In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

In Five Years book club meeting

Read with me (beware spoilers)

Chapter 1-5

Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers. She knows precisely how long it takes to get ready, brush her teeth, wash and blow dry her hair, apply her makeup and the time it takes to walk to work. And she has a timeframe for big events. Twenty four months of dating someone before you move in together, twenty eight is the right age to get engaged and thirty is the right age to get married. Today is December 15th and she is interviewing for her dream job with Watchell, a corporate law firm. Today is also the day she suspects her boyfriend David, an investment banker, is going to propose. Six months into their relationship they made a plan together. Her best friend, Bella, is a rich French-Italian princess. She buys a new dress on the way home and they meet at a bar close to the Rainbow Room (a difficult to get a reservation spot, that is jacket only). They dance to ‘It had to be you.’ The whole time she anticipates the proposal and when dessert arrives he bends down. She says yes before he asks the question.

She falls asleep at home on his lap. In the morning, she wakes up in an unfamiliar place with a stranger. It’s December 15, 2025, five years later. His name is Aaron and she finds out she is still a lawyer but now lives in Dumbo in an artists loft. He makes them dinner, then they get into bed and do the thing, the best thing she has ever done. But when she jolts awake she is back on the couch with David like nothing happened, but to her it felt so real. She got the job offer, a week later below her current salary but argued up the salary and by January 8th she put in her two weeks notice at the old job. They move to Gramercy Park as per the plan. They rent for a year then buy. David starts working at a hedge fund like they planned. But after four and a half years they still don’t get married. And she can never get that hour with that man out of her head. She sees a therapist once after it happens and the therapist tells her it was a premonition or a psychosomatic trip.

Chapter 6-10

Dannie meets Bella for lunch and learns that she has been talking to a new guy named Greg. She has had multiple men and never usually settles on one but juggles them typically. Bella decides they should go on a double date.

“I think sacrifice is in direct opposition to manifestation. If you want your dreams you should look for abundance, not scarcity.”

When Dannie and David meet them at the restaurant she realizes Greg is Aaron. David does a good job conversing with Aaron but then Dannie gets a wave of nausea and they make up an excuse to leave early. She thinks her dream is a premonition and will come into fruition and she wants to do whatever she can to stop it to protect her friendship. She returns to the same therapist, who tells her she is frightened because her experience does not fit her lifestyle: she has not taken any steps to have it and yet here it is, unlike the rest of her planned out life. She decides to find the apartment to get any clues about the premonition. She seeks out a bagel shop which is surprisingly similar to her normal spot. Then she runs into Aaron. He invites her to go with him to look at an apartment him and Bella intend to buy. It’s the apartment from the dream only in construction. He is an architect and Bella likes a project. Dannie tries to talk her out of buying the place to prolong the premonition from occurring. The following Friday she talks to David about getting married, she jokingly proposes to him. They do the thing then decide to get married in December, the same month that her premonition occurred.

Chapter 11-15

The weekend they were supposed to go back home to tell their parents the big news, Dannie got handed a big case, and the following weekend David has a bachelor party in Arizona, so they had to cancel. After her shut in at work, Bella forces her to come out for dinner. They reminisce about their past, celebrate Dannie’s reengagement then Bella asks Dannie if she truly loves David and can relate to how she feels with Greg. To this Dannie feels a pin prick in her stomach, unsure how to feel. One day, Dannie and David meet up for a quick lunch break. David brings a planner and decides they need to start making decisions for the wedding. They part and Dannie tells him she is happy.

David booked a summer share in Amagansett a long time ago for a week in August. Bella and Aaron as well as Morgan and Ariel, a couple Bella met at the gallery she bought but became closer friends to Dannie and David, are joining them. The first night they all arrive, David goes to pick up Ariel. Dannie runs into Aaron in the kitchen and he decides to make guacamole and later dinner for everyone. just like in her dream she notes that he can cook. The next morning Dannie and Bella wake up early. Bella talks about a house Dannie’s family owned with a blue awning that they had for four more years after Michael, Bella’s brother was killed by a drunk driver. But Bella doesn’t recall a house with a blue awning and said they sold there beach house the summer Michael died. Then Bella tells Dannie she suspects she is pregnant so they go to the store to get a test. Sure enough she is pregnant and she decides to tell Aaron after the trip.

Chapter 16-20

One day Dannie asks David to go on a walk, but he wants a nap and Bella is already asleep on a chair so Aaron offers to go with her. They joke around and end up in the water. They have a moment looking in each others eyes and he tells her he likes her. She reminisces her dream. Then they return to the house.

Bella tells Aaron about the pregnancy and he tells Dannie he is happy. On the weekend Dannie and Bella go shopping and end up in Jacadi, a french baby store. Bella tells her they haven’t talked about getting married yet. The next day Dannie goes to Bella’s and Aaron is there and Bella is already painting the nursery. Aaron calls Dannie the day Bella is supposed to have her doctor’s appointment, he tells her there is no baby. She immediately goes to see Bella. There was never a baby and Bella might have ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer can cause a false positive. Dannie takes her to see the best oncologist in New York the following Monday. Aaron goes with them. Bella’s father got them the appointment after Dannie gave him a call and her mom never showed despite promising. They take a ton of tests and the diagnosis is not good. She has stage 3 ovarian cancer which is treatable. 47% survival rate over five years. During the next appointment the doctors decide to undergo a hysterectomy and remove both her ovaries a fallopian tubes. She won’t ever be able to bare children. After the appointment, Bella asks to walk home alone and Dannie is bombarded with calls from work about 8 months of missing financials for a company one of her clients is trying to acquire, without it the lose the acquisition. She goes to their offices to hunt them down. At five the paperwork comes through and it takes til ten to read through them. On her walk home she begins to run and When she gets home her feet are screaming in pain. David helps her take off her shoes while she tells him about Bella.

Chapter 21-25

After not hearing from Bella, Dannie calls Aaron, Bella is asleep and Aaron asks Dannie to go on a walk. Aaron makes sure Dannie knows that he doesn’t intend on leaving Bella because he loves her. On October 4 Bella has her surgery. Both of her parents are there as well as Dannie and Aaron. When she goes into surgery the doctor tries to be positive but they won’t know anything until they go in. Aaron takes Dannie to a building he has been working on and they stand on the roof talking about why they love Bella. The doctor calls with good news. When they go back David is waiting with her winners breakfast from her favorite bagel shop the same one she had the day she interviewed and was engaged. Bella works while they all wait the next few hours. David goes back to work and says he will see her at home. Finally the doctor arrives and tells them they removed as much as they could to the best of their ability. She is allowed to leave the hospital after three days and recovering well. Aaron never left her side. Chemo will start in a couple weeks. Dannie comes to visit with DVDs of her favorite show, then Aaron arrives and she leaves.

Aldridge emails her to meet with him at Monday. She thinks its about being out of the office dealing with Bella but he actually wants to offer her a job as a key associate on a case…. in California. The job would be begin in mid-November. On the way home , Dannie stops at a lingerie shop and picks up food for them, then she surprises David at home. In the middle of them doing the thing he asks when they are going to get married. She sh’s him. She continues wedding planning for December with a planner while Bella goes through chemo. David is supportive of the job offer.

Chapter 26-30

It’s confirmed, Bella has stage 3 ovarian cancer, its in her lymph system but not the surrounding organs. Aaron and Dannie go with her to her chemo, which causes her to puke on the way home. When they get home Bella gives Dannie an early birthday gift. It’s a print from an artist of an eye chart, the same one she saw in her dream with Aaron. She asks Aaron what he did with the apartment and Bella says she bought it. The chemo makes Bella weaker and weaker but she doesn’t lose her hair. Bella’s mom wants to take her to a show but Dannie is angry about it, she clearly is not healthy enough to go. Bella doesn’t want Dannie there anymore because she treats her like she is incapable. She calls Aaron to come meet her. They talk for a little at the diner, then disperse.

“You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that does not need to become at all. It matters only insofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn’t require a future.”

Dannie still goes to the chemo appointments but stays down stairs. She runs into the doctor who tells her that Bella will come around. Dannie goes to California for the job. That night Aldridge and Dannie meet the owners of QuTe the new client at a dinner. Dannie asks them why now about wanting to give up their company when they don’t have to, which makes one of them question everything. After dinner, Aldridge finds her at a bar and asks what’s wrong. He tells her about himself and says she shouldn’t let her own bias get in the way, that she is a good person.

Chapter 31-35

Dannie buys the first dress she tries on off the rack. Aaron calls her to tell her the test results were bad and Bella wants to see her. She finds out Aaron and Bella are engaged and Bella tells Dannie she doesn’t believe she has the same love with David. Dannie gets a junior partner case with QuTe, they don’t want to sell but they want her on their legal team. She calls David with the news and he is fast to congratulate her and get off the phone. She realizes she wants someone in her life that clashes with her and doesnt just stare at the same horizon going in the same direction. They make a dinner reservation for the next day where she suggests postponing the wedding. David tries to talk her out of it. When she gets home the next day, David is sitting at the table waiting. He gets the truth about her feelings and they break up. She goes straight to Bella’s.

Chapter 36-end

Dannie moves into Bella’s, Aaron helps her move her things. For weeks they help Bella, then one day Dannie comes home and her stuff is gone. She calls Aaron and he tells her to meet him at the apartment. When she gets there, he shows her all the work he and Bella had put in to make it hers. She asks why him, then they kiss before Bella calls to ask how she likes the place. Bella stops treatment as it isn’t helping but only making her weaker. The cancer made it to her lungs. Bella’s mother is staying in a hotel in Times Square, Bella goes to find her and scream at her for not being there. But instead she finds out that when she met Bella at nine years old her parents decided not to separate them so they enrolled Bella in the same school as Dannie.

I’ve been less that a great mother, I know that. Less than good, even. Sometimes I think the only thing I did right was give her you.”

She asks Dannie what she could possibly give Bella and Dannie says “you.” So they go back to see her. And on Thursday she passes away. They throw her a celebration of life on the roof Aaron had brought Dannie. Then Aaron climbs into the cab with Dannie back to the apartment without an invite. And the dream repeats but it is not love that she had originally thought brought them together but rather grief. They agree to be friends. Then Dannie runs into Dr. Shaw in the deli and they chat.

So be it. So let it be.