Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

“Promise me, we won’t ever do this again,” Sadie said. “Promise me, that no matter what happens, no matter what dumb thing we supposedly perpetrate on each other, we won’t ever go six years without talking to each other. Promise me you’ll always forgive me, and I promise I’ll always forgive you.” These, of course, are the kinds of vows young people feel comfortable making when they have no idea what life has in store for them.

she had not insisted he tell his sad stories to satisfy her own curiosity.

There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway.

“Why make anything if you don’t believe it could be great?”

How your sense of self could change depending on your location.

“We’ve never…It’s more than romantic. It’s better than romance. It’s friendship.”

(1) all things were knowable by anyone, and (2) anything was fixable if you took the time to figure out what was broken.

She couldn’t entirely articulate who he was to her. He was not Alice or Freda or Dov. Those relationships had easy names: sister, grandmother, boyfriend. Sam was her friend, but “friend” was a broad category, wasn’t it? “Friend” was a word that was overused to the point that it had no meaning at all.

They are not only my friends. They are my colleagues.

the sense of ease between Audrey and Tiny Tim was palpable. While Keanu sat in the chair, Audrey lay in the bed next to Tiny Tim, their fingertips casually touching, in the way of people who were entirely comfortable around each other. She almost seemed to be an extension of him, and he, of her. There is love here, she thought. In the end, she decided, with some amount of disappointment, that none of them were involved romantically.

She spent the next day packing up her life and intermittently arguing with Dov, going over the same ground. He told her she was nothing; she, in turn, said nothing. He apologized; she packed. He insulted her; she packed. He apologized again; she packed. 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.

Why was it so hard for him to say he loved her even when she said it to him? He knew he loved her. People who felt far less for each other said “love” all the time, and it didn’t mean a thing. And maybe that was the point. He more than loved Sadie Green. There needed to be another word for it.

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

Sadie and Marx’s whole future was revealed to him. Sadie would probably marry Marx, and the wedding would be in Northern California, Carmel-by-the-Sea or Monterey.

Sadie and Marx would buy a house together, somewhere in Laurel Canyon or maybe Palisades. And they’d get a dog—a big, rangy, mixed-breed thing, or if not that, a Borzoi called Zelda or Rosella. They’d throw big dinner parties. The house would be the kind of place where everyone wanted to congregate because Sadie and Marx had great taste. They were both great. And at some point, there would be children,

He would watch them arrive together, and leave together, and he could imagine the drive, and the jokes, and the references that you only had with the person you shared your life with.

in business, they call this a pivot. But life is filled with them, too. The most successful people are also the most able to change their mindsets. You may not ever have a romantic relationship with Sadie, but you two will be friends for the rest of your lives, and that is something of equal or greater value, if you choose to see it that way.”

Sam used to say that Marx was the most fortunate person he had ever met—he was lucky with lovers, in business, in looks, in life. But the longer Sadie knew Marx, the more she thought Sam hadn’t truly understood the nature of Marx’s good fortune. 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.

‘Zweisamkeit’ is the feeling of being alone even when you’re with other people.”

The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.

“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”

“And what is love, in the end?” Alabaster said. “Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else’s journey through life?”

“There must be more to life than working and swimming and playing Go.” “The boredom you speak of,” Alabaster said. “It is what most of us call happiness.”

“Why do you think we never got together?” Sadie sat next to Sam on the bed. “Sammy,” she said. “We were together. You must know that. When I’m honest with myself, the most important parts of me were yours.” “But together together? The way you were with Marx or Dov.” “How can you not know this? Lovers are…common.” She studied Sam’s face. “Because I loved working with you better than I liked the idea of making love to you. Because true collaborators in this life are rare.”