In Five Years: A Novel by Rebecca Serle Read Free Book Online Page A

Bumble.”
    I nearly drop my coffee. “You have Bumble?”
    “Yes. I know you think I can meet someone buying milk at the deli, but, I don’t know, lately I’ve been wanting something different and nothing has been that interesting in a while.”
    I think about Bella’s love life over the last few months. There was the photographer, Steven Mills, but that was last summer, almost a year ago.
    “Except Annabelle and Mario,” I say. The collectors she had a brief fling with. A couple.
    She bats her eyes at me. “Naturally,” she says.
    “So what’s the deal?” I ask.
    “It has been like three weeks,” she says. “But Dannie, he’s wonderful. Really wonderful. He’s really nice and smart and—I think you’re really going to like him.”
    “Nice and smart,” I repeat. “Greg?”
    She nods, and just then our food appears in a cloud of smoke. There are eggs and caviar on crispy French bread, avocado toast, and a plate of delicate crepes dusted with powdered sugar. My mouth waters.
    “More coffee?” Our waiter asks.
    I nod.
    “Yum,” I say. “This is perfect.” I immediately cut into the avocado toast. The poached egg on top oozes out yolk, and I scoop a segment onto my plate. I make a vaguely pornographic noise through a mouthful.
    Bella watches me and laughs. “You’re so deprived,” she says.
    I throw her a disgruntled look as I make my way to the crepes. “I have a job.”
    “Yes, how is that going?” She tilts her head to the side.
    “It’s great,” I say. I want to add some of us have to work for a living , but I don’t. I learned a long time ago there is a difference with Bella, and our relationship, between judgmental and unkind. I try not to stray over the line. “I think it’s going to be another year, and then partner.”
    Bella does a little shimmy in her chair. Her sweater slips from where it sits on her shoulders and I’m met with a slice of collarbone. Bella has always had a zaftig figure, glorious in its curvature, but she looks slimmer to me today. Once, during the month of Isaac, she lost twelve pounds.
    Greg. I already have a bad feeling.
    “I think we should all go to dinner,” Bella says.
    “Who?”
    She gives me a look. “Greg,” she says. She sucks her bottom lip in, lets it pop back out. Her blue eyes find mine. “Dannie, I’m telling you, you don’t have to believe me, but this one is different. It feels different.”
    “They always do.”
    She narrows her eyes at me and I can tell I’ve crossed it. I sigh. I can never quite say no to her. “Okay,” I say. “Dinner. Pick any Saturday two weeks from now and it’s yours.”
    I watch Bella as she loads up her plate—first eggs, then a crepe—and feel my stomach start to relax as she eats with gusto. The sky changes from rain to clouds to sunshine. When we leave the streets are almost entirely dry.

Chapter Seven
    “What happened to the blue shirt?”
    David comes out of our bedroom in a black button-down and dark jeans. We’re already running late. We’re supposed to be at Rubirosa in SoHo in ten minutes and it will take us at least twenty to get downtown. Bella may always be late, but I still like beating her places. It’s how we’ve always done things. Brunch was enough change for one week.
    “You don’t like this?” David hunches down and surveys himself in the mirror above the sofa.
    “It’s fine. I just thought you were wearing the blue one.”
    He heads back into the bedroom, and I check my lipstick in the same mirror. I’m wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck and a blue silk skirt with heels. The weather says sixty-seven degrees, low of sixty-three, and I’m trying to decide whether to bring a jacket.
    He comes back in, buttoning the blue one. “Happy?”
    “Very,” I say. “Will you call a car?”
    David busies himself with his phone, and I check to make sure I have our keys, my cell phone, and Bella’s gold-beaded bracelet. I borrowed it six months ago and never gave it