“Fuck,” Sam said. “So you’re, like, old?”
“I’m notold,” Alice said. “I’m forty.”
Sam laughed. “I respect the fact that you think there’s a difference.”
“It’s just all relative. Like, my dad...” Alice wasn’t sure how to explain how young Leonard was, today, in 1996. But she had to admit that Sam was right—forty did suddenly sound ancient. Twenty-five sounded old, and forty was too much to comprehend. Twenty-five was a guy who might hit on you at a bar, and you’d be both flattered and creeped out. Forty was strictly parental. Authority figure. The president.
“Did he, like,Time Brothersyou here?” Sam made a hand motion like a car zooming through space. In the credits, which were ridiculous, Barry and Tony drove in front of a background of asteroids, their rust-colored sedan bouncing over the stars.
“No,” Alice said. She pictured Leonard in his hospital bed. “Definitely not. But let’s go, I have an idea.”
“Wait,” Sam said. “Just tell me something, okay? Just tell me one thing so I know you’re not making this up. You know I fucking hate pranks.”
Alice thought about it. Sam wouldn’t care about sports statistics or which famous person was actually gay. She would care too much about her own wedding, and that seemed dangerous, in terms ofBack to the Future–ing things.
“The thing with your dad,” Alice finally said. They hadn’t talked about it until they were in college, miles away from each other, relying on the phone to stay in touch. Walt had always traveled a lot for his job, to DC and back, DC and back, and he’d often stay for a few nights. Lorraine had finally divorced him when Sam went to college, whichwas when they told her that he had another woman. A whole other life. Sam had been suspicious for years, but she’d never said a word to Alice. “It’s true. I’m really sorry. But it is what you think.”
Sam swallowed a mouthful of air. “Damn, man. I thought you were going to say, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger is president or something.”
Alice pulled Sam in for a hug. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” Sam cried into her shirt, but when she took a step back, she smiled.
“I fucking knew it,” she said. “Okay, let’s go.”
•••
Matryoshka didn’t open until 5 p.m., but the guy on the phone said that if she was just looking for something she lost, she could come by whenever. Alice was sure that it had happened at the bar—dark, subterranean, and always a little bit sticky underfoot. If there was any secret pathway to the past and the future, it made sense that it would be underground, running alongside the 2/3 train tunnels, places where no one ever went if they didn’t want, in one way or another, to disappear.
Alice had read about homeless people who lived in the tunnels, and there were abandoned train stations, she knew, there was one right on 91st Street, you could see it if you were on the 1/9 train, if you were paying attention. That had to be it—someone who had dug too far, crossed through some boundary, messed some shit up. Alice wished that she had paid attention when Leonard and his friends talked about science fiction novels, instead of just making fun of them for being grown men who spent all their time talking about parallel universes.
“So, what’s it like, being a grown-up?” Sam asked.
“It’s okay, I guess. I can do whatever I want. I can go wherever I please.”
Sam started singing, “And nothing compares to you...”
Alice laughed. “Yeah. I guess right now I just feel like if I had made different choices, then everything would be different. And everythingis okay, you know; I’m not dead, I’m not in jail. But I can’t help wondering if things could be better.” She thought about Leonard, and all the tubes and machines, and the frowning doctors.
According to Sam, they had only been to the bar once or twice—all the times that Alice remembered spending there must have happened later than Alice remembered. The summer after they graduated, maybe, or even during college, when they were both home for Thanksgiving and seeing friends. Alice thought they looked too young to just walk in, especially during the daylight hours—they would have to make something up.
“What are we looking for?” Sam whispered.
“Something,” Alice said. “We are looking for something. A doorway, a tunnel. A light switch? I don’t know. I think we’ll know it when we see it, if we see it. Just think about any time travel book or movie you’ve ever seen, okay?”
“Got it,” Sam said. “I mean, I will try.” Their dynamic was already different, Alice could feel it. It wasn’t that Sam didn’t trust her—clearly, she did. But Sam understood that the Alice she was talking to wasn’t just her Alice; she was like a chaperone Alice, a babysitter Alice. She hadn’t even told her that she worked at Belvedere yet. Then she’d be Professional Administrator Alice, and what fun would that be?
The door of Matryoshka was propped open, and the girls walked in slowly, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark. It was empty, with rows of bottles lined up on the bar and a half-seen person bent over on the other side, counting. Sam gripped Alice’s elbow, clearly freaked. Alice understood—her friend’s greatest powers were in situations she could control and organize, like studying for the LSATs or marrying a boy who worshipped her.
“Hello?” Alice said. She clutched Sam’s arm back, holding tight.
The bartender stood up straight—the one who had overserved herin such a friendly manner only the night before. “Oh, hi!” Alice said, relaxing. “Hi. Nice to see you again!”
“Girls,” the bartender said, both a greeting and a wary identification. He gave no indication that he recognized her.
“I lost something here, I think,” Alice said, and cleared her throat. “I called earlier. Can we just look around for a minute? We’re not going to drink anything.”
He started moving bottles back into the racks behind the bar. The whole place smelled terrible, like the cumulative regret of a thousand strangers with a soupçon of vomit and Lysol. “Okay,” he said as he worked.
Alice pulled Sam into the corner by the jukebox. “Okay, so I was here, and he was here, and I told him it was my birthday, and he gave me many free shots, and then I got drunk and I spilled something on my sweater and I think I handed out some tapas to some sorority girls.”
