This Time Tomorrow

Alice has breakfast with her father and admires Leonard’s younger looks and health, the knowledge of his eventual decline always at the back of her mind. She realizes that at this time, her father is 49, less than a decade older than her 40-year-old self. He reminds her about her SATs, but adult Alice knows that the scores don’t truly matter.

Sam and Alice call each other several times over the morning to plan their walk to school together and discuss their outfits. In their adulthood, they mostly text; Sam is always too busy to be on the phone. Alice revels in the ease and intimacy of their calls and wants to call Sam again and again just to hear her voice.

Leonard walks Alice to school since Sam is running late. She’s happy to see him walking around New York, something he hasn’t been able to do in a long time. He tells her about herself as a baby. Alice realizes her mother hasn’t called her to say happy birthday yet.

Outside Belvedere, Alice is stunned to see so many familiar faces that she’s long forgotten about. She asks her father if he would like to start his life over again, but he says that that might change its course too much, which might mean no Alice. Alice decides she doesn’t want to relive her whole life and resolves to get to Matryoshka, thinking it might help her figure out how to return to her 40-year-old life. Alice watches Melinda, much younger here, open the school. Tommy Joffey approaches, and Alice gets butterflies. He chats with her father about a book, and then confirms he’ll see Alice at her birthday party later that night.

Sam and her mother, Lorraine, a professor, pull up to school in a cab just in time for the SAT prep class. In the bathroom, they run into Sarah, who Alice knows will die from cancer by age 30. They also run into Phoebe, who alludes to scoring drugs for Alice’s birthday party; Alice knows that Phoebe will be expelled from school. When they’re finally alone, Alice tells Sam that she’s actually 40 years old and has somehow traveled back in time from the future. Sam asks her if she’s on drugs but promises to help her.

Alice excuses herself from the SAT prep class to visit Melinda in her office. Though there’s no discernible reason why a 16-year-old would visit the admissions director, Alice just wants to see her. She tells Melinda that she’s nervous about her future, but Melinda assures her that plans never work out and that no matter what decisions she makes about college or career, she can always change her mind.

Tommy and Alice hang out in Central Park, smoking. Though they are just friends, Alice is in love with him. He tells her about a screenplay he’s working on, insisting he will write and direct it instead of going to college, but Alice knows he will go to Princeton, just like his parents. He asks her if Lizzie, a senior, is going to her party, and Alice knows what will happen: Tommy will have sex with Lizzie at Alice’s party—in her bed—after which Alice and Tommy won’t speak again.

Alice meets up with Sam, who starts believing her about the time travel when Alice reveals that Sam is correct in her suspicion that her father is having an affair. They go to Matryoshka, hoping to find some sort of sign or tunnel for time travel. The bartender is the same one from the night before, and he lets them look around while he cleans up the bar. Alice remembers hazy details from the night before, including taking pictures in the photo booth. Alice and Sam snap some pictures in the booth, but nothing happens other than a photo strip of them at age 16, which Alice notes is almost exactly like the one Sam gave her on her 40th birthday. She can see vestiges of her adult self in the tension in her face, however. Alice tells Sam about Google, but Sam refuses to believe her when she says one day Sam will move to New Jersey.

They go back to Alice’s place. Sam asks her what she’s going to do, but Alice doesn’t tell her that what she really wants, before returning to her 40-year-old life, is to get her dad to quit smoking cigarettes, hoping she can change the course of his health and life. Alice’s mom calls to wish her happy birthday.

Leonard takes Sam and Alice out for lunch. Sam wants Alice to ask Leonard about time traveling, thinking he may be knowledgeable about the topic, since he wrote a novel about it. Alice asks her father what he writes at night and why he won’t publish it, and Sam adds that he should write a sequel to Time Brothers. Leonard explains that a successful book “creates a sense of responsibility to one’s readers” to continue writing the same kind of work, which he finds “paralyzing” (132). Recognizing that her father’s fear has tempered his creativity, Alice realizes that her adult self has followed in his footsteps by settling for her circumstances and not pushing for more.

Leonard and Alice go to the museum to see the life-size model of the whale, one of their favorite shared spaces. Alice considers telling her father about her time travel and notes that she “[i]sn’t worried that he [will] doubt her”; rather, she is “afraid of what [will] happen next because Leonard [will] believe her right away, without hesitation” (137). Alice cherishes this time with her father, the ease of companionship between them.

Leonard and Alice watch Peggy Sue Got Married. Leonard takes Alice and Sam out for dinner at their favorite pizza place. In the bathroom, Sam tells Alice she’s been doing some research about time-travel theories. Sam suggests that because Alice is within her body and not watching her younger self, she might be in some sort of wormhole. They eat dinner with Leonard before he departs for a convention and leaves Alice alone for her party.

Alice tells Sam about adult life. The fact that she has had sex with many men shocks and impresses Sam. They prepare for the party, and Alice wonders what, if anything, she needs or wants to change about this night. As the party begins, Alice tries to remember the events of the original night. After watching Tommy and Lizzie disappear into her bedroom together, she had made out with as many guys as she could, and then Sam threw up and needed help. Phoebe offers Alice and Sam drugs, but they don’t take them. Alice tells Sam that she’s decided to have sex with Tommy that night, explaining, “[I]f I actually take ownership of my feelings, and act on them, instead of being afraid all the time, I think that will change my life” (152).

Alice brings Tommy into her bedroom and disrobes. Even as her adult self acknowledges the dubiousness of her plan, she thinks, “She hadn’t spent the last twenty-odd years wishing that she’d been with Tommy, that she’d married Tommy, but she had spent the last twenty-odd years learning that waiting was an inefficient way to get what she wanted” (156). Tommy and Alice have sex.

Alice decides to end the party and send everyone home so she can figure out how to get back to her 40-year-old life. She tells Tommy she has something important to do, and when he asks to come with her, she agrees. She reflects that she hasn’t changed enough as a person because she never left the familiarity of her neighborhood and school. She and Sam decide she might only have one day of time travel, meaning she’s running out of time.

Alice, Sam, and Tommy take the subway to the Marriott, where Leonard’s convention is. Alice has realized that if she only has a short window, she wants to spend it with her father. Tommy holds Alice’s hand, a rapid change in their dynamic. When they get to the convention, which is full of science-fiction writers meeting their fans, Alice asks for her father. She’s told he’s in his hotel room.

Alice goes to Leonard’s room, where his friends Simon and Howard are waiting for him. She asks them about time travel, and, given that they are sci-fi writers and fans, they tell her about multiverses and wormholes. They tell her about the Baby Hitler problem, in which going back in time to kill Hitler might change a million other things—or might change nothing. Overwhelmed, she asks again for her father.

Howard leads Alice to another hotel room, and when her father opens the door it’s clear that he’s with a woman. The woman is Laura, a relationship he’s kept secret from Alice. Leonard is embarrassed about the situation, but Alice is eager to talk to him about time travel. When Laura leaves, Alice tells Leonard that she’s from the future, but they are interrupted by Sam and Tommy, drunk from alcohol dispensed by Leonard’s friends. Alice tries to have a private moment with Leonard, explaining that she woke up here after her 40th birthday. Leonard’s reaction—a delighted smile—surprises Alice, and she wonders if he registered the enormity of her claim. They are interrupted again by Sam, who starts throwing up, and Leonard suggests they get her friends home before they talk more.

Back at home, Leonard tells Alice that he believes her; in fact, he believes that their home is itself a portal because he too has time traveled, many times. He explains that it happens in the guardhouse between 3am and 4am—and that he actually bought the house on Pomander Walk because the area had been identified, on message boards, as a potential portal for time travel. The event he always returns to is Alice’s birth—but no matter how many times he went back in time, he could never fix his relationship with Serena. Leonard reflects that people don’t really change all that much, so neither does the unfurling of their lives. Leonard tells her that she’ll travel back to her 40-year-old life between 3am and 4am again, and that it’s unlikely too much in her life will have changed. He tells her that it’s possible for her to come back, to go back and forth if she wants to. Alice doesn’t tell him about his slow death in the hospital, but she begs him to quit smoking before she falls asleep at three o’clock.