one final glance at the mirror, she left for his little baby shower.
Lily looked so much like herself that for a moment Lucy wondered if she was still in her house, looking at her reflection. It wasn't until everyone she knew from her youth began giving gifts to the heavily pregnant woman that Lucy snapped out of it, reminded herself that she wasn't the woman with Schroeder's last name despite the resemblance, and introduced herself. She congratulated Lily on her impending child and asked politely after Schroeder, learning that he was going to arrive later on after he finished his work of systematic musicology. As the two doppelgangers struck up friendly conversation, much to the surprise of the other attendees (neither woman had seen the smirk on Charlie Brown's face as he collected money from his former classmates), Schroeder arrived. The sight in front of him - his wife and former admirer chatting like they were old friends - made him gulp before stepping inside.
"Oh, Lucy, you knew Schroeder for so long," Lily was saying. Lucy nodded as she touched Lily's belly, feeling the baby inside the other woman's womb kick her hand. "He'd talked about you, you know. When I met him in uni, he'd reminisce about his past. Where he'd had so many good friends. Where a girl would lean back against his piano and listen to him play, even though she wasn't the musical type. He told me she was always so supportive of him and his musical ambitions, even though he only played Beethoven." Oblivious to the lump in Lucy's throat and the hot tears she was forcing back, the pregnant woman smiled beatifically. "That was you, wasn't it?" Lucy nodded silently, her hand still on Lily's belly. "Thank you so much, Lucy. For being such a good friend and supporting my husband in his dreams even though you didn't have to." As Lucy nodded once more, Lily's smile widened. "Any friend of his is a friend of mine. So it's lovely to meet you, Lucy. You were the only one I hadn't met yet."
"It's lovely to meet you too, Lily," Lucy replied quietly, her hand falling away from Lily as she finally turned back to the guests. They were all talking among themselves, so Lucy poured herself a drink and knocked it back. A shame there was no alcohol, she definitely would've loved some right now. She blinked forcefully to will back her tears and her gaze fell on Schroeder, who was sitting beside Lily. The two of them were simply looking at each other, their fingers linked together and their eyes seeing nobody but each other. She swallowed and blinked with more force as she saw Lily tuck a blond curl behind Schroeder's ear with a loving smile. As she saw Charlie Brown take out a neatly wrapped box and put it down on a table nearby, she suddenly remembered she had no gift for them.
Smoothing down her dress, she put on her sweetest smile and clapped her hands. Everyone's eyes snapped towards her and she cleared her throat, knowing this decision was her most reckless one yet. "I haven't brought any gift," she began, "because I thought of something else instead." She turned towards Schroeder, who wouldn't meet her eyes, and spoke in her softest voice. The voice that her clients praised to the high heavens. "Schroeder, would you mind playing on the piano? I don't feel like singing a cappella."
Lucy van Pelt, singing? She could almost see the thoughts swirling in the minds of the other attendees, to which she simply smiled. As Schroeder nodded and silently moved towards the grand piano set up in the room, she leaned back against it, careful not to put any weight against the instrument. "I heard that you're settled down, that you found a girl and you're married now..." Her voice floated around the room, low and husky and raspy whenever she had to hit a high note. Her eyes were shut and she didn't know that the slit in her dress exposed a lot more of her leg to her peers than she would have wanted. "I heard that your dreams came true, guess she gave you things I couldn't give to you..." She began snapping her fingers to the beat of the song, lost in memories of what would never be again. Of a fair-haired boy and a dark-haired girl and a piano between them.
No, nobody would ever compare to Schroeder. Nothing would ever compare to the golden days they spent together, the way he would play for her and she would shyly relish in his presence in the way little girls awkwardly interact with their crushes. So she hoped that Schroeder and Lily lasted in love, because she knew all too well that sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.