Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

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.”

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.

“It was easy,” Morgan says.

“We’re not on their level, babe,” I say. “Our entire apartment is white.”

Morgan laughs. “Please. You know it’s what I love to do. We had fun with it.” She fiddles with the dial on the radio. “So Greg is coming?”

“I think so. Is he?”

David looks back at me.

“Yep.”

“He seems great, right?” Morgan asks.

“Really nice,” David says. “We’ve only met him, what? Once? It’s been a crazy summer. I can’t believe it’s over.” He glances at me in the rearview.

“Almost over,” Morgan says.

I make a noncommittal noise in the backseat.

“He seems stable though, like he has a real job and isn’t constantly trying to get her to leave the country on her parents’ credit card,” David continues.

“Not like us zany freeloader artists,” Morgan teases.

“Hey,” David says. “You’re more successful than any of us.”

It’s true. Morgan sells out every show she puts on. Her photos go for fifty thousand dollars. She gets more for a twenty-four-hour editorial job than I make in two months.

“We had a great time with him at dinner a few weeks ago,” Morgan says. “She seems different. I went by the gallery last week, too, and thought so again. Like more grounded or something.”

“I agree,” I volunteer. “She does.”

The truth is that since that day in the park, since David and I started talking about the wedding seriously, I’ve thought about my vision less and less. We’re building the right future now, the one that we’ve been working toward. All evidence is on our side that that version will be the one we’re living come December. I’m not worried.

“Her longest relationship by a mile already,” Morgan says. “You think this one will stick?”

I hit save on an email draft. “Seems that way.”

We turn off the main highway, and I close my computer. We’re nearly there.

The house is the one we’ve rented for this same week the last five summers in a row. It’s in Amagansett, down Beach Road. It’s old. The shingles are falling off and the furniture is mildew-y, and yet it’s perfect because it’s right on the water. There’s nothing separating us from the ocean but a sand dune. I love it. As soon as we pass the Stargazer and turn onto 27, I lower the window to let in the thick, salty air. I immediately start to relax. I love the massive old trees lining the lanes and stretching down to that wide expanse of beach — big sky, big ocean, and air. Room.

When we pull up to the house it’s already late in the afternoon, and Bella and Aaron are there. She rented a yellow convertible, and it’s parked out front, a chipper greeting. The door to the house is flung open, as if they’ve just arrived, although I know they haven’t. Bella texted me they were there hours ago.

My first instinct is to be annoyed — how many summers, how many times, have I told her to keep the doors closed so we don’t get bugs? But I check myself. This is our house, after all. Not just mine. And I want is for all of us to have a nice weekend.

I help David unload the trunk, handing Morgan her roller as Bella comes out of the house. She has on a pale blue linen dress, the bottom of which has paint splotches on it. This fills me with a very particular kind of joy. To my knowledge she hasn’t painted all year, and the sight of her — hair wild in the wind, the atmosphere of creation hanging around her like mist — is wonderful to witness.

“You made it!” She throws her arms around Morgan and gives me a big kiss on the side of my head.