Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

Still, Sadie had to concede, if only to herself: it wasn’t only that Sam liked promotion; he was better at it than she was. Before the game’s launch, they had done a joint appearance at a sales conference in Boca Raton. It had been the biggest crowd they had ever spoken to, around five hundred people. Sam had been nervous, but Sadie hadn’t been nervous at all. He had paced around the makeshift greenroom up until the moment they were called on stage. “I think I’m going to throw up,” Sam had said. “You’ll be fine.” Sadie had squeezed his hand and poured him a glass of water. “It’s a hotel ballroom and a couple of hundred nerds.” “I don’t like so many eyes on me,” Sam had said. He raked his fingers through his hair, which had become a Jewfro in the Florida humidity. But as soon as they got on the dais, Sam’s nerves disappeared, and he transformed into the world’s most entertaining talk-show guest. When Sadie was asked a question—something like “How did you two meet?”—she gave a specific answer, usually no more than two sentences. “Well, we’re both from Los Angeles,” Sadie said. “And we both liked to game.” When Sam was asked a question, he turned it into a novella. The story could go on for fifteen minutes and take an extended detour into childhood without anyone ever seeming the slightest bit bored. “On the day I met Sadie, I hadn’t spoken to anyone for six weeks, literally six weeks. But that’s a whole other story. I’ll tell you some other time when we’re better friends. Bu...