Tomorrow Has a Cover Charge

How it begins

At midnight, the cover charge rose to a hundred pounds.

Frank looked at the queue.

A hundred pounds was an ambitious price for a club whose main attraction was a reliable toilet.

He called the manager.

"New tariff," she said.

"For what?"

"Tomorrow."

Frank looked through the open door.

Inside, people were dancing beneath the same tired silver ball.

Outside, a woman checked her purse and began to cry.

"Tomorrow is usually included," he said.

"Not under the revised access model."

A government notice appeared on his tablet.

Authorized temporal entry point.

Frank had been a doorman for nineteen years. He had refused entry for fighting, counterfeit identification and one memorable attempt to bring a pony upstairs.

He had never refused someone a Tuesday.

The woman at the front of the queue held out forty pounds.

"It's everything."

Frank looked at the tablet.

Then at her shoes, wet from a long walk.

From the kitchen doorway, Leila watched him.

She had been carrying the same sack of onions for several minutes.

"Problem?" she asked.

"Apparently I control tomorrow."

"That explains why it's always sticky."

She nodded toward the alley.

Frank knew that door.

Staff entrance. Broken meter. Lock repaired twice and never correctly.

The tablet sounded.

He looked down.

Three people had entered tomorrow without paying.

Leila returned to the kitchen.

The onions had disappeared.

So had the woman with forty pounds.

Frank put his tablet face down.

The next man in the queue wore a suit worth more than Frank's monthly rent.

"Premium entry?"

"Kitchen's this way."

"I've paid."

"Then you'll have money left for soup."

Behind the silver ball, the club clock moved one minute forward.

For the first time all evening, Frank smiled.

He had always preferred a job with a clear door policy.

He opened the kitchen door and held it while the next person stepped through.