Read In Five Years: A Novel for Free Online Page B

trench and ankle rain boots. Temperature says sixty-five degrees. Enough to sweat with a top layer but be freezing without one.
    We’re meeting at Buvette, a tiny French café in the West Village we’ve been going to for years. They have the best eggs and croque monsieur on the planet—and their coffee is strong and rich. Right now, I need a quart.
    Also, it’s one of Bella’s favorite spots. She knows all the waiters. When we were in our twenties, she’d go there to sketch.
    I end up taking a cab because I don’t want to be late, even though I know Bella will be running fifteen minutes behind. Bella is chronically fifteen to twenty minutes late everywhere she goes.
    But when I arrive she’s already there, seated in the window at the two-top.
    She’s dressed in a long, flowing floral dress that’s wet at the edges—at five-foot-three she’s not tall enough for it—and a crimson velvet blazer. Her hair is down and falls around her in tufts, like spools of wool. She’s beautiful. Every time I see her I’m reminded just how much.
    “This cannot possibly be happening,” I say. “You beat me here?”
    She shrugs, her gold hoops bouncing against her neck. “I couldn’t wait to see you.” She gets out of her chair and pulls me into a tight hug. She smells like her. Tea tree and lavender, a hint of cinnamon.
    “I’m wet,” I yelp, but I don’t let go. It feels good. “I missed you, too.”
    I tuck my umbrella under my chair and loop my raincoat over the back. Inside it’s chillier than I thought it would be. I rub my hands together.
    “You look older,” she says.
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “That’s not what I mean. Coffee?”
    I nod.
    She holds her cup up to the waiter. She comes here far more often than I do. Her place is three blocks away on the corner of Bleecker and Charles, a floor-through level of a brownstone her dad bought for her two years ago. It’s three bedrooms, impeccably decorated in her colorful, bohemian, I-didn’t-even-think-about-this-but-it-looks-gorgeous perfect style.
    “What’s darling Dave up to this morning?” she asks.
    “He went to the gym,” I say, opening my napkin.
    “The gym?”
    I shrug. “That’s what he said.”
    Bella opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again. She likes David. Or at least, I think she does. I suspect she’d like me to be with someone more adventurous, someone who maybe pushed me outside my comfort zone a little bit more. But what she doesn’t realize, or what she conveniently forgets, is that she and I are not the same person. David is right for me, and the things I want for my life.
    “So,” I say. “Tell me everything. How is work coming at the gallery? How was Europe?”
    Five years ago, Bella did a show of her artwork at a small gallery in Chelsea named Oliander. The show sold out, and she did another. Then two years ago, Oliander, the owner, wanted to sell the place and came to her. She used her trust fund to buy it. She paints less than she used to, but I like that she has some stability in her life. The gallery has meant that she can’t disappear ­anymore—­at least not for weeks at a time.
    “We nearly sold out the Depreche show,” she says. “I’m so bummed you missed it. It was spectacular. My favorite by far.” Bella says that about every single artist she shows. It’s always the best, the greatest, the most fun she’s ever had. Life is an upward escalator. “Business is so good I’m thinking about hiring another Chloe.”
    Chloe has been her assistant for the last three years, and runs the logistics at Oliander. She’s kissed Bella twice, which has not seemed to complicate their business relationship.
    “You should do it.”
    “Might give me time to actually sculpt or paint again. It has been months.”
    “Sometimes you have to sacrifice to achieve your dreams.”
    She smiles sideways at me. The coffee comes. I pour some creamer into it, and take a slow, heady sip.
    When I look up, she’s still