In Five Years(23)

I text her back: Just getting in from an all-weekender. Call you tomorrow.

Despite the fact that I haven’t slept in close to seventy-two hours, I don’t feel tired. We got the signatures. Tomorrow—or today, actually—our clients will announce that they have acquired a billion-dollar company. They’re expanding their global reach and will revolutionize the way people shop for groceries.

I feel like I always do after we close a big case: high. I haven’t done cocaine, except for one ill-advised night in college, but it’s the same sensation. My heart races, my pupils dilate. I feel like I could run a marathon. We won.

There’s a bottle of opened Chianti on the counter, and I pour myself a glass. Our apartment has a big kitchen window that looks out over Gramercy Park. I sit down at the kitchen table and gaze out the window. It’s dark out, but the city lights illuminate the trees and sidewalk. When I first moved to New York, I used to walk by the park and think that someday I’d live near it. Now, David and I have a key. We can go inside the park anytime we want. But we don’t, of course. We’re busy. We went the day we got the key, with a bottle of champagne, stayed long enough to open it and make a toast, but haven’t been back since. It’s pretty to look at through the window, though. And the location is convenient. Very central. I promise myself that David and I will take some iced coffees in there and do some wedding planning soon.

It’s a beautiful apartment. It has two bedrooms and high ceilings, a full kitchen and dining area, a TV and couch alcove. We decorated it in all grays and whites. It’s calming, serene. It looks like the kind of apartment that gets photographed. It’s everything I ever wanted.

I look down at my hand, still wearing that engagement ring. And now, soon, a band. I finish my wine, brush my teeth, wash my face, and crawl into bed. I take the ring off and set it in the little bowl on my nightstand. It sparkles back at me, a promise. I vow that first thing tomorrow, I’ll call a wedding planner.





Chapter Twelve


I leave work at seven on Monday, a full hour before I should, and meet Bella at Snack Taverna in the West Village. It’s this tiny bistro, the best Greek food in the city, and we’ve been going there since we moved to New York—way before I could afford to.

Bella is back to being fifteen minutes late. I order us fava beans drenched in olive oil and garlic—her favorite. They’re on the table when she arrives.

She texted me back this morning and demanded we have dinner tonight. It has been too long, she said. I feel like you’re avoiding me.

I rarely leave work early, if ever. When David and I make dinner reservations they’re always for eight-thirty or nine. But now it’s a little past seven, still light out, and I’m sitting here. Bella has always been the only person in my life who can talk me out of my norm.

“It’s so hot out there,” she says when she arrives. She’s wearing a white brocade-and-lace dress from Zimmermann and gold lace-up sandals. Her hair is up in a topknot, some loose strands dangling down her neck.

“It’s a swamp. Summer always happens so suddenly.” I lean over the table and kiss her on the cheek. I’ve sweated through my silk shirt and pencil skirt. I own basically no summer clothes. Luckily the air conditioning is on full blast in here.

“How was the weekend?” she asks. “Did you sleep at all?”

I smile. “No.”

She shakes her head. “You loved it.”

“Maybe.” I scoop some beans onto her plate. I have to know: “Did you guys hear anything more about the apartment?”

She looks at me and frowns, and then her face dawns recognition. “Oh, right! There’s this other one I think I want. It’s this totally savage place in Meatpacking. I honestly didn’t know they had anything like that left there. Everything is so generic now.”

“You don’t like the Dumbo loft?”

She shrugs. “I’m just not sure I want to live there. There’s only one grocery store, and it must be freezing in the winter. All of those wide streets that close to the water.? It seems kind of isolated.”

“It’s close to every train,” I say. “And the view is spectacular. There’s so much light, Bella. I can see you painting there.”

Bella squints at me. “What’s going on? You hated that place. You told me I shouldn’t even consider it.”

I wave her off. She’s right, though. What am I doing? The words keep tumbling out, like I have no control over them. “I don’t know,” I say. “What do I know? I’ve lived within ten blocks for the last decade.”

Bella leans forward. Her face splits into a sly smile. “You love that place.”

It’s raw space, but I have to admit it’s beautiful. Somehow industrial and energetic and peaceful, all at once.

“No,” I say. Firm. Definitive. “It’s a pile of plywood. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”

Bella crosses her arms. “You love it,” she says.

I don’t know why I can’t just condemn it. Tell her she’s right—it’s freezing and too far and absurd—then drop it. I should be thrilled that she has forgotten about it. I want her to forget about it. I want that apartment to disappear into the atmosphere. So far I’m doing a good job at preventing that fateful hour. If the apartment disappears, so does what happened there.