In Five Years: A Novel - Rebecca Serle Page 0,7
uneasy heart. Was I kidnapped?
I take in my surroundings. On further glance, I realize I’m in a loft apartment. The bed I’m in is flush up against floor-to-ceiling windows that appear to orient me in . . . Long Island City? I look out, desperate for some anchoring image. And then I spot the Empire State Building, rising out of the water in the distance. I’m in Brooklyn, but where? I can see the New York City skyline across the river, and to the right, the Manhattan Bridge. Which means I’m in Dumbo; I must be. Did David take me to a hotel? I see a redbrick building across the street with a brown barn door. There’s a party happening inside. I can see camera flashes and lots of flowers. A wedding, maybe.
The apartment isn’t giant, but it gives the illusion of space. Two blue velvet chairs sit necking in front of a glass-and-steel coffee table. An orange dresser perches at the foot of the bed, and colorful Persian rugs make the open space feel cozy, if not a little cluttered. There are exposed pipes and wood beams and a print on the wall. It’s an eye chart that reads: I WAS YOUNG I NEEDED THE MONEY.
Where the hell am I?
I hear him before I see him. He calls: “Are you awake?”
I freeze. Should I hide? Make a run for it? I see a large steel door, across the apartment, in the direction of where the voice is coming from. If I bolt, I might be able to get it open before—
He rounds the corner from what must be the kitchen. He’s dressed in black dress pants and a blue-and-black-striped shirt, unbuttoned at the top.
My eyes go wide. I want to scream; I might.
The well-dressed stranger comes over to me, and I leap onto the other side of the bed, by the windows.
“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“No!” I say. “No, I’m not.”
He sighs. He does not seem surprised by my response. “You fell asleep.” He runs his hand back and forth across his forehead. I notice he has a scar, crooked, over his left eye.
“What are you doing here?” I’ve backed myself so far into a corner I’m practically pushed up against the windows.
“C’mon,” he says.
“Do you know me?”
He bends one knee onto the bed. “Dannie,” he says. “Are you really asking me that?”
He knows my name. And there’s something about the way he says it that makes me pause, take a breath. He says it like he’s said it before.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know where I am.”
“It was a good night,” he says. “Wasn’t it?”
I look down at my dress. I realize, for the first time, it’s one I already own. My mom and I bought it with Bella on a shopping trip three years ago. Bella has the same one in white.
“Yeah,” I say, without even thinking. As if I know. As if I were there. What is happening?
And that’s when I catch the TV. It has been on this whole time, the volume low. It’s hanging on the wall opposite the bed and it’s playing the news. On the screen is a small graphic with the date and time: December 15, 2025. A man in a blue suit is prattling on about the weather, a snow cloud swaying behind him. I try to breathe.
“What?” he says. “Do you want me to turn it off?”
I shake my head. The response is automatic, and I watch him as he walks to the coffee table and grabs the remote. As he goes, he untucks his shirt.
“Weather warning for the East Coast as a blizzard heads toward us. Possibility of six inches overnight, with continued accumulation into Sunday.”
2025. It’s not possible; of course it’s not. Five years . . .
This must be some kind of prank. Bella. When we were younger, she used to pull shit like this all the time. Once, for my eleventh birthday, she figured out how to get a pony into my backyard without my parents knowing. We woke up to it playing chicken with the swing set.
But even Bella couldn’t get a fake date and time on national television. Could she? And who is this guy? Oh my god, David.
The man in the apartment turns around. “Hey,” he says. “Are you hungry?”
At his question, my stomach rumbles. I barely ate at dinner and wherever I am, in whatever parallel universe with David, the Pad Thai has most certainly not yet arrived.
“No,” I