In Five Years(18)

Michael, my brother, gave me my first cigarette there, smoked under the boardwalk, nothing but the taste of freedom between us and our fingertips.

We stopped going after we lost him. I’m not sure why, except that everything that felt familial, that seemed to tie us together, was intolerable. Like our joy or unity was a betrayal of him, his life.

“Dannie?”

I close my eyes and open them again. When I look up, I see him standing above me in a bike helmet, half on his seat. Aaron. You’ve got to be kidding me.





Chapter Nine


“Hi. Wow.” I scramble to my feet, shoving my sandwich back into the bag. “What are you doing down here?”

He’s wearing a blue T-shirt and khaki pants, a brown leather messenger bag slung over his chest.

“It’s my weekend bike route.” He gestures to his bag, shakes his head. “No, Bella actually sent me on an errand this morning.”

“Oh yeah?”

Aaron unclips his helmet. The line of his hair is wet and matted down with sweat. “You seem to be feeling better.”

I put my hands on my hips. “I am.”

He smiles. “Good. You want to come?”

“Where?”

He scoots himself closer. “I’m looking at an apartment.”

Of course he is. I didn’t need a Google search. I just needed Aaron to show up, right now, and lead me there.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Plymouth Street?”

“Close,” he says. “Bridge.”

This is insane. This is not happening. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll come.”

“Great.”

He loops his helmet over his handlebars and we start walking.

“You’re a runner?” he asks me.

“I used to be,” I say. I can feel the sting in my left knee and hip as we walk, a product of not enough stretching, and no squats before taking off.

“I know. I don’t get on my bike as much as I’d like anymore, either.”

“Why isn’t Bella here?” I ask.

“She had to go into the gallery,” he says. “She asked me to check it out. You’ll get it when you see it, I think. Hang on.” We’re at a crosswalk and he holds his hand back as two bikers speed by. “Try not to die on my watch, huh?”

I blink back at him in the sunlight. I should have worn sunglasses.

“Okay, now we can go.”

We cross the street and then we’re making our way up Plymouth until we get right to where it meets Bridge, running perpendicular. Just where I came from. And then I see it. I missed it on my walk just now, blinded by my search for a sandwich. It’s the redbrick event space with the barn door. I recognize it now. But not just from that night. I was at a wedding here three years ago. David’s friends Brianne and Andrea from Wharton Business School. It’s the old Galapagos Art Space, and it’s what I saw out the window that night, four and a half years ago. And behind me, across the street, at 37 Bridge, is the building Aaron is about to lead me into.

“Watch your step,” he says, as we cross the street and make our way to the door. Sure enough, I’m right. It’s a brick-and-concrete building, less industrial than some surrounding it.

There’s no lobby, just a buzzer and a padlock, and Aaron takes a ring of keys from his messenger bag and begins trying them. The first two don’t work, and then on the third the lock swings open, the chain coming undone in his hands. The steel door swings open to reveal the side of a freight elevator. Aaron uses a second key to call it down for us—this time on the first try.

“They’re expecting you?” I ask.

Aaron nods. “A buddy of mine is a broker and gave me the keys. Said we could check it out today.”

We. Bella.

The elevator lumbers down. Aaron holds the door open and I step inside, then he wheels his bike in after us. He hits floor four and we’re making our way upward, the mechanics of the freight heaving and sputtering as we go.

“This building doesn’t seem up to code,” I say, crossing my arms. Aaron smiles.

“I like that you and Bella are best friends. It’s fun.”

“What?” I cough twice into my closed first. “What do you mean?”

“You’re so different.”

But I don’t have time to respond because the doors are opening, delivering us straight into the apartment from four and a half years ago. I know immediately, without having to take a step inside, that it’s the one. Of course it is. Where else did I think this morning would deposit me?

But the apartment isn’t at all what it was—or will be. It’s a construction site. Old wood beams sit piled in a corner. Plumbing and wires hang unfinished from outlets. There’s a wall where I do not remember one being. No appliances. No running water. The space is raw—open, honest—not a stitch of makeup on.

“Job for an architect,” I say. “I get it now.”

But Aaron hasn’t heard me. He’s busy leaning his bike up against a wall—where I remember the kitchen being—and stepping back to survey the place. I watch him cross the apartment, walk over to the windows. He turns around, taking in the long view.

“Bella wants to live here?” I ask. Her apartment is perfect, an actual dream. She bought it before it even came to market, fully renovated. She has three bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a galley kitchen. I can’t understand her wanting to move. She decorated that place for two full years. She still claims to not be done.