In Five Years(2)

I don’t push him, because I know what tonight is. David is terrible with secrets, and an even worse liar. Tonight, on this, the second month of my twenty-eighth year, David Andrew Rosen is going to propose to me.

“Two Raisin Bran scoops, half a banana?” he asks. He’s holding out a bowl to me.

“Big days are bagel days,” I say. “Whitefish. You know that.”

Before we find out about a big case, I always stop at Sarge’s on Third Avenue. Their whitefish salad rivals Katz’s downtown, and the wait, even with a line, is never more than four and a half minutes. I revel in their efficiency.

“Make sure you bring gum,” David says, sliding in next to me. I bat my eyes and take a sip of coffee. It goes down sweet and warm.

“You’re here late,” I tell him. I’ve just realized. He should have been gone hours ago. He works market hours. It occurs to me he might not be going to the office at all today. Maybe he still has to pick up the ring.

“I thought I’d see you off.” He flips his watch over. It’s an Apple. I got it for him for our two-year anniversary, four months ago. “But I should jet. I was going to work out.”

David never works out. He has a monthly membership to Equinox I think he’s used maybe twice in two and a half years. He’s naturally lean, and runs sometimes on the weekends. The wasted expense is a point of contention between us, so I don’t bring it up this morning. I don’t want anything to get in the way of today, and certainly not this early.

“Sure,” I say. “I’m gonna get ready.”

“But you have time.” David pulls me toward him and threads a hand into the collar of my robe. I let it linger for one, two, three, four…

“I thought you were late. And I can’t lose focus.”

He nods. Kisses me. He gets it. “In that case, we’re doubling up tonight,” he says.

“Don’t tease me.” I pinch his biceps.

My cell phone is ringing where it sits plugged in on my nightstand in the bedroom, and I follow the noise. The screen fills with a photo of a blue-eyed, blond-haired shiksa goddess sticking her tongue sideways at the camera. Bella. I’m surprised. My best friend is only awake before noon if she’s been up all night.

“Good morning,” I tell her. “Where are you? Not New York.”

She yawns. I imagine her stretching on some seaside terrace, a silk kimono pooling around her.

“Not New York. Paris,” she says.

Well that explains her ability to speak at this hour. “I thought you were leaving this evening?” I have her flight on my phone: UA 57. Leaves Newark at 6:40 p.m.

“I went early,” she says. “Dad wanted to do dinner tonight. Just to bitch about Mom, clearly.” She pauses, and I hear her sneeze. “What are you doing today?”

Does she know about tonight? David would have told her, I think, but she’s also bad at keeping secrets—especially from me.

“Big day for work and then we’re going to dinner.”

“Right. Dinner,” she says. She definitely knows.

I put the phone on speaker and shake out my hair. It will take me seven minutes to blow it dry. I check the clock: 8:57 a.m. Plenty of time. The interview isn’t until eleven.

“I almost tried you three hours ago.”

“Well, that would have been early.”

“But you’d still pick up,” she says. “Lunatic.”

Bella knows I leave my phone on all night.

Bella and I have been best friends since we were seven years old. Me, Nice Jewish Girl from the Main Line of Philadelphia. Her, French-Italian Princess whose parents threw her a thirteenth birthday party big enough to stop any bat mitzvah in its tracks. Bella is spoiled, mercurial, and more than a little bit magical. It’s not just me. Everywhere she goes people fall at her feet. She is the easiest to love, and gives love freely. But she’s fragile, too. A membrane of skin stretches so thinly over her emotions it’s always threatening to burst.

Her parents’ bank account is large and easily accessible, but their time and attention are not. Growing up, she practically lived at my house. It was always the two of us.

“Bells, I gotta go. I have that interview today.”

“That’s right! Watchman!”

“Wachtell.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Probably a black suit. I always wear a black suit.” I’m already mentally thumbing through my closet, even though I’ve had the suit chosen since they called me.

“How thrilling,” she deadpans, and I imagine her scrunching up her small pin nose like she’s just smelled something unsavory.

“When are you back?” I ask.

“Probably Tuesday,” she says. “But I don’t know. Renaldo might meet me, in which case we’d go to the Riviera for a few days. You wouldn’t think it, but it’s great this time of year. No one is around. You have the whole place to yourself.”

Renaldo. I haven’t heard his name in a beat. I think he was before Francesco, the pianist, and after Marcus, the filmmaker. Bella is always in love, always. But her romances, while intense and dramatic, never last for more than a few months. She rarely, if ever, calls someone her boyfriend. I think the last one might have been when we were in college. And what of Jacques?