Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

“She loves Dov,” Marx said. “She hates Dov. He will never get divorced. We all know this,” Zoe said.

“You’re being very Lady Macbeth tonight. Are you saying all these things because you want me to go to California with you?” “Well, yes, partially. But it’s also the absolute correct course of action,” Zoe said.

The last thing she packed were the handcuffs. She slipped them into the zippered pocket of the large duffel she was planning to check. She didn’t want Dov to use them on some other girl. She wasn’t sure if this impulse came from a sense of sorority or sentimentality.

Did she know about the earthquakes? The fires? The floods? The drought? The smog? The homeless? The coyotes? The general sense of looming apocalypse? Did she know that drugstores closed at ten? What would happen if she needed cough syrup or batteries or legal pads after ten? Did she know there weren’t any all-night diners or bodegas or takeout? Where would she eat? Where would she get decent bagels or pizza? Did she know that the only things people in L.A. ate were avocados and sprouts? Was she ready to be into juicing? Was she aware that the tap water caused cancer? Sadie! Whatever you do, do NOT drink the tap water! Did she know how dry the air was, and was she prepared for the constant allergies? Did she know that cell phone coverage was terrible? Did she know that no one in L.A. read books or went to the theater or followed current events? That their brains were pulp because they all worked in entertainment and spent their spare time getting plastic surgery and going to the gym? Did she know that no one walked, not even one block? That they drove from their front doors to their mailboxes? Did she still know how to drive? And the traffic, Hashem, had she heard about the traffic? Was she prepared to spend the majority of her waking hours en route? Wouldn’t she miss the seasons? Did she know that it never rained there, and when it did rain, there were mudslides? Wouldn’t she miss the rain?

Had Sadie gone to the Griffith Observatory? Had she been to movie night at Hollywood Forever Cemetery? The Cinerama Dome? The Greek? The Hollywood Bowl? The Getty pavilions? LACMA? The Theatricum Botanicum? The Bob Baker Marionette Theater? The Watts Towers? The Museum of Jurassic Technology? Did Sadie have magic friends and had she been to the Magic Castle? Had she tried green juice? Had she ever gone to the donut place that looked like a donut? Hot dogs were gross, but had she been to Pink’s? Had she taken one of those tours of celebrity homes on the double-decker buses? Had she been to the restaurant that was built around a tree? What was her favorite place to hear live music? The Whisky a Go Go? The Palladium? The Troubadour? What was her favorite part of town? Which canyon was her favorite for hiking? The sun was always out and it never rained, wasn’t that so great?

She was intelligent, but her intelligence didn’t get in the way of her enthusiasm.

“I’ve decided we’re going to be great friends, by the way. Don’t bother trying to resist me. I’ll stalk you until you submit.”

It was right that they should come to California. California was for beginnings.

“Same order? Half-mushroom, half-pepperoni?”

“This is mine now.” “Of course,” Sadie said. “That’s why I brought it.”

“No. You’ll never die. And if you ever died, I’d just start the game again,” Sadie said.

The universe tortured you because it could, because it will. The enormous polyhedral die in the sky was rolled, and it came up ‘Torture Sam Masur.’

I would have shown up in the game of your life either way.”

“I’m not your wife.” “My work wife,” he said. “Don’t deny it.” “Your work wife is Marx,” Sadie said.

I love you, Sam.” “Terribly,” he said.

His best friend had come back to their hometown for him. He wasn’t a fool; he knew what Marx had been doing when he’d insisted they move their business here.

so they invented reasons—some of them even compelling and real.

“What’s the most beautiful woman in Koreatown drinking?”

“The good news is that the pain is in your head.” But I am in my head, Sam thought.

Unfortunately, the human brain is every bit as closed a system as a Mac.

They were standing outside the Silver Lake restaurant Marx had selected because of its proximity to Sam’s place. The restaurant had a tree growing in the center of it, and it was famous for being the best place on the Eastside to break up with someone.

She liked Abe because he was a gentle and courteous lover (“Sadie, may I put my hand on your breast?”) and because he didn’t play games—video or personal—and because he didn’t mind driving to Venice.

“You’re an afternoon woman, sexy Sadie. You don’t want to meet someone like you too early in your life, or you won’t ever like anyone else.”

“I understand why you’d say that, but I also don’t think you should give up on the devouring yet.” Marx growled at her and pretended to bite her, and then he kissed her on the cheek.

She was smart, funny, tough, pushy, a little mean. But smart was the main thing Sam liked about Lola. She wasn’t special smart, like Sadie, but she was smart.

“Brilliant one! I saw the California area code, and I was hoping it was you.”

“I just wanted to have sex with you.” “Don’t say that!” “It isn’t true anyway. You’re exceptional, kid. You know that.”

What a funny turn of phrase, she thought. Licking your wounds would only make them worse, no? The mouth was filled with so much bacteria. But Sadie knew it was easy to get addicted to the taste of your own carnage.

How nice it was to have Marx waiting for her. He was a perfect traveling companion.

“No, Mom, this is Sadie, not Zoe. Sadie is my business partner.” Marx’s mother took a long look at Sadie, and then she said, “Are you certain?”

Marx said, “I’m too dumb for Sadie, Mom.” “It’s true,” Sadie said. “Marx is pretty, but shallow.”

William Morris Strawberry Thief,

The bird and I make eye contact for a moment, and a text bubble comes up over the bird’s head: Go ask Sadie what it would take to turn Mapletown into an online role-playing game. And here I am. I obey the giant bird of dreams.”

She was pretty all the time, but she was beautiful in love.

The omission let him know it was fatally serious.

The greatest pleasures of his life had been when he was by her side, playing or inventing. And how could she not feel that as well? There would never be another Sadie, and now this one was lost to him.

How do I go on when the person I love most in the world is in love with someone else? Someone tell me the solution, he thought, so I don’t have to play this losing game all the way through.

“Maybe I don’t believe in marriage,” Sadie said. “There’s no believe, Sadie. It’s not like God, Santa Claus, or whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It’s a civic ceremony, with a piece of paper. It’s a party, with your friends—”

in the end, she attributed Marx’s inertia to a touching, if naive, devotion to Sam. She, too, used to feel such devotion, before she’d seen Sam for who he really was.

Sadie had trained herself not to cater to Sam’s moods, not to feel too much for him, but nonetheless, she could sense his agitation.

“You’re an incredible asshole,” Sadie said. “Marx loves you. Can’t you ever just be nice?” “It’s not cruel to state a fact.” “It isn’t a fact. And sometimes, it is cruel to state a fact.”

“Because it’s perfect,” Marx said. “ ‘Tamer of horses’ is an honest profession. The lines mean that one doesn’t have to be a god or a king for your life to have meaning.” “Hector is us,” Sadie said. “Hector is us,” Marx repeated.

“You’re pussy blind,” Sam said. “This is exactly why I told you that you shouldn’t date Sadie back in 1996. It throws the balance of power, or whatever, off.” “I’m not going to dignify that,” Marx said. “You’re being childish and insulting, Sam.

Marx was fortunate because he saw everything as if it were a fortuitous bounty. It was impossible to know—were persimmons his favorite fruit, or had they just now become his favorite fruit because there they were, growing in his own backyard? He had certainly never mentioned persimmons before. My God, she thought, he is so easy to love.

Maybe it was her favorite fruit, too?

Marx ordered an expensive bottle of cheap champagne,

“And what is the point of having your own world if it can’t right a few injustices of the real one?”

Sam and Sadie did not have to go for umbrellas. The programmers had added them the night before.

Before closing shop, he had married 211 couples.

Sadie drove down Sunset, and past the Happy Foot Sad Foot sign (Happy Foot, but about to become Sad Foot), and then she turned onto Sam’s street.