In Five Years

by Rebecca Serle

  Svedka hands me the water glass. “Now move,” she says, cocking her head in the direction of the bedroom.

  I find myself bowing to her.

  “She scares me,” I say, handing Bella her water and getting back into bed.

  “Leave it to Jill to find a way to imbue this situation with even more anxiety.” She laughs—a tinkling sound, like twinkle lights.

  “How did you even get these?” Bella asks me. She takes the computer and opens it. The screen is dark, and she hits the power button.

  “Amazon,” I say. “I hope it works. This thing is centuries old.”

  It sputters to life, groaning at its own old age. The blue light flashes and then stills, then the screen appears in a flourish, as if presenting—still got it.

  I tear the last of the plastic and pop in a DVD. The screen buzzes and we’re met with old friends. The feeling of nostalgia—pleasant nostalgia—the kind imbued with warmth and not melancholy, fills the room. Bella settles herself down and nuzzles her neck into my shoulder.

  “Remember Stone?” she says. “Oh my god, I loved this show.”

  I let the early two thousands wash over us for the next two and a half hours. At one point, Bella falls asleep. I pause the computer and slip out of bed. I check my emails in the living room. There’s one from Aldridge: Can we meet Monday morning? 9 a.m., my office.

  Aldridge never emails me, certainly not on a weekend. He’s going to fire me. I’ve barely been in the office. I’ve been behind on due diligence and late to respond to emails. Fuck.

  “Dannie?” I hear Bella call from the other room. I get up and run back to her. She stretches lazily, and then winces. “Forgot about the stitches.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Nothing,” she says. She sits up slowly, squinting her eyes to the pain. “It’ll pass.”

  “I think you should eat something.”

  As if we’re being bugged, Svedka appears at the door. “You want to eat?”

  Bella nods. “Maybe a sandwich? Do we have cheese?”

  Svedka nods and exits.

  “Does she have you on a baby monitor?”

  “Oh most likely,” Bella says.

  She sits up farther now, and I see that she’s bleeding. There is a dark crimson stain on her gray pajamas. “Bella,” I say. I point. “Stay still.”

  “It’s fine,” she says. “It’s no big deal.” But she looks woozy, a little bit nervous. She blinks a few times rapidly.

  Ever alert, Svedka returns. She rushes to Bella, pushes up her pajamas, and, as if she were a clown, pulls gauze and ointment from her sleeve. She replaces Bella’s bandages with fresh white wrappings. All new.

  “Thank you,” Bella says. “I’m fine. Really.”

  A moment later, the door opens. Aaron comes into the bedroom. His arms are laden with bags—errands, gifts, groceries. I see Bella’s face light up.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t stay away. Should I make Thai or Italian or sushi?” He drops his bags and bends down and kisses her, his hand lingering on her face.

  “Greg cooks,” Bella says, her eyes still locked into his.

  “I know,” I say.

  She smiles. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  I think about the pile of paperwork I have, Aldridge’s email. “I think I’m going to head out. You two enjoy. You might want to put on some armor before entering the kitchen,” I say. I look toward the door at Svedka, who is scowling.

  As I gather my things, Aaron climbs into bed with Bella. He gets on top of the covers, still in jeans, and he gently shifts her so she’s in his arms. The last thing I see when I leave is his hand on her stomach—gently, tenderly, touching what lies beneath.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s Monday morning. 8:58 a.m. Aldridge’s office.

  I’m sitting in a chair, waiting for him to return from a partner meeting. I’m wearing a new Theory suit with a silk high-necked camisole underneath. Nothing frivolous. All severity. I’m tapping my pen to the corner of my folder. I’ve brought all our recent deals, the success I’ve helped and, in some cases, overseen.

  “Ms. Kohan,” Aldridge says. “Thank you for meeting me.”

  I stand and shake his hand. He has on a custom Armani three-piece suit with a pink-and-blue shirt and matching pink-trimmed detail. Aldridge loves fashion. I should have remembered that.

  “How are you?” he asks me.

  “Good,” I say, measured. “Fine.”

  He nods. “Lately I’ve been noting your work. And I must say—”

  I can’t bear it. I leap in. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve been distracted. My best friend has been very sick. But I’ve brought all my case work to the hospital and we’re still on schedule with the Karbinger merger. Nothing has changed. This job is my life, and I’ll do whatever I can to prove that to you.”

  Aldridge looks puzzled. “Your friend is sick. What’s wrong?”

  “She has ovarian cancer,” I say. No sooner are the words out than I see them, sitting on the table between us. They are bulking, unruly, bleeding. They ooze all over everything. The documents on Aldridge’s desk. His gorgeous Armani suit.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he says. “It sounds serious.”

  “Yes.”

  He shakes his head. “You’ve gotten her the best doctors?”

  I nod.

  “Good,” he says. “That’s good.” His eyebrows scrunch, and then his face descends into surprise. “I didn’t call you here to reprimand your work,” he says. “I’ve been impressed with your initiative lately.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “I’ll bet,” Aldridge says. At this, he chuckles. “You know QuTe?”

  “Of course.” QuTe is one of our tech companies. They’re primarily known as being a search function, like Google, but they’re relatively new and building in interesting and creative ways.

  “They are ready to go public.”

  My eyes go wide. “I thought that was never going to happen.”

  QuTe was created by two women, Jordi Hills and Anya Cho, from their college dorm room at Syracuse. The search function is outfitted with more youthful terminology and results. For instance, a search for “Audrey Hepburn” might lead you first to the Netflix documentary on her, second to E! True Hollywood Story, third to her presence in modern CW shows—and the ways to dress like her. Down the list: biographies, her actual movies. It’s brilliant. A veritable pop-culture reservoir. And from what I understood, Jordi and Anya had no intention of ever selling.

  “They changed their minds. And we need someone to oversee the deal.”

  At this, my heart starts racing. I can feel the pulse in my veins, the adrenaline kicking, revving, taking off—

  “Okay.”

  “I’m offering you to be the key associate on this case.”

  “Yes!” I say. I practically scream. “Unequivocally, yes.”

  “Hang on,” Aldridge says. “The job would be in California. Half in Silicon Valley, half in Los Angeles, where Jordi and Anya reside. They want to do as much work as they can out of their LA offices. And it would be quick; we’ll probably begin next month.”

  “Who is the partner?” I ask.

  “Me,” he says. He smiles. His teeth are impossibly white. “You know, Dannie, I’ve always seen a lot of myself in you. You’re hard on yourself. I was, too.”

  “I love this job,” I say.

  “I know you do,” he tells me. “But it’s important to make sure the job is not unkind to you.”

  “That’s impossible. We’re corporate lawyers. The job is inherently unkind.”

  Aldridge laughs. “Maybe,” he says. “But I don’t think I’d have lasted this long if I thought we hadn’t struck some kind of deal.”

  “You and the job.”

  Aldridge takes off his glasses. He looks me square in the eye when he says: “Me and my ambition. Far be it from me to tell you what your own deal should be. I still work eighty-hour weeks. My husband,
god bless him, wants to kill me. But—”

  “You know the terms.”

  He smiles, puts his glasses back on. “I know the terms.”

  * * *

  The IPO evaluation begins in mid-November. We’re already creeping further into October. I call Bella at lunch, while bent over a signature Sweetgreen salad, and she sounds rested and comfortable. The girls from the gallery are there, and she’s going over a new show. She can’t talk. Good.

  I leave work early, intent on picking up one of David’s favorite meals—the teriyaki at Haru—and surprising him at home. We’ve been strangers passing in the night. I think the last time I had a full conversation with him was at the hospital. And we’ve barely touched our wedding plans.

  I turn onto Fifth Avenue and decide to walk. It’s barely 6 p.m, David won’t be home for another two hours, at least, and the weather is perfect. One of those first truly crisp fall days, where you could conceivably wear a sweater but because the sun is out, and still strong overhead, a T-shirt will do. The wind is low and languid, and the city is buzzy with the happy, contented quality of routine.

  I’m feeling so festive, in fact, that when I pass Intimissimi, a popular lingerie company, I decide to stop inside.

  I think about sex, about David. About how it’s good, solid, satisfying, and how I’ve never been someone who wants her hair pulled or to be spanked. Who doesn’t even really like to be on top. Is that a problem? Maybe I’m not in touch with my sexuality—which Bella, casually—too casually—has accused me of on more than one occasion.

  The shop is filled with pretty, lacy things. Tiny bras with bows and matching underwear. Frilly negligees with rosettes on the hems. Silk robes.

  I choose a black lace camisole and boy shorts, decidedly different from anything I own, but still me. I pay without trying them on, and then make my way over to Haru. I call in our order on the way. No sense in waiting.

  * * *

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. I hear David’s key latch in the door and I’m tempted to run back into the bedroom and hide, but it’s too late now. The apartment is littered with candles and the low stylings of Barry Manilow. It’s like a cliché sex comedy from the nineties.

  David walks in and drops his keys on the table, sets his bag down on the counter. It’s not until he reaches to take off his shoes that he notices his surroundings. And then me.

  “Woah.”

  “Welcome home,” I say. I’m wearing the black lingerie with a black silk robe, something I got as a gift on a bachelorette weekend eons ago. I go to David. I hand him one end of the belt. “Pull,” I say, like I’m someone else.

  He does, and the thing comes apart, falling to the floor in a puddle.

  “This is for me?” he asks, his index finger stretched out to touch the strap of my camisole top.

  “It would be weird if it weren’t,” I say.

  “Right,” he says, low. “Yeah.” He fingers the strap, edging it down over my shoulder. From an open window a breeze saunters in, dancing the candles. “I like this,” he says.

  “I’m glad,” I say. I take his glasses off. I set them down on the couch. And then I start to unbutton his shirt. It’s white. Hugo Boss. I bought it for him for Hanukkah two years ago along with a pink one and a blue-striped one. He never wears the blue one. It was my favorite.

  “You look really sexy,” he says. “You never dress like this.”

  “They don’t allow this in the office, even on Friday,” I tell him.

  “You know what I mean.”

  I get the last button undone and I shake the shirt off him—one arm then the other. David is always warm. Always. And I feel the prickle of his chest hair against my skin, the soft folding my body does to his.

  “Bedroom?” he asks me.

  I nod.

  He kisses me then, hard and fast, right by the couch. It catches me by surprise. I pull back.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Do it again.” And he does.

  He kisses me into the bedroom. He kisses me out of the lingerie. He kisses me underneath the sheets. And when it’s just us there, on the precipice, he lifts his face up from mine and asks it:

  “When are we getting married?”

  My brain is scrambled. Undone from the day, the month, the glass and a half of wine I had to prepare myself for this little stunt.

  “David,” I breathe out. “Can we talk about this later?”

  He kisses my neck, my cheek, the bridge of my nose. “Yes.”

  And then he pushes into me. He moves slowly, deliberately, and I feel myself come apart before I even have a chance to begin. He keeps moving on top of me, long after I’ve returned to my body, to my brain. We are like constellations passing each other, seeing each other’s light but in the distance. It feels impossible how much space there can be in this intimacy, how much privacy. And I think that maybe that is what love is. Not the absence of space but the acknowledgment of it, the thing that lives between the parts, the thing that makes it possible not to be one, but to be different, to be two.

  But there is something I cannot shake. Some reckoning that has burrowed into my body, through my very cells. It rises now, flooding, probing, threatening to spill out of my lips. The thing I have kept buried and locked for almost five years, exposed to this fraction of light.

  I close my eyes against it. I will them to stay shut. And when it’s over, when I finally open them, David is staring at me with a look I’ve never seen before. He’s looking at me as if he’s already gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I go down to Bella’s and make her tens of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—the only thing, really, I know how to “cook.” The gallery girls come by. We order from Buvette, and Bella’s favorite waiter brings it himself. And then the results of the surgery come back. The doctors were right: stage three.

  It’s in the lymph system, but not the surrounding organs. Good news, bad news. Bella starts chemo and impossibly, insanely, we continue wedding planning for two months from now: December in New York. I call the wedding planner, the same one a young woman at my firm used. He wrote a book on weddings: How to Wed: Style, Food, and Tradition by Nathaniel Trent. She buys me the book, and I flip through it at work, grateful for the environment, this animal firm where I work, that does not require or ask me to ooh and aah over peonies.

  We choose a venue. A loft downtown that is, as Nathaniel tells me, the “best raw space in Manhattan.” What he doesn’t say: Every nice hotel is booked, this is the best we’re going to get. Some couple called their wedding off and we got lucky.

  The loft will mean more decisions—everything has to be brought in—but all of the available hotels are bland or too corporate, and we agree to follow Nathaniel’s lead and end up with something that splits the difference.

  At first, the chemo goes well. Bella is a champion. “I feel great,” she tells me on her way home from the hospital after her second session. “No nausea, nothing.”

  I’ve read, of course, that the beginning is a lie. That there is an air of suspension. Before the chemicals reach your tissues, dig in, and start really doing their damage. But I am hopeful, of course I am. I’m breathing.

  I’m reading over the IPO offering for QuTe. Aldridge has already been to California to meet with them. If I choose to, I’ll leave in three weeks. It’s the dream case. Young female entrepreneurs, a managing partner overseeing, complete access to the deal.

  “Of course, you should do it,” David tells me over a glass of wine and Greek salad takeout.

  “I would be in LA for a month,” I say. “What about the wedding? And what about Bella?” What about missing her doctors’ appointments, not being here?

  “Bella is doing well,” David says, reaching over the question. “She’d want you to go.”

  “Doesn’t mean I should.”

  David picks up his glass, drinks. The wine is a red we bought at a tasting on Long Island last fall. It was David’s favori
te. I remember liking it fine, which is the way I feel about it tonight. Wine is wine.

  “You have to make choices sometimes for yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad friend, it just means you put yourself first, which you should.”

  What I don’t tell him—because I suspect, I know, that a lecture would follow—is that I don’t put myself first. I never have. Not when it comes to Bella.

  “Nate said that we should go with the tiger lilies and that no one does roses anymore,” I say, skating to the next subject.

  “That’s insane,” David says. “It’s a wedding.”

  I shrug. “I don’t care,” I say. “Do you?”

  David takes another sip. He appears to be really considering. “No,” he says.

  We sit in silence for a few moments.

  “What do you want to do for your birthday?” he asks me.

  My birthday. Next week. October 21. Thirty-three. “Your magic year,” Bella told me. “Your year of miracles.”

  “Nothing,” I say. “It’s fine.”

  “I’ll make a reservation,” David says. He gets up with his plate and goes to the counter, refilling on tzatziki and roasted eggplant. It’s a shame neither one of us cooks. We love to eat so very much.

  “Who should we get to marry us?” David asks, and in the same breath: “I’ll ask my parents for Rabbi Shultz’s information.”

  “You don’t have it?”

  “I don’t,” he says, his back to me.

  This is what marriage is, I know. Tiffs and comfortability, miscommunications and long stretches of silence. Years and years of support and care and imperfection. I thought we’d be long married by now. But I find, as I sit there, that a hitch of relief hits me when David still doesn’t have the rabbi’s information. Maybe he’s still a step away, too.