Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

If it hadn’t been serious, they would have already told him. “I’m thinking about asking Sadie out,” Marx would have said. “What do you think?” Or Sadie might have said, “Funny thing. I’m seeing Marx. Don’t know what will happen.” The omission let him know it was fatally serious. 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. And at the wedding, Sadie’s grandmother would shoot sympathetic looks at Sam, because she had always been nice to him, and she would know he was brokenhearted. Freda would grab his hand with her soft, old hand, and pat it gently, and say, “Life is long” or some other unhelpful, old-lady wisdom. 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, and Sam would become sad bachelor uncle Sam, expected to give presents for birthdays and holidays. And every day, he’d have to see Marx and Sadie at work. 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. And eventual...