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 everything is 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 her in 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 soup?on 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.”
“When was this?” Sam asked. Their noses were almost touching, skin orange from the light of the tiny bulbs behind the songs.
“Last night. My last night.”
“Got it, got it. So we’re just looking for something weird? Like . . . a door? A creepy hallway?” Sam looked at the room around them—an ancient pinball machine, a sagging couch that probably held DNA to solve half a dozen crimes, the jukebox.
“The photo booth!” Alice said. She pulled Sam by the hand past the bar and into the next room.
The photo booth curtain was open and the seat empty. Alice scooted in, and Sam slid in beside her.
“It looks normal to me,” Sam said.
“Me too,” Alice said. “I just wish I could Google this.”
“Are you talking future to me?” Sam pursed her lips. “If you’re going to do that, then I’m going to need to know more about who I married, and whether it’s Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington.”