Page 49 - In Five Years

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 back.

“Two minutes.”
When we get to the restaurant, Bella is standing outside. My first instinct is

confusion—she beat me, again. My second is that it’s already over with Greg
and we’re going to be having dinner alone. This has happened twice before
(Gallery Daniel and, I think, Bartender Daniel). I feel a wave of irritation,
followed by one of sympathy and inevitability. Here we go again. Always the

same thing.