In Five Years: A Novel - Rebecca Serle Page 0,47

gave me for my twenty-fifth birthday.

We start to walk. Slowly. My feet are still sore and raw. Down Perry toward the West Side Highway. “I used to live down here,” he says, filling the silence. “Before I moved to Midtown. Just for six months; it was my first apartment. My building was a block over, on Hudson. I liked the West Village, but it was kind of impossible to get anywhere on public transport.”

“There’s West Fourth,” I say.

He moves his face in a sign of recognition. “We were above this pizza place that closed,” he says. “I remember everything I owned smelled like Italian food. My clothes, sheets, everything.”

I surprise myself by laughing. “When I first moved to the city, I lived in Hell’s Kitchen. My entire apartment smelled like curry. I can’t even look at the stuff now.”

“Oh, see,” he says, “I just always crave pizza.”

“How long have you been an architect?” I ask him.

“Since the beginning,” he says. “I think I was born one. I went to school for it. For a little while I thought maybe I’d be an engineer, but I wasn’t smart enough.”

“I doubt that.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s the truth.”

We walk in silence for a moment.

“Did you ever think about being a litigator?” he asks me, so suddenly I’m caught off guard.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I know you practice deal law. I’m wondering if you ever thought about being one of those lawyers who goes to court. I bet you’d crush at it.” He gives me a one-eyed smile. “You seem like you’d be good at winning an argument.”

“No,” I say. “Litigating isn’t for me.”

“How come?”

I sidestep around a puddle of liquid on the sidewalk. In New York you never know what is water and what is urine.

“Litigating is bending the law to your will, it’s deception, it’s all about perception. Can you convince a jury? Can you make people feel? In deal making, nothing is above the law. The written words are what matters. Everything is there in black and white.”

“Fascinating,” he says.

“I think so.”

Aaron lifts his hands from his sides and rubs them together. “So listen,” he says. “How are you?”

The question makes me stop walking.

So does he.

I turn slightly inward, and he mirrors me. “Not good,” I say, honestly.

“Yeah,” he says. “I figured. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.”

I look at him. His eyes meet mine.

“She’s—” I start, but I can’t finish it. The wind picks up, dancing the leaves and trash into a veritable ballet. I start to cry.

“It’s okay,” he says. He makes a move forward, but I take one back and we stand on the street like that, not quite meeting, until the river quiets.

“It’s not,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

I swallow what remains of my tears. I look across at him. I feel anger hit my bloodstream like alcohol. “You don’t,” I say. “You have no idea.”

“Dan—”

“You don’t have to do this, you know. No one would blame you.”

He peers at me. “What do you mean?” He seems to genuinely not understand.

“I mean, this isn’t what you signed up for. You met a pretty girl, she was healthy, she’s not anymore.”

“Dannie,” Aaron says, like he’s choosing his words very carefully. “It’s important that you know that I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why?” I ask him.

A jogger passes by and, sensing the tension of the moment, crosses the street. A car horn honks. A siren whirls somewhere down Hudson.

“Because I love her,” he says.

I ignore the confession. I’ve heard it before. “You don’t even know her.”

I start walking again. A kid zooms past us with a basketball, his mother sprinting after him. The city. Full and buzzy and unaware that somewhere, fifteen blocks south, tiny cells are multiplying in a plot to destroy the whole world.

“Dannie. Stop.”

I don’t. And then I feel Aaron’s hand on my arm. He yanks and turns me around.

“Ow!” I say. “What the hell.” I rub my upper arm. I am, all at once, overcome with the urge to slap him, to punch him in the eye and leave him, crumpled and bleeding, on the corner of Perry Street.

“Sorry,” he says. His eyebrows are knit together. He has a dimple in the space above his nose. “But you need to listen to me. I love her. That’s the long and short of it. I don’t think I could live with myself if I bailed now, but that’s not even relevant because, like I said, I love her. This isn’t like anything I’ve ever had