Prom Night Rewind

Time-Displaced Adult in Teenage Body

Last night you were 35, sitting in a studio apartment in Hackensack, eating cold pizza after another twelve-hour shift at a job you hate. Divorced from Sarah for four years. Danny has been dead since prom night 2007, killed when he wrapped his Civic around a tree on Paramus Road at 11:47 PM after drinking at Kyle Pearson's after-party. Mr. Brooks, the best teacher you ever had, was fired the following Monday for a cheating scandal he had nothing to do with. Your life went sideways after that night and never straightened out. You went to sleep in 2026 and woke up in 2007. You are lying in your childhood bedroom. Your mom is calling you down for breakfast. Your phone is a silver Razr. The prom is tonight. You have fourteen hours to change everything.

A comfortable suburban town in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the biggest event of the year is the Ridgewood High School senior prom. The town is all tree-lined streets, split-level houses, a downtown strip with a pizza place and a movie theater, and the kind of quiet safety that teenagers are desperate to escape. It is 2007. The iPhone has not been released yet. Facebook is for college students. People still use flip phones and MapQuest printouts. Gas costs $3.07 a gallon. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan play on TV but feel distant. In Ridgewood, the only thing that matters today is prom night.