In Five Years: A Novel - Rebecca Serle Page 0,1

dinner to celebrate tonight,” David says.

“I won’t know if I got the job today,” I tell him. “That’s not how interviews work.”

“Really? Explain it to me, then.” He’s flirting with me. David is a great flirt. You wouldn’t think it, he’s so buttoned-up most of the time, but he has a great, witty mind. It’s one of the things I love most about him. It was one of the things that first attracted me to him.

I raise my eyebrows at him and he downshifts. “Of course you’ll get the job. It’s in your plan.”

“I appreciate your confidence.”

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.