Page 78 - In Five Years

“You’re many things,” Bella says. “But friendly never really comes to mind.”
I have a flash of Bella and me, newly minted New Yorkers, in line for some
ludicrously expensive club in the Meatpacking District. Bella had lent me one of
her dresses, something short and bright, and it was cold, although I don’t

remember the season—late fall, early winter? We were without coats, as we
usually were in the years surrounding twenty.

In this slice of memory, Bella is flirting with the door guy, a club promoter
named Scoot or Hinds, some sound not word, someone who liked when hot girls
showed up, liked when Bella did. She’s telling him she just has a few more
friends she wants to bring in.

“They like you?” he asks.
“No one is,” Bella says. She shakes her hair off her neck.

“Her?” Scoot points to me. He’s less than impressed, this I can tell. Being
Bella’s friend has always felt a little bit like standing in her shadow. It used to
make me insecure, maybe it still does, but over time we found our things., our

shared ground, our complimenting balance. Standing in front of that club maybe
we hadn’t, yet.
Bella leans forward and whispers something into Scoot’s ear. I don’t hear, but

I can imagine what it is: She’s a princess, you know. She’s royalty. Fifth in line to
the Dutch throne. A Vanderbilt.
It used to embarrass me that Bella had to do this. It embarrasses me that night

in Meatpacking, too. But I never tell her. Her proximity is my gift; my silence is
hers. I make her life smooth and solid. She makes mine bright and dazzling. This
seems fair. A good trade.

“Come on in, ladies,” Scoot says. We do. We enter Twitch or Slice or Markd.
Whatever it was called, it’s gone now. We dance. Men buy us drinks. I feel pretty
in her dress, although it is a little too short on me, a little loose in the chest. It

hugs in the wrong spots.
At a certain point, two men come up to hit on us. I am not interested. I have a
boyfriend. He’s in law school at Brown. We’ve been together for eight months.

I’m faithful to him. I think, maybe, I’ll marry him, but it is a passing thought.
Everywhere we go Bella flirts. She does not like that I don’t. She thinks I am
withholding, that I do not know how to have a good time. She’s right, but only

sometimes. This form of fun does not come naturally to me, and therefore feels