Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

“I do,” I say. “We want so many of the same things, we have the same plans. It fits, you know?”

Bella cuts a slice of feta and spears a tomato on top. “So you know what it’s like then,” she says.

“What?”

“To feel like you’ve met your person.”

Bella holds my gaze, and I feel something sharp prick my stomach from the inside out. It’s like she put the pin there.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry if I was weird with Aaron. I really do like him, and I’ll love him if and whenever you do. Just take it slow,” I say.

She puts the bite into her mouth and chews. “Impossible,” she says.

“I know,” I say. “But I’m your best friend. I have to say it ­anyway.”

Chapter Thirteen

The swamp of July meets us with a heavy, cloying inevitability: the weather is going to get worse before it gets better. We still have to get through August. David asks me to meet him for lunch in Bryant Park one Wednesday toward the end of the month.

In the summer, Bryant Park sets up café tables around the perimeter and corporates in suits take their lunches outside. David’s office is in the thirties and mine in the fifties, so Forty-Second and Sixth Avenue is our magic midway zone. We rarely meet for lunch, but when we do, it’s usually Bryant Park.

David is waiting with two nicoise salads from Pret and my favorite Arnold Palmer from Le Pain Quotidien. Both establishments are in walking distance and have indoor seating so we can eat there in the colder months. We’re not fancy lunch people. I’d be happy with a deli salad for two meals out of three most days. In fact, one of our first dates was to this very park with these very salads. We sat outside even though it was too cold, and when David noticed me shivering, he unwrapped his scarf and put it around me, then he jumped up to get me a hot coffee from the cart on the corner. It was a small gesture, but so indicative of who he was—who he is. He’s always been willing to put my happiness before his comfort.

I take a car down to meet him, but I’m still drenched when I arrive.

“It’s a hundred degrees,” I say, folding myself into the seat across from him. My heels are rubbing blisters into the backs of my feet. I need talcum powder and a pedicure, immediately. I can’t remember the last time I stopped to get my nails done.

“Actually, it’s ninety-six but feels like one oh two,” David says, reading off his phone.

I blink at him.

“Sorry,” he says. “But I understand the point.”

“Why are we outside?” I reach for my drink. It’s miraculously still cold, even though the ice has almost melted entirely.

“Because we never get any fresh air.”

“This is hardly fresh,” I say. “Do the summers keep getting worse?”

“Yes.”

“I’m too hot to even eat.”

“Good,” he says. “Because the food was a ruse.”

He drops a calendar book down on the table between us.

“What is this?”

“It’s a planner,” he says. “Dates, times, numbers. We need to start getting organized about this thing.”

“The wedding?”

“Yes,” he says. “The wedding. Unless we start making phone calls, everything is going to be booked. They are already. We’re too tired at night to talk about it, and this is how we got four years down the line.”

“And a half,” I remind him.

“Right,” he says. “And a half.”

He bites his bottom lip and shakes his head at me.

“We need a human planner,” I say.

“Yes, but we needed to plan to even get a planner. A lot of the top people book up two years in advance.”

“I know,” I say. “I know.”

“I’m not saying this is like, your area—” David says. “But I think we should do it together. I’d like that. If you want.”

“Of course,” I say. “I’d love that.”

This is how badly David wants to marry me. He’ll take his lunch hour to look over Brides.

“No cheesy shit,” he says.

“I’m offended at the suggestion,” I say.

“And I don’t think we should have a wedding party,” he says. “Too much work, and I don’t want a bachelor party.”

Pat’s, in Arizona, didn’t exactly go according to plan. They booked the wrong hotel and ended up getting delayed at the airport for nine and a half hours. Everyone got drunk on beers and Bloody Marys, and David was hungover the rest of the weekend.

“I’m with you. Bella can hold our rings, or something.”

“Fine.”

“And white flowers only.”

“Works for me.”

“Heavy cocktail hour, who cares about dinner?”

“Exactly.”

“And open bar.”

“But no shots.”

David smiles. “No special wedding shot? Alright then.” He flips over his wrist. “Nice progress. I gotta go.”

“That’s it?” I say. “Planner and run?”

“You want to have lunch now?”

I look at my phone. Seven missed calls and thirty-two new emails. “No. I was late when I got here.”

David stands and hands me my salad. I take it.

“We’ll get it done,” I tell him.

“I know we will.”

I imagine David wearing a sweater and a gold band on his ring finger, opening wine in our kitchen on a cozy winter night. A sense of sustained comfort. The materials of a warm life.

“I’m happy,” I tell him.

“I’m glad,” he says. “Because either way, you’re stuck with me.”

Chapter Fourteen

It’s now the end of August. Long ago in January, David and I booked a summer share in Amagansett for Labor Day weekend with Bella and our friends Morgan and Ariel.

Bella and Aaron are still together, and unsurprisingly, Aaron is joining us on this trip, turning the weekend into a triple date, which is fine by me. Historically, Bella and I are on opposite schedules at the beach. She sleeps late and parties late. I wake up at dawn and go for a run, cook us breakfast, and fit in a few hours of work before heading down to the water.

David rented us a Zipcar, which is proving problematic in transporting us, our luggage, and Morgan, who is meant to be driving with us. Ariel is taking the jitney later after work.

“This thing looks like it belongs on a Monopoly board,” Morgan says. She’s in her forties, which you’d never know except for the salt-and-pepper hair she sports. She has a baby face, no wrinkles, not even the tiny lines around her eyes. It’s wild. I’ve been sneaking Botox since I was twenty-nine, although David would murder me if he ever found out.

“They said it fits four.” David is shoving my weekend bag over our suitcase, jamming his shoulder into the trunk and pushing.

“Four tiny people and their tiny people purses.”

I laugh. We haven’t even tried to fit Morgan’s backpack or roller bag in yet.

Two hours later, we’re on our way in an SUV David rented last minute from Hertz. We leave the Zipcar parked illegally on our street with the promise from a manager of imminent pickup.

Morgan sits up front with David while I balance my computer on my knees in the back. It’s Thursday, and although this week is sanctioned vacation, there is still work to be done.

They’re singing along to Lionel Richie. “Endless Love.”

And I, I want to share all my love, with you. No one else will do.

“This reminds me,” I yell forward. “We need a list of do-not-plays for the wedding.”

Morgan turns the music down. “How is planning going?”

David shrugs. “Cautiously optimistic.”

“He’s lying,” I say. “We’re totally behind.”

“How did you guys do it?” David asks.

Morgan and Ariel were married three years ago in an epic weekend in the Catskills. They rented out this themed inn called The Roxbury, and the whole wedding took place in various structures on a neighboring farm. They brought in everything: tables, chairs, chandeliers. They arranged artful bales of hay to separate the lounge area from the dance floor. There was a cheese-and-whisky bar, and every table had the most gorgeous arrangement of wildflowers you’d ever seen. Photos from their wedding were on The Cut and Vogue online.