Yesterday Is History Read online

  The right corner of her mouth lifts into a smile, and she points to a pot. “Want to man the mashed potatoes for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Is this what she wanted? A cooking partner? Why not ask Blake?

  “Just keep stirring them until they are thick,” she instructs.

  I listen, staring at the bubbling off-white substance like it has secrets to tell me. Mom doesn’t allow me in the kitchen whenever she’s trying to perfect even the simplest of recipes, which is kind of hilarious considering she usually fails and ends up ordering takeout. Even though she’s bad at it, she cooks to feel calmer, and my father and me being in the kitchen doesn’t help her relax.

  But she’s taught me a few tricks, enough so that when I go to college, I won’t be one of those kids who eats Pop Tarts and pizza bites for every meal.

  “Can I add something to it?” I ask.

  Claire sucks on her finger when she looks at me and nods.

  I move through the kitchen, searching for what I need, finding the paprika and cayenne pepper. I fold them into the fluffy whites, adjusting the percentages depending on my taste. I want to ask her Why Blake? to settle my burning urge for knowledge once and for all. Cut the snake’s head off before it multiplies.

  “When did you find out you were a time traveler?” I ask instead.

  Claire doesn’t stop stirring the concoction that she’s creating, but a smile does appear on her lips.

  “How old are you, Andre? Seventeen?”

  “Eighteen in six months.”

  “So you’re a December baby. Just like me.” She beams proudly. “Then I was about ten years younger than you when I first jumped.”

  She pours the mixture into the pot. It sizzles, and the air fills with aromatic smells of chives, onions, and peppers.

  “I was obsessed with history as a kid, you see. A double-edged sword for a time traveler. The desire to learn about someplace is sometimes enough to actually make you jump. And for me, that was Paris, two weeks before the Germans invaded.”

  I whistle, loud and sharp. She nods. “It was a jarring experience. But that’s what I think makes us so fortunate, Andre. We get to see history firsthand. Explore parts of it that have been excluded by the victors or get front-row seats to the biggest, most important events. It’s a luxury and a blessing.”

  “And a curse,” I add, putting the dish in the oven.

  “This again?”

  “It’s one thing to be able to look back at history with twenty-twenty hindsight and think, I would have done this differently if I were there, but to actually be there and do nothing? Doesn’t that make us worse than the people who can’t do anything?”

  Without missing a beat, as if she had been waiting for me to step right into that trap and come to that conclusion, she responds. “Rule number three,” she reminds me. “We can’t change the past.”

  “Because why?” I object.

  “Because there’s no almanac that can tell us how one change will affect the rest of the world. What if we stopped a bomber from destroying a building, but instead he bombs a stadium?”

  “Or what if because you stopped the bomber, someone inside that building lives and is able to find a cure for cancer?” I counter.

  “We can’t make a concrete choice in the hopes of an abstract solution, Andre.”

  “That’s exactly what science is.”

  “We can agree to disagree on that topic.”

  The room falls silent as she continues to prepare dinner. I busy myself, getting what she needs when she asks for it, trying to predict what she will need before she has to ask. We continue this standstill, this awkward dance, for about ten minutes.

  “How is being taught by my son working out for you?” she asks, looking up as she sifts some flour into a bowl. “He’s not going too fast, is he?”

  “We only started the basics,” I explain. “Rules, regulations, the boring stuff of time travel.”

  “But important.” She points a wooden spoon at me. Flour mixed with eggs threatens to drip off. “Those rules are there for your—and every time traveler’s—protection, Andre.”

  “You sound like my parents.”

  “Then they must be very wise, and I hope to meet them someday. Reach into the fridge and get me the bacon, will you?”

  I follow through, getting the three-pound bag of bacon. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. But work on chopping that up while you do.”

  “How did you know?” I ask. “That I time traveled the first time. You said you felt it. How?”

  Claire doesn’t stop stirring her pot, but from my side view, I can see the playful, teasing smile on her lips. “This is probably not the answer you want to hear, but some things in the world cannot yet be explained by science. They just are.”

  “That sounds like magic,” I say. “You’re using the fallback of magic as your answer?”

  “Not magic,” she clarifies. “Just…not yet explained.”

  I’m not happy with that answer. It feels like a cop-out. Is it so hard for people to say, I don’t know? And if they actually do know, why keep it hidden?

  Instead, I steer the conversation in another direction.

  “Are there others like me? I mean, I got the ability to travel from David’s liver, and his other organs went to other people, right? Did they also gain the same ability?”

  “David’s other organs were damaged in the accident.”

  “So I’m the only one?” I ask.

  “Yes, and I’m glad for it. Your passion for knowledge, your stubbornness… Those things make you an excellent time traveler.”

  I’m not sure if that answer satisfies me, but it’s enough for now.

  I hear Blake’s heavy footsteps before I hear his voice. He comes down the staircase and rounds the corner, now dressed in a worn Yale shirt with the Y half faded off. Casually, he walks into the kitchen and kisses his mom’s cheek. He makes all the right motions, and she responds in kind: a tilt of the head, a small smile. But everything looks and feels so…mechanical. The actions are there. The emotion is not.

  “I’m making dessert, but dinner should be ready in just a few minutes. Blake, can you help Andre set the table?”

  “Is Dad going to join us?”

  Claire is in the middle of answering when the front door opens once again. Unlike before, though, the energy is different. Claire gives off an air of sophistication and poise. Greg, when he enters, is like a hurricane of papers and anxious energy.

  “Did I miss it?”

  “Still cooking, dear.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Greg lets out a breath, and the level of anxiety in the room lowers as he starts putting his things down.

  “Andre.” He smiles, nodding to me. “Nice to see you again. Hey,” he says, turning to Blake. “How was your—”

  Blake snorts under his breath, grabs a handful of utensils and napkins, and gives them to me, completely ignoring his father.

  “You like iced tea?” he asks me. “I’m going to get the glasses. Do you know how to set the table?”

  He’s tenser than he was upstairs, I think. His shoulders are tight. Is his relationship with his parents really that bad? Does just being around them feel like being close to the Elephant’s Foot of Chernobyl?

  “I’m from the other side of town; I’m not uneducated.”

  Blake opens his mouth to say something, probably some witty rebuttal, but instead he shuts it tight. He puts the pitcher down, with only two glasses filled.

  “Call me when dinner’s ready.”

  He walks by me, heading back up the stairs before Claire can stop him. She sighs and turns to me with a weary smile.

  “That was a joke,” I tell her. “It wasn’t meant to be rude.”

  “I know, dear.”
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br />   “You just stepped into a hornet’s nest and had no idea,” Greg says with an apologetic smile. “He’ll get better.”

  But I’m not sure if he’s saying that more to reassure me or himself.

  “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

  Claire shrugs, putting the finished mashed potatoes in a bowl. “You’ll see,” she says, disappearing into the living room.

  Again, not at all convincing.

  Fifteen

  “Andre? Can you join me in my study for a second?”

  I’m halfway through setting the table when Mr. McIntyre pokes his head in from the adjoining room.

  “It’ll just take a moment.”

  Will it, though?

  I peek into the kitchen. It looks like Mrs. McIntyre is almost done.

  I walk through the living room again and slide into Greg’s study. It’s massive—so big that I think, if we lived here, Mom might divorce Dad to have it to herself. Hell, Dad might divorce Mom for it. It’s lined with about three times as many books as the living room and has three desks with papers, maps, and other documents scattered around. Greg reminds me of an archetype I know far too well: the absentminded professor.

  This, I can relate to.

  “What do you teach?” I ask, idly picking up one of the papers. It’s written in sloppy Arabic, which I’m guessing is his own writing. “My parents are professors at Boston College and Northeastern, both in the sciences. Well, both in STEM. Mom’s in statistics, and Dad, biology.”

  He glances over for a brief moment, adjusting his glasses in the same way my dad does. “Really now? I knew there was something I liked about you. Your parents must be smart. Linguistics, for me; I’m the department chair at Harvard. I specialize in dead languages.”

  “I’m guessing being a time traveler helps with that?” I venture. “Being able to go back to when they spoke it, and hearing it firsthand?”

  Greg chuckles, stacking some papers and dropping them into a file drawer. “It did, at one point. I stopped being able to travel in my twenties. Not much older than you are now, actually.” There’s a darkness in his eyes when he says that. Not anger or resentment, but sorrow. Like he’s lost an old friend.

  “So, Andre. I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more when you first came to visit.”

  “Mrs. McIntyre was more than accommodating, Mr. McIntyre.”

  “Please.” He gently raises his hand. “Call me Greg. You’re practically family now.”

  We both know how awkward that sounds as soon as it leaves his lips. But while I avert my gaze, he does his best to backtrack.

  “Because you’re a time traveler,” he adds quickly. “We call each other family.”

  Not because I have your son’s organ inside of me?

  “I got you.”

  The awkwardness is heavy in the air for half a minute before I decide to break it.

  “I want to say it again, Mr.—Greg.”

  Greg’s brow furrows.

  “To say thank you.” I gesture to my abdomen. “For giving me this. For saving my life. I know it probably—”

  Greg holds his hand up again. But this time, he doesn’t speak. He shuffles past me, squats down, and opens a box. He sifts through it, pulling out folders and books and carefully stacking them until he finds what he wants. Using his palm, he slowly, carefully wipes it clean and passes it to me.

  Another photo album. “David was always helping people. It’s all he wanted to do in his life. In fact, he didn’t care about being able to time travel, because he couldn’t fix the wrongs of the past.

  “That said, the fact that you have his organ, is, in a sense, David doing what he always wanted to do. Helping someone. I know, deep down, that this is what David was always destined to do. Help. And he’ll help you every day. He found a purpose in a way that some—most—people never do. And I couldn’t be prouder.

  “So…” He hurries back to his chair and sits down, resting his elbows on his knees. “Tell me everything about you. Your passions, what you like, your schooling, where you want to go to college, if you want to go to college, what you want to do when you grow up. As little or as much as you’re willing to tell me. I want to know. I like to know everything about my friends and those who might one day be part of my family.”

  If some random man came up to me and asked me to tell him everything about me because he wanted to be friends, I’d probably kick him in the balls and run in the opposite direction.

  But Greg McIntyre isn’t a random man. He’s a man grieving the loss of his son in the only way he knows how: talking to the one connection to his dead child. And perhaps in some twisted, deep-down, backward way, he feels guilty. Maybe he hasn’t had time to grieve yet.

  But I can help ease that grief, and as Greg said, David only ever wanted to help people.

  Maybe I can take a bit of that burden, of that life mission, and help someone right now.

  And so I sit down and tell him everything that makes me me.

  * * *

  Dinner with the McIntyres isn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. And the food isn’t bad either.

  “Cooking is how I de-stress,” Claire says, dabbing at the corners of her mouth. Somehow, her bright red lipstick is still impeccable. “Between the firm, the hospital, the PTA…”

  “We get it, Mom, you do a lot,” Blake says with food in his mouth. Greg glares at his son, who mumbles an apology under his breath.

  While this whole interaction goes down, I sneak a look at my phone, where I see a series of texts from Isobel.

  Your parents are wondering where you are.

  I lied for you, by the way, but where are you?

  Oh my God, you’re at her house again, aren’t you?

  I stg if you’re dead, Dre, I’m going to kill her myself.

  “So tell me, Andre,” Claire says. “How was your first jump?”

  “Sorry?” I ask, putting my phone away.

  She flourishes her hands excitedly. “It’s a rite of passage for a traveler. Everyone remembers theirs. It tells a lot about a person. I already told you mine.” She takes a sip of her wine and gestures to Greg, who jumps in without a second thought.

  “Egypt, when Cleopatra became ruler,” Greg notes. “I was in the crowd. Completely scared shitless.”

  “Greg!”

  “Excuse my French.”

  “And you?” I turn to Blake. “I know you can’t jump, but I’m sure you’ve thought about it, right?” I ask. Mostly, my hope is to get Blake to contribute to the conversation. To make up for my earlier faux pas and crack that hard shell.

  It seems that asking that question was not the way to do it.

  Blake slams his fork down on his plate, loudly enough for a sharp note to ripple through the air and direct everyone’s attention to him.

  Claire glances over at her son, only moving her eyes, before looking at me.

  “I want to make one thing clear,” Blake says slowly. “Just because I can’t jump, that doesn’t make me less than anyone at this table, all right?”

  “No one was saying that, dear,” Claire chimes in. “Yes, you being unable to jump is—”

  “If you say it’s a goddamned travesty, Mom, I swear to fucking God.”

  “Hey,” Greg booms. “Don’t talk to your mother that way, especially at the dinner table, especially in front of a guest.”

  Blake shuts his mouth, but I can’t tell if it’s out of respect or self-preservation. He chews quickly, stabbing his food with the utmost deliberation.

  Finally, I break the silence. “It was good,” I say, clearing my throat. “You asked about my first jump? I went back to the sixties. End of the sixties, actually.”

  “Oh, that’s a good time,” she says, her face beaming with approval. I can’t help but wonder what her reaction would hav
e been if I’d said, like, the Ice Age. A frown?

  Claire puts her fork and knife down, crossing them over each other on the plate. She rests her chin in the palm of her right hand and leans forward, her eyes actually smizing.

  “Did you go to a disco? Oh! Please tell me you did something amazing! You can’t get your first jump back, Andre!”

  “Well, then couldn’t you argue that no matter what I did, it was memorable? I mean, most people don’t time travel.”

  Claire pauses and blinks owlishly at me, like she’s processing.

  Greg chuckles. “He’s got you there, babe!”

  I smile and look over at Blake. Maybe he finds this funny too. Maybe he’s processed his uncomfortable tenseness.

  No such luck.

  The only one not having a good time is Blake, who is still scowling.

  I try to silently say something to him, make a mental check-in through eye contact, but he doesn’t look up from his plate. He’s just moving around the same goddamned pea he’s been pushing with his fork for the last five minutes.

  I didn’t do anything wrong, I tell myself.

  So why do I feel like his bad mood is my cross to bear?

  “What are you planning on studying, Andre?” Greg asks.

  “I want to do biology,” I reply without thinking about it. It’s such an automatic response—telling people that I’m going to cure some disease, or try to. This is the first time ever that the words don’t feel right against my tongue, and it takes me a moment to figure out why.

  Michael.

  The seeds of doubt that he placed in my head are taking root. I can hear his echoing voice playing devil’s advocate in favor of me finding my own path, finding my passion.

  What a dumb thing, passion. Passion comes from what you put your blood, sweat, and tears into. Passion is what you do on the side when you’re done with the job that gives you the freedom to explore things. Passion, and following it, is a white middle-class concept, not a Black middle-class one.

  “I think I want to study oncology.” I force the words out. They create a sense of responsibility. Now the McIntyres will know me as That Black Kid Who Wants to Cure Cancer. I can’t let them down. I have to follow through with it.