Free In Five Years: A Novel by Rebecca Serle Page B

then squints them together. “Your mother, mine. Come on, Dannie. This is ridiculous. We’ve waited four and a half years, we can’t just elope now. Are you kidding? Because I really can’t tell.”
    “I just want to get it done.”
    “How romantic,” he deadpans.
    “You know what I mean.”
    David sets his phone down. He looks to me. “I don’t, actually. You love planning. That’s like . . . your whole thing. You once planned a Thanksgiving down to pee breaks.”
    “Yeah, well . . .”
    “Dannie, I want to get married, too. But let’s do it the right way. Let’s do it our way. Okay?”
    He looks at me, waiting for an answer. But I can’t give him one, not the one he wants. I don’t have time for our way. I don’t have time to plan. We have five months. Five months until I’m living in an apartment my best friend wants to buy, with the boyfriend she wants to buy it with. I need to stop this. I need to do whatever I can to make sure it never comes true.
    “I’ll be a planning machine,” I say. “It’s all I’m going to focus on. How does December sound? We can have a holiday wedding to match our holiday proposal. It’ll be festive.”
    “We’re Jews,” David says. He’s back on his phone.
    “Maybe it will snow,” I say, ignoring him. “David? December? I don’t want to wait.”
    This makes him stop. He shakes his head, leans over, and kisses my shoulder blade. I know I’ve won. “December?”
    I nod.
    “Okay,” he says. “December it is.”
    December.

Chapter Eleven
    I have a giant case dropped in my lap on Thursday. One of our biggest clients—let’s just say they revolutionized the health-food store—wants to announce an acquisition of a delivery service company on Monday, before the markets open. David and I were supposed to go home to Philadelphia and tell my parents the December plan in person, but it’s never going to happen this weekend.
    I call him at eight, while crouched over piles of documents in the conference room. There are twelve other associates and four partners barking orders and containers of empty Chinese food surrounding me. It’s a war zone. I love it.
    “I’m not getting out of here this weekend,” I tell him. “Even to come home to sleep. Forget Philly.”
    I hear the TV on behind him. “What happened?”
    “Can’t say, but it’s a big one.”
    “No shit,” he says. “Whol—”
    I clear my throat. “I’m going to be sleeping here for the next three days. Can we do next weekend?”
    “I have Pat’s bachelor party.”
    “Right. Arizona.” They’re going to drink beer and practice target shooting—neither of which David has any interest in. I’m not even sure why he’s going. He barely sees Pat anymore.
    “It’s fine,” he says. “We’ll just call and fill them in. They’ll be thrilled either way. I think your mom was starting to give up on me.”
    My parents love David. Of course they do. He’s a lot like my brother, or what I imagine he’d have turned out to be. Smart, calm, even-tempered. Michael never got in trouble. He was the one making chore charts when we were kids, and he did model UN before he even learned to drive. He and David would be friends, I know they would. And it still stings me that he’s not here. That he won’t ever be here. That he didn’t see me graduate or accept my first job, hasn’t been to our apartment, and won’t get to watch me get married.
    My parents bugged David and me incessantly during the first two years of our engagement to set a date, but less so now. I know how much they want this for me, and themselves. David’s wrong—at this point, they’d probably be fine with City Hall.
    “Okay. My dad might be in the city next week.”
    “Thursday,” David says. “I’m already taking him to lunch.”
    “You’re the best.”
    He makes a noncommittal noise through the phone. Just then, Aldridge walks into the room. I hang up on David without saying goodbye. He’ll understand. He used