1990s

The 1990s function in the reunion not as a flashback but as a style to be put on: the decade is evoked through a costume event, grunge clothing, and music associated with the period. As Bethany and Ransom perform a romance for her former classmates, dressing for the theme becomes one more way to make their shared story visible. The contrast between that deliberate reconstruction and the reunion’s present-day pressures gives the decade its particular role in the weekend.

A Reconstructed Decade

The reunion’s schedule originally included a 1990s costume parade. When the approaching snowstorm forced organizers to move activities indoors, the parade was changed into a costume party at a local house a couple of blocks from the school. The decade therefore enters the story through a practical revision to the event, not through a scene set in the 1990s themselves.

The distinction matters: the former classmates are adults revisiting a period associated with their school years, and Bethany is approaching thirty. The costume party offers a chance to revisit the decade by choosing clothes and taking part in a themed gathering, while the surrounding reunion remains firmly in the present.

Grunge as Shared Performance

Ransom encourages Bethany to take part in the costume event rather than simply watch. He imagines her dressed as a 1990s young woman and dancing to The Cure and Nirvana. Bethany objects that she has nothing suitable, but Ransom suggests that he has a flannel shirt and that they might find grungy jeans at an open thrift store despite the worsening weather. Bethany makes her participation conditional on his dressing up too, and Ransom agrees.

Their outfit plan turns the decade into a joint performance. The flannel and hoped-for thrift-store jeans are concrete, recognizable pieces of the proposed look; just as importantly, Ransom is willing to join in rather than leave Bethany to stand out alone. He also urges her to loosen up and take part in the weekend’s activities. The period costume thus sits within a broader effort to make the reunion enjoyable for Bethany and to present the pair as an engaged, affectionate couple.

The Reunion’s Competing Times

The snowstorm makes the weekend’s schedule unstable. Organizers warn that roads out of town may be blocked and that attendees could have to stay an extra day or two; events are moved indoors, and participants are told to prepare for the weather. Bethany and Ransom decide to stay at the center of the reunion rather than travel back and forth in the cold. Against that disruption, the costume party’s revival of the 1990s is one planned occasion among several being adapted to the present circumstances.

The dance later sharpens the temporal contrast. It takes place in the Clairmont Hotel ballroom, where the DJ plays early-2000s hits, while the earlier costume plan had invoked 1990s music and grunge. The reunion does not settle into a single nostalgic period: its themed look back coexists with later pop music and the characters’ immediate concerns about their relationship and the weekend’s end.

When an announcement confirms that the roads and airfield will be open and everyone can leave on time the next day, the news brings the snowbound extension to a close. Bethany is saddened by the prospect of returning to ordinary life without Ransom. In that context, the 1990s costume theme is one small, temporary way the reunion suspends the present; it cannot, however, prevent the weekend—and the life the couple has been pretending to share—from reaching its limit.