Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

“You okay?” David asks. He’s pulled himself out of the jovial moment and is looking at me intently.

“How long was I out for?” I ask him.

“About an hour,” he says. Something dawns on him. He leans closer to me. The proximity of his body feels like an intrusion. “Hey, listen, you’re going to get that job. I can tell you’re stressed about it and maybe this was too much to have happen in one day, but there’s no way they don’t hire you. You’re the perfect candidate, Dannie.”

I feel like asking him what job?

“The food came,” he says, sitting back. “I stuck it in the fridge. I’ll get plates.”

I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”

David looks at me with shock and awe. “How is that possible? You told me you were weak with hunger, like an hour ago.” He stands up and goes into the kitchen, ignoring me. He opens the refrigerator and starts pulling out containers. Pad Thai. Chicken curry. Fried rice. “All your favorites,” he says. “Hot or cold?”

“Cold,” I say. I pull the blanket closer around me.

David comes back balancing the containers on plates. He starts taking off tops, and I smell the sweet and sour and tangy spices.

“I had the craziest dream,” I tell him. Maybe if I talk about it it’ll make sense. Maybe if I lay it all out here, outside of my brain. “I just… I can’t shake it. Was I talking in my sleep?”

David piles some noodles onto a plate and grabs a fork. “Nope. Don’t think so. I showered for a little, so maybe?” He jams a giant bite of Pad Thai into his mouth and chews. Some stray noodles migrate to the floor. “Was it a nightmare?”

I think about Aaron. “No,” I say. “I mean, not exactly.”

David swallows. “Good. Your mom called twice. I’m not sure how long we can hold her off.” David puts his fork down and threads his arm around me. “But I had some plans for us alone tonight.”

My eyes dart to my hand. The ring, the right one, is back on my finger. I exhale.

My phone starts buzzing.

“Bella again,” David says, somewhat wearily.

I’m already off the couch, snatching the phone and taking it with me into the bedroom.

“I’m gonna flip on the news,” David calls after me.

I close the door behind me and pick up the call. “Bells.”

“I waited up!” It’s loud where she is, the sound of people fills the phone — she’s out partying. She laughs, her voice a cascade of music. “You’re engaged! Congratulations! Do you like the ring? Tell me everything!”

“Are you still in Paris?” I ask her.

“Yes!” she says.

“When are you coming home?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “Jacques wants to go to Sardinia for a few days.”

Ah, Jacques. Jacques is back. If Bella woke up five years in the future in a different apartment, she probably wouldn’t even blink.

“In December?”

“It’s supposed to be quiet and romantic.”

“I thought you were going to the Riviera with Renaldo.”

“Well he bailed, and then Jacques texted that he was in town and voilà. New plans!”

I sit down on my bed. I look around. The tufted gray chairs I bought with my first paycheck at Clarknell, the oak dresser that was a hand-me-down from my parents’ place. The Bakelite lamps David brought with him from his Turtle Bay bachelor pad.

I see the expanse of that loft in Dumbo. The blue velvet chairs.

“Hey,” I say. “I have to tell you something kind of crazy.”

“Tell me everything!” she hollers through the phone, and I imagine her spinning out in the middle of a dance floor, on the roof of some Parisian hotel, Jacques tugging at her waist.

“I’m not sure how to explain it. I fell asleep, and… I wasn’t dreaming. I swear I was in this apartment and this guy was there. It was so real. Like I really went there. Has anything like that ever happened to you?”

“No, darling, we’re going to the Marais!”

“What?”

“Sorry, everyone in the crowd is absolutely starving, and it’s practically light out. We’ve been partying for decades. So wait, it was like a dream? Did he do it on the terrace or in the restaurant?” I hear an explosion of sound and then a door shut, a retreat to silence.

“Oh, the restaurant,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything when you’re back.”

“I’m here, I’m here!” she says.

“You’re not,” I say, smiling. “Be safe, okay?”

I can see her rolling her eyes. “Do you know that the French don’t even have a word for safety?”

“That is not even remotely true,” I say. “Beaucoup.” It’s pretty much one of the only French words I know.

“Even so,” she says. “I wish you had more fun.”

“I have fun,” I say.

“Let me guess. David is now watching CNN Live and you’re wearing a face mask. You just got engaged!”

I touch my fingers to my cheek. “Only dry skin here.”

“How was the job interview?” she asks. “I didn’t forget, I just temporarily forgot.”

“It was great, honestly. I think I got it.”

“Of course you got it. You not getting it would require a rip in the universe that I’m not sure is scientifically possible.”

I feel my stomach tighten.

“Boozy brunch when I’m back,” she says. The door opens again and sound rushes back in through the phone. I hear her kiss someone twice.

“You know I hate brunch,” I say.

“But you love me.”

She hangs up, in a whirlwind of noise.

David comes into the bedroom, his hair rumpled. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.

“You tired?” he asks me.

“Not really,” I say.

“Yeah, me neither.” He climbs into bed. He reaches for me. But I can’t. Not right now.

“I’m just going to get some water,” I say. “Too much champagne. Do you want some water, too?”

“Sure.” He yawns. “Do me a favor and get the light?”

I get up and flip the light switch. I walk back into the living room. But instead of pouring a glass of water, I go to the windows. The TV is off and it’s dark, but the streets are flooded with light. I look down. Third Avenue is busy even now, well past midnight. There are people out — laughing and screaming. Heading to the bars of our youth: Joshua Tree, Mercury Bar. They’ll dance to nineties music they’re too young to really know, well into the morning. I stand there for a long time. Hours seem to pass. The streets quiet down to a New York whisper. By the time I go back into the bedroom, David is fast asleep.

I get the job; of course I do. They call me a week later and offer it, a fraction below my current salary. I argue them up, and by January 8 I’m giving my two weeks’ notice. David and I move to Gramercy. It happens a year later, almost down to the day. We find a great unfurnished sublet in the building we’ve always admired. “We’ll stay until something opens to buy,” David tells me. A year later something opens to buy, and we buy it.

David begins working at a hedge fund started by his ex-boss at Tishman. I get promoted to senior associate.

Four and a half years pass. Winters and falls and summers. Everything goes according to plan. Everything. Except that David and I don’t get married. We never set a date. We say we’re busy, which we are. We say we don’t need to until we want kids. We say we want to travel. We say we’ll do it when the time is right — and it never is. His dad has heart trouble one year, we move the next. There are always reasons, and good ones, too, but none of them are why. The truth is that every time we get close, I think about that night, that hour, that dream, that man. And the memory of it stops me before I’ve started.

After that night, I went to therapy. I couldn’t stop thinking about that hour. The memory was real, like I had, in fact, lived it. I felt like I was going crazy and because of that, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Bella. What would I say? I woke up in the future? Where I had sex with a stranger? The worst thing is, Bella would probably believe me.

I know that therapists are supposed to help you figure out whatever insanity is lingering in your brain, and then help you get rid of it. So the following week I went to someone on the Upper West Side. Highly recommended. In New York, all the best shrinks are on the Upper West Side.

Her office was bright and friendly, if not a little sterile. There was one giant plant. I couldn’t figure out if it was fake or not. I never touched it. It was on the other side of the sofa, behind her chair, and it would have been impossible to get to.

Dr. Christine. One of those professionals who uses their first name with their title to seem more relatable. She didn’t. She wore swaths of Eileen Fisher — linens and silks and cottons spun so excessively I had no idea what her shape even was. She was sixty, maybe.

“What brings you in today?” she asked me.

I had been in therapy once, after my brother died. A fatal drunk driving accident fifteen years ago that had the police show up at our house at 1:37 in the morning. He wasn’t the one at the wheel. He was in the passenger seat. What I heard first were my mother’s screams.

My therapist had me talk about him, our relationship, and then draw what I thought the accident might have looked like, which seemed condescending for a twelve year old. I went for a month, maybe more. I don’t remember much, except that afterward my mom and I would stop for ice cream, like I was seven and not nearly thirteen. I often didn’t want any, but I always got two scoops of mint chocolate chip. It felt important to play along then, and for a long time after.

“I had a strange dream,” I said. “I mean, something strange happened to me.”