Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

It’s 10 p.m. before I leave. Still nothing from Bella. Everything in my body feels crunched, like I’ve been ground down to an inch over the course of today. As I walk, I feel myself stretching back up. I don’t have sneakers with me, and after about five blocks my pump-clad feet begin to hurt, but I keep walking. As the blocks go on — down Fifth, rolling through the forties like the subway, I begin to pick up the pace. By the time I get to East Thirty-Eighth Street, I’m running.

I arrive at our Gramercy apartment gasping and sweating. My top is nearly soaked through and my feet throb with numb disconnection. I’m afraid to look down at them. I think if I do, I’ll see pools of blood seeping out from the soles.

I open the door. David is at the table, a glass of wine next to him, his computer open. He jumps up when he sees me.

“Hey,” he says. He takes me in, his eyes narrow as he scans my face. “What happened to you?”

I bend down to take off my shoes. But the first won’t come off. It seems stitched to my foot. I scream out in pain.

“Hey,” David days. “Woah. Okay. Sit down.” I collapse onto the little bench we have in the hallway and he crouches down. “Jesus, Dannie, what did you do? Run home?”

He looks up at me and, in that moment, I feel myself falling. I’m not sure if I’m going to faint or combust. The fire in my feet rises, threatening to engulf me whole.

“She’s really sick,” I say. “She needs surgery next week. Stage three. Four rounds of chemo.”

David hugs me. I want to feel the comfort of his arms. I want to fold into him. But I can’t. It’s too big. Nothing will help, nothing will obscure it.

“Did they give you some data?” David asks, grasping. “The new doctor? What did he say?” He releases me and puts a hand gently on my knee.

I shake my head. “She’ll never be able to have kids. They’re taking out her entire uterus, both ovaries…”

David winces. “Damn,” he says. “Damn, Dannie, I’m so sorry.”

I close my eyes against the rising tide of pain from my feet. The knives that are now burying themselves into my heels.

“Take them off,” I tell him. I’m practically panting.

“Okay,” he says. “Hang on.”

He goes to the bathroom and comes back with baby powder. He shakes the bottle, and a cloud of white dust descends on my foot. He wiggles the heel of my shoe. I feel nauseous with pain.

Then it’s off. I look down at my foot — it’s raw and bleeding but looks better than I thought it would. He dumps some more powder on it.

“Let me see the other one,” he says.

I give him my other foot. He shakes the bottle, wiggles the heel, performs the same ritual.

“You need to soak them,” David says. “Come on.”

He puts an arm around me and leads me, wincing and groaning, into the bathroom. We have a tub, although it’s not a claw-foot. It’s always been a dream of mine to have one, but our bathroom was already built. It’s so stupid, impossible even, that my brain still relays this information to me now, still notes it — the missing feet of a porcelain tub. As if it matters.

David begins to run the water for me. “I’m going to put some Epsom salts in it,” he says. “You’ll feel better.”

I grab his arm as he turns to go. I cling to it — hold it against my chest like a child with their stuffed animal.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells me. But, of course, the words mean nothing. No one knows that. Not him. Not Dr. Shaw. Not even me.

Bella will not return my calls or texts, so finally, on Saturday night, I dial Aaron.

He picks up on the second ring. “Dannie,” he says. He’s whispering. “Hey.”

“Yeah. Hi.”

I’m in the bedroom of our apartment, my bandaged feet kneading the soft carpet. “Is Bella there?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

“Come on, Aaron. She won’t return my phone calls.”

“She’s actually sleeping,” he says.

“Oh.” It’s barely 8 p.m.

“What are you doing?”

I look down at my sweatpants. “Nothing,” I say. “I should probably get back to work. Will you tell her I called?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says.

All at once I feel irrationally angry. Aaron, this stranger. This man, who she has known for less than four months, is the one in her apartment. He’s the one she’s turning to. He doesn’t even know her. And me, her best friend, her family—

“She needs to call me,” I say. My tone has changed. It bears the fire of my thumping thoughts.

“I know,” Aaron says. His voice is low. “It’s just been—”

“I don’t care what it has been. With all due respect, I don’t know you. My best friend needs surgery on Tuesday. She needs to call me.”

Aaron clears his throat. “Do you want to take a walk?” he asks me.

“What?”

“A walk,” he says. “I could use some air. It kind of sounds like you could, too.”

I’m not sure what to say. I want to tell him I have too much work, and it’s true — I’ve been distracted all week trying to prepare the documents we need for signature. We still don’t have everything from CIT, and Epson is getting anxious; they want to announce next week. But I don’t say no. I need to talk to Aaron. To explain to him that I have this, that he can go back to whatever life he was living last spring.

“Fine,” I say. “The corner of Perry and Washington. Twenty minutes.”

He’s waiting on the curb when my taxi pulls up. It’s still light out, although it will fade soon. October hangs a whisper away — the promise of only more darkness. Aaron is wearing jeans and a green sweater, and so am I, and for a minute, the visual as I pay the driver and get out of the cab — two matching people meeting each other — makes me almost laugh.

“And to think I almost brought my orange bag,” he says. He gestures to the leather Tod’s crossbody Bella 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.”