“I moved to Dumbo,” I say, out loud.
The man laughs. And then he opens a drawer near the center of the closet and pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and my heart stops. They’re his. He lives here, too. We’re… together.
David.
I reel back and run for the bathroom. I find it to the left of the living room. I close the door and bolt it. I splash some cold water on my face. “Think, Dannie, think.”
Inside the bathroom are all the products I love. Abba body cream and tea tree oil shampoo. I dab some MyChelle serum on my face, comforted by the smell, the familiarity.
On the back of the door hangs a bathrobe with my initials, one I’ve had forever. Also, there are a pair of drawstring black pajama pants and an old Columbia sweatshirt. I take off the dress. I put them both on.
I run some rose hip oil over my lips and unlock the door.
“We have pasta or… pasta!” the man calls from the kitchen.
First things first, I need to find out this guy’s name.
His wallet.
David and I have a sixty-forty split when it comes to our finances, based on the income discrepancy between us. We decided this after we moved in together and haven’t changed it since. I have never once looked inside his wallet except for one unfortunate incident involving a new knife and his insurance card.
“Pasta sounds good,” I say.
I go back near the bed, to where his pants hang half off a chair, trailing to the floor. I glance toward the kitchen and check the pockets. I pull out his wallet. Old leather, indistinguishable brand. I riffle through it.
He doesn’t look up from filling a pot with water.
I pull out two business cards. One to a dry cleaner. The other a Stumptown punch card.
Then I find his license. Aaron Gregory, thirty-three years old. His license is New York State, and he’s six-foot and has green eyes.
I put everything back where I found it.
“Do you want red sauce or pesto?” he asks from the kitchen.
“Aaron?” I try.
He smiles. “Yes?”
“Pesto,” I say.
I walk toward the kitchen. It’s 2025, a man I’ve never met is my boyfriend, and I live in Brooklyn.
“Pesto is what I wanted, too.”
I sit down at the counter. There are cherrywood stools with wire-framed backs I don’t recognize and don’t particularly like.
I take him in. He’s blond, with green eyes and a jaw that makes him look like one of the superhero Chrises. He’s hot. Too hot for me, to be totally honest with you, and evidently, based on his looks and his name, not Jewish. I feel my stomach twist. This is what becomes of me in five years? I’m dating a golden Adonis in an artist’s loft? Oh god, does my mother know?
The water boils, and he pours the pasta into the pot. Steam rises up and he steps back, wiping his forehead.
“Am I still a lawyer?” I ask suddenly.
Aaron looks at me and laughs. “Of course,” he says. “Wine?”
I nod, exhaling a sigh of relief. So some things have gotten off track, but not all. I can work with this. I just have to find David, figure out what happened there, and we’ll be back in business. Still a lawyer. Hallelujah.
When the noodles are cooked, he drains them and tosses them back into the pot with the pesto and Parmesan, and all of a sudden I’m dizzy with hunger. All I can think about right now is the food.
Aaron takes two wineglasses down from a cabinet, moving expertly around the kitchen. My kitchen. Our kitchen.
He pours me a glass of red and hands it over the counter. It’s big and bold. A Brunello, maybe. Not something I’d usually buy.
“Dinner is served.”
Aaron hands me a giant steaming bowl of spaghetti and pesto, and before he even comes back around the counter, I’m shoveling a forkful into my mouth. It occurs to me, mid-bite, that this could all be some kind of government science play and he could be poisoning me, but I’m too hungry to stop or care.
The pasta is delicious—warm and salty—and I don’t look up for another five minutes. When I do, he’s staring at me.
I wipe my mouth with my napkin. “Sorry,” I say. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in years.”
He nods and pushes back his plate. “So now we have two choices. We can just get drunk, or we can get drunk and play Scattergories.”
I love board games, which, of course, he would know. David is more of a card guy. He taught me how to play Bridge and Rummy. He thinks board games are childish, and that if we’re playing something we should be strengthening our brain pathways, which both Bridge and Rummy do.
“Get drunk,” I say.
Aaron gives my arm an affectionate squeeze. I feel like his hand is still there when he lets go. There is something strange here. Some strange pull. Some emotion that begins to expand in the room, fill up the corners.
Aaron tops off our wineglasses. We leave our plates where they sit on the counter. Now what? And then I realize he’s going to want to get into bed. This boyfriend of mine, he’s going to want to touch me. I can just feel it.
I make a beeline for one of the blue velvet chairs and take a seat. He looks at me sideways. Huh.
All at once something occurs to me. I look down at my hand, panicked. There, on my finger, is an engagement ring. It’s a solitaire canary diamond with tiny stones around it. It’s vintage and whimsical. Not the ring David gave me tonight. It’s not anything I’d ever pick out. Yet here it is, on my finger.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I bolt up from the chair. I pace the apartment. Should I leave? Where would I go? To my old place? Maybe David is still there. But what are the odds? He’s probably living in Gramercy with some non-insane wife. Maybe if I tell him what’s going on he’ll know how to fix it. He’ll forgive me for whatever I did to get us here—me in this apartment with a stranger and him on the other side of the bridge. He’s the best problem solver. He’ll figure it out.
I get up and head toward the door. I need to get out of here. To escape whatever feeling is flooding this room. Where do I keep my coats?
“Hey,” Aaron says. “Where are you going?”
Think fast. “Just the deli,” I say.
“The deli?”
Aaron gets up and comes over to me. Then he puts his hands on my face. Right up against either cheek. His hands are cool, and for a moment the temperature change and motion shocks me and I make a move to reel back, but he holds me in place.
“Stay. Please don’t leave right now.”
He looks at me and his eyes are liquid, open. So this is what this guy has on me. This feeling. It’s… it’s new and familiar all at once. It’s heavy, weighted. It sits all around us. And, despite myself, I want to… I want to stay.
“Okay,” I whisper. Because his skin is still on mine and his eyes are still looking at me, and while I don’t understand why I’ve committed to spend my life with this man, I do know that the bed we share gets a lot of action, because… this is big. I feel its resonance in my body, the reverberations of some kind of seismic tidal wave. Outside, the sky turns.
He heads toward the bed, holding my hand, and I follow. The wine has started to make me feel languid. I want to stretch out.
I perch on the edge of the bed.
“Five years,” I mutter.
Aaron just looks at me. He sits back against the pillows. “Hey,” he says. “Can you come here?”
But it’s not a question, not really, not insofar as it only has one, rhetorical, answer.
He holds his arms open and out, and I ease onto the bed. I can feel it, this tug on my limbs, like I’m a marionette being pulled unevenly forward, toward him.
God help me, I let him hold me. He pulls me to him, and I feel his breath warm near my cheek.
His face hovers close. Here we go, he’s going to kiss me. Am I going to let him? I think about it, about David, and about this Aaron’s muscled arms. But before I can weigh the pros and cons and
come to a solid conclusion, his lips are on mine.
They land gently and he holds them there, delicately—as if he knows, as if he’s letting me get used to him. And then he uses his tongue to open my mouth slowly.
Oh my god.
I’m melting. I’ve never felt anything like this. Not with David, not with Ben, the only other guy I dated seriously, not even with Anthony, the study abroad fling I had in Florence. This is something else entirely. He kisses and touches like he’s inside my brain. I mean, I’m in the future, maybe he is.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks me, and I respond by pulling him closer.
He threads his hands under my sweatshirt and then it’s off before I even realize it, the cool air hitting my bare skin. Am I not wearing a bra? I am not wearing a bra. He bends and takes one of my nipples into his mouth.
This is insane. I’m insane. I’ve lost my mind.
It feels so good.
The rest of the clothes come off. From somewhere—a different stratosphere—I hear a car horn honk, a train rumble, the city carry on.
He kisses me harder. We get horizontal quickly. Everything feels incredible. His hands tracing the curves of my stomach, his mouth on my neck. I’ve never had a one-night stand up until this point—but this has to count, right? We met barely an hour ago and now we’re about to have sex.
I can’t wait to tell Bella about this. She’ll love it. She’ll… But what if I never make it back? What if this guy is just my fiancé now and not a stranger and I can’t even share the details of this wild and…
He presses his thumb down into the crease of my hip, and all thoughts of time and space escape through the slightly cracked window.
“Aaron,” I say.
“Yes.”
He rolls on top of me, and then my hands are finding the muscles in his back, the crevices of his bones, like terrain—knotted and wooden and peaceful. I arch against him, this man who is a stranger but somehow something else entirely. His hands cup my face, they run down my neck, they wrap around my rib cage. His mouth is urgent and seeking against mine. My fingers grip his shoulders. Slowly, and then all at once, I forget where I am. All I’m aware of are Aaron’s arms wrapped tightly around me.
Chapter Four
I wake up with a jolt, grasping at my chest.
“Hey, hey,” a familiar voice says. “You’re awake.”
I look up to see David standing over me, a bowl of popcorn in one hand. He’s also holding a bottle of water—not exactly the wine I was just drinking. Just drinking? I look down at my body, still fully clothed in my red Reformation ensemble. What the hell just happened?
I scramble up to sitting. I’m back on the couch. David is now in his chess team tournament sweatshirt and black sweatpants. We’re in our apartment.
“I thought you might be down for the count,” David says. “And miss our big night. I knew that second bottle would do us in. I already took two Advil, do you want some?” He sets the popcorn and water down and leans over to kiss me. “Should we call our parents now or tomorrow? You know they’re all losing it. I told everyone beforehand.”
I parse through what he’s saying. I’m frozen. It must have been a dream, but it… how could it be? I was, just three minutes ago, in bed with someone named Aaron. We were kissing, and his hands were on me, and we were having the most intense sex of my life. Dream me slept with a stranger. I feel the need to touch my body, to confirm my physical reality. I put a hand on each elbow and hold my arms to my chest.
“You okay?” David asks. He’s pulled himself out of the jovial moment and is looking at me intently.
“How long was I out for?” I ask him.
“About an hour,” he says. Something dawns on him. He leans closer to me. The proximity of his body feels like an intrusion. “Hey, listen, you’re going to get that job. I can tell you’re stressed about it and maybe this was too much to have happen in one day, but there’s no way they don’t hire you. You’re the perfect candidate, Dannie.”
I feel like asking him what job?
“The food came,” he says, sitting back. “I stuck it in the fridge. I’ll get plates.”
I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
David looks at me with shock and awe. “How is that possible? You told me you were weak with hunger, like an hour ago.” He stands up and goes into the kitchen, ignoring me. He opens the refrigerator and starts pulling out containers. Pad thai. Chicken curry. Fried rice. “All your favorites,” he says. “Hot or cold?”
“Cold,” I say. I pull the blanket closer around me.
David comes back balancing the containers on plates. He starts taking off tops, and I smell the sweet and sour and tangy spices.
“I had the craziest dream,” I tell him. Maybe if I talk about it it’ll make sense. Maybe if I lay it all out here, outside of my brain. “I just… I can’t shake it. Was I talking in my sleep?”
David piles some noodles onto a plate and grabs a fork. “Nope. Don’t think so. I showered for a little, so maybe?” He jams a giant bite of pad thai into his mouth and chews. Some stray noodles migrate to the floor. “Was it a nightmare?”
I think about Aaron. “No,” I say. “I mean, not exactly.”
David swallows. “Good. Your mom called twice. I’m not sure how long we can hold her off.” David puts his fork down and threads his arm around me. “But I had some plans for us alone tonight.”
My eyes dart to my hand. The ring, the right one, is back on my finger. I exhale.
My phone starts buzzing.
“Bella again,” David says, somewhat wearily.
I’m already off the couch, snatching the phone and taking it with me into the bedroom.
“I’m gonna flip on the news,” David calls after me.
I close the door behind me and pick up the call. “Bells.”
“I waited up!” It’s loud where she is, the sound of people fills the phone—she’s out partying. She laughs, her voice a cascade of music. “You’re engaged! Congratulations! Do you like the ring? Tell me everything!”
“Are you still in Paris?” I ask her.
“Yes!” she says.
“When are you coming home?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “Jacques wants to go to Sardinia for a few days.”
Ah, Jacques. Jacques is back. If Bella woke up five years in the future in a different apartment, she probably wouldn’t even blink.
“In December?”
“It’s supposed to be quiet and romantic.”
“I thought you were going to the Riviera with Renaldo.”
“Well, he bailed, and then Jacques texted that he was in town and voilà. New plans!”
I sit down on my bed. I look around. The tufted gray chairs I bought with my first paycheck at Clarknell, the oak dresser that was a hand-me-down from my parents’ place. The Bakelite lamps David brought with him from his Turtle Bay bachelor pad.
I see the expanse of that loft in Dumbo. The blue velvet chairs.
“Hey,” I say. “I have to tell you something kind of crazy.”
“Tell me everything!” she hollers through the phone, and I imagine her spinning out in the middle of a dance floor, on the roof of some Parisian hotel, Jacques tugging at her waist.
“I’m not sure how to explain it. I fell asleep, and… I wasn’t dreaming. I swear I was in this apartment and this guy was there. It was so real. Like I really went there. Has anything like that ever happened to you?”
“No, darling, we’re going to the Marais!”
“What?”
“Sorry, everyone in the crowd is absolutely starving, and it’s practically light out. We’ve been partying for decades. So wait, it was like a dream? Did he do it on the terrace or in the restaurant?” I hear an explosion of sound and then a door shut, a retreat to silence.
“Oh, the restaurant,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything when you’re back.”
“I’m here, I’m here!” she says.
“You’re
not,” I say, smiling. “Be safe, okay?”
I can see her rolling her eyes. “Do you know that the French don’t even have a word for safety?”
“That is not even remotely true,” I say. “Beaucoup.” It’s pretty much one of the only French words I know.
“Even so,” she says. “I wish you had more fun.”
“I have fun,” I say.
“Let me guess. David is now watching CNN Live and you’re wearing a face mask. You just got engaged!”
I touch my fingers to my cheek. “Only dry skin here.”
“How was the job interview?” she asks. “I didn’t forget, I just temporarily forgot.”
“It was great, honestly. I think I got it.”
“Of course you got it. You not getting it would require a rip in the universe that I’m not sure is scientifically possible.”
I feel my stomach tighten.
“Boozy brunch when I’m back,” she says. The door opens again and sound rushes back in through the phone. I hear her kiss someone twice.
“You know I hate brunch,” I say.
“But you love me.”
She hangs up in a whirlwind of noise.
David comes into the bedroom, his hair rumpled. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.
“You tired?” he asks me.
“Not really,” I say.
“Yeah, me neither.” He climbs into bed. He reaches for me. But I can’t. Not right now.
“I’m just going to get some water,” I say. “Too much champagne. Do you want some water, too?”
“Sure.” He yawns. “Do me a favor and get the light?”
I get up and flip the light switch. I walk back into the living room. But instead of pouring a glass of water, I go to the windows. The TV is off and it’s dark, but the streets are flooded with light. I look down. Third Avenue is busy even now, well past midnight. There are people out—laughing and screaming. Heading to the bars of our youth: Joshua Tree, Mercury Bar. They’ll dance to nineties music they’re too young to really know, well into the morning. I stand there for a long time. Hours seem to pass. The streets quiet down to a New York whisper. By the time I go back into the bedroom, David is fast asleep.
In Five Years Page 3
