Author's note:
The Pierce-Lopezes live in 2040s NYC. They have a teenage daughter, who becomes "Sugar Motta" to us in 2011 Lima, and a little boy.
As a New Yorker myself, I always imagined that after two kids, Brittany and Santana would want to have a house and a lawn that were farther from the chaos of Midtown and Lower Manhattan. This would place them in Westchester, New Jersey, or parts of the Bronx, Queens, or Brooklyn. Washington Heights is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, currently known for its large Dominican population, and is popularly known as being one of the scarier and less safe places to live. In its current state, it might prove undesirable to a financially successful Brittana trying to raise a family. A bordering neighborhood, Inwood, however, is slowly gentrifying, and could be a potential place for the Pierce-Lopezes to live in the 2040s.
Shelby Corcoran, by some stroke of luck (or fate?), returns to McKinley High for a few days without any long term plans to hang around Lima for much longer than that. Little does she know that within those few days, she will meet "Sugar," and later be hired by Al Motta to start the Troubletones.
Ever since you were little, the phrases "Honey, please be careful around my time machine," or "Nena, don't touch Mama's time machine!" have been drilled into your head.
In the corner of the den, Mama has loose nuts, bolts, and tools scattered around her private workspace. When you learned to walk, the area was blocked off and Mama was more diligent about making sure everything was neatly put away and out of your reach. When you were in kindergarten and got a little too curious, a smack on the hand and some scolding (kinda) reinforced it. When you got older, the verbal warnings were all your mothers had energy for, and after a while, it just got boring.
You figured after a while that it wasn't actually a time machine. Right?
At first glance, it just looked like a locker ("I have a thing for lockers," Mama would say, winking and grinning at Mom). But Mama always warned you to never touch it because she wasn't done with it and wasn't sure if it was dangerous. She most definitely warned you to never, ever, EVER step inside of it.
You used to be tempted, but now it just seems like old news, like an inside joke your family shares.
"It's a time machine," your little brother argues, when it's his turn to be the curious one.
"No way, Charlie. It's a locker. Look at it."
"Don't you always hear Mama yelling at us to stay away from her time machine?"
"Yea, but she's just joking, Charlie. Like when she tells us to 'stay on our islands' when we're sick so that we don't get out of bed and make ourselves sicker. She doesn't mean it literally."
He's a good kid, and you know he's smarter than this, even for a six year old, so why in the world would he believe that it's a real time machine?
Mom laughs and tells you that you're too practical like her, and the difference is that Charlie is like Mama; he's a genius, and he also believes that anything is possible.
—
Anxiety has been nagging at your nerves and you're too restless to sleep one night. You don't want to wake everybody up and make them as miserable and cranky as you are right now, so you dodge all of the familiar creaks and squeaks of the steps as you head downstairs to the kitchen. The light's already on, though, and Mom and Mama are already snoring in their bed, so it must be Charlie. Sure enough, you see the back of his head and his jet-black hair sticking up in all directions. He's sitting at his usual spot at the table with his back to the doorway, head craning over what you can already tell is your physics textbook and homework.
Showoff, you think, trying to suppress a grin.
The cutest thing about him is when he swings his legs in his chair, feet dangling high above the ground.
It's not even in a restless little kid sort of way, the way you were, but in a content puppy wagging his tail sort of way. You're only really concerned when he's not swinging his legs. That usually means he's sad about something.
He's swinging his legs now, so you guess that means he's not nervous about his first day of school tomorrow.
It's okay, though, because you're nervous enough for everybody. He doesn't talk much, to the point that all of your neighbors think he hasn't learned how to speak.
"It's because he's been raised by two women," you hear from an elderly neighbor, clicking her tongue in judgment. You're tempted to go all Washington Heights on her, but even Mom and Mama aren't fussing about it.
"Charlie's fine," they insist after the fourth time you've come home in tears. Fighting off the jerks at school and in the neighborhood is so exhausting.
"Remember what I said about him being a genius?" Mom reminds you. "Sometimes people won't understand, and that's fine. You just have to stick by him. Things happen for a reason."
Psh. You don't believe in fate; either crap sucks and you change it, or you come to terms with the fact that it sucks. And you'll be damned if you're gonna let people make his life suck.
He talks a lot to you, though, so it's not like he's abnormal the way everyone says he is. The funny thing is that he talks better than most of your classmates (especially the ones that make fun of him. Assholes). He's brilliant, and you hate that you and your mothers are the only ones that see it.
Your footsteps barely make a sound on the linoleum kitchen floor (Mama trained you out of your borderline stomping by making you walk across the nightingale floor she built, which gave Mom headaches). Still, he picks his head up from the paper and pencil in front of him and turns to you. He always knows when you're there.
"Want duckie-shaped pancakes and milk?" he asks, half bored, half happy that you finally showed up.
"It's 2 in the morning. Don't you have school in the morning?"
"So? You're awake too. I thought you'd be coming downstairs. That's why I made you pancakes."
You take your seat across from him as he slides a plate over.
"How'd you know I'd be coming downstairs so late?"
"Dunno, just a feeling." He says that all of the time when he knows exactly how you're going to react to things, and anticipates what you'll do before you even know. It's kinda eerie, but you'd never admit that you appreciate how close you are.
"You ready for tomorrow?" you ask with a mouthful of pancakes. But it's more like you're asking yourself, not him.
"Yes. But I might get bored." He slides your physics homework across the table to you. "I corrected it. You made careless computational mistakes, even if you used the formulas correctly. Were you rushing?"
Showoff pops into your head again. "Oh jeez, Charlie, you definitely will be bored," you say, shoving your homework underneath your textbook, slightly embarrassed for yourself, but slightly proud of him. "You just have to do well and show the teachers that you're not being challenged. They'll bump you up and you'll probably graduate before me." The last part is supposed to be a joke, but you both know it's probably true.
"I guess," he says with a shrug. "But that involves talking, and I don't like bothering with that. Sometimes stuff comes out wrong and I just look…stupid."
"Don't say that. You're the smartest person I know."
"Yeah, but you grew up with me. Sometimes I say smart things, and sometimes I catch myself talking about how breakfast is confusing and nobody gets it. The old cat lady next door laughed at me so sometimes I don't see the point in talking."
"I'm sure she wasn't trying to be mean," you insist. But "It's because he's been raised by two women" rings in your head, and your bitterness betrays your words of comfort.
"You're a bad liar," he says with a grin. Nothing gets past him. "Whatever. Mama says I'm a unicorn, so
I'm gonna go to school, be a unicorn, and I'll be fine. Doesn't mean I have to talk if I don't feel like it though."
"Okay, fine. I'll be here when you get home so that you can tell me all about how it went." Of course he knows it's more for your own peace of mind than his.
"Wanna take me to the bus tomorrow morning and pick me up at the end of the day?"
"I thought you weren't scared?" you tease.
"I'm not," he says simply. "But I still like knowing that you'll be there anyway."
You smile that smile that you save for him, and only him. "You got it, buddy. I'll be there."
He holds out his pinky. "Promise?"
Promises are their own unique institution in the Pierce-Lopez household. Pinky promises are practically sacred to your mothers, though you've never understood why. Even Mom, who's a bit rough around the edges, stresses the importance of keeping them.
"But you have to break promises at your job all the time," you argue to her often.
"Yes, but I'm talking about promises you make to your family, nena," she insists. "Clients and acquaintances come and go, but at the end of the day, your family's all you've got. A family wouldn't be anything if you broke your promises to them as easily as you do with everyone else."
You stare into his honest blue eyes, so much like Mama's, and you remember why these promises are so important.
"I'll be there."
—
On the way back from putting Charlie to bed, you pass by the den. A tiny glint of light catches your eye, and some strange sort of curiosity grabs hold of you. The moonlight is shining on the metal of the locker (fine, "Time machine," you correct yourself as you roll your eyes). You place your hand on the cool surface and wonder what you'd do if this "time machine," even time travel, was real.
Not that there's much to change anyway.
Your mothers are awesome and you'd never give them up for anything, even though you'll never admit aloud how much you adore them. Your fondest memories are of Mom's singing lessons and Mama's dancing lessons. You're nowhere nearly as good as they are, but they take pride in the fact that you've soaked up as much of their talents as you could into one person. Even if you didn't and you sucked terribly, you're pretty sure they'd still be proud of you regardless.
You got over that whole "I have two moms" thing long ago, so you wouldn't change those schoolyard fights you had when you were younger. It used to be harder, but you got your snark from Mom and your unicornness from Mama, and that means you're practically untouchable. Sure, it gets you into trouble because you give popular girls lip for being bitches, and you give your teachers lip for being douchebags.
Not that being popular matters much to you anyway. So you're not changing that.
Not that you're ever going to stop yourself from calling people, even teachers, out on their bullshit.
And you're definitely not going back in time to stop people from becoming douchebags. Not worth your time, and that would mean having to change most people in this rotten, stinking, miserable world.
Can I just fast forward to a time when my boobs are bigger?
What could I possibly change to make people stop picking on Charlie?
Can Mama and Charlie just be realistic sometimes and stop with this unicorn and time machine business? I can only defend them so much.
You open the door and squeeze into the locker. It's almost ridiculous that you're doing this, and you can't help but laugh. "Ha! Just a locker."
Then the door slams itself shut and everything goes black.
—
It's like you're disoriented after waking up and trying to piece together the last few things you can remember before going to sleep. When did you get out of the locker? When did you go back to bed? How did you manage to fall asleep on a full stomach?
And what is going on and why is everything pitch black?
This is SO not my bed. Why do I feel like I'm lying on a cookie sheet?
Suddenly, the world seems to turn sideways, and bucks you upwards like a mechanical bull. The surface beneath you shifts ninety degrees within the blink of an eye and you feel yourself stumbling on your feet, struggling to regain even footing. You're falling forward with nothing to hold onto until your body is thrown against hard metal, releasing you from your prison, and out of the darkness.
You tumble to the ground, blinded by bright light, and holy hell, that thing you just busted through was a locker door. And this was definitely NOT the time machine locker in the den. This is a crowded school hallway, and now everybody is looking, mouths gaping open with all the force of "What the everloving fuck?"
Everybody's staring at you because, what the hell, you just fell out of a locker.
No way.
You just go with it because you don't believe that this is happening. They're not staring at you because they suspect you're a time traveler – no, that's stupid. You know you'd be staring too if you saw somebody else fall out of a locker. Whatever. You're used to the stares. You put on the bitch face you've learned from Mom, as the primary defense mechanism in your arsenal. Dare anybody to say anything to you.
But what happens next is nothing a defensive bitch face could help you fight off.
Everything is different. This isn't your high school. The lockers aren't gray and the layout of the hallway is completely different. You don't recognize the people here, and what's worse is that their general fashion sense is alarmingly tacky and nothing like you've ever seen. Hell, there's even a girl passing by with a dress that Mom would describe as something an "institutionalized toddler" would wear (plus, that girl looks a lot like…no, it can't be).
The same way Mom taught you to roam the streets of New York, you walk quickly in any direction with enough purpose to make it seem like you aren't lost. You need to gather your bearings, and you need to find out where the hell you are. Don't ask anybody for help. What New Yorker asks for directions anyway?
The cabinet of trophies and wall of plaques tells you what you need to know.
William McKinley High School.
The high school Mom and Mama went to. In fucking Lima, Ohio.
What the hell are you doing so far from home?
And just when you're certain that this couldn't be any crueler of a joke, two cheerleaders stroll by, arms linked, ponytails bouncing with every step. They even lock eyes with you for a second, and the shorter girl glares at you for staring too long.
You do a double take, because holy crap on a cracker, you have GOT to be mistaken about the resemblance. But you can't deny it; those familiar blue eyes of one girl, that queen bitch smirk that you've learned from the other…those trademark looks belong to no other pair of people on this planet.
It's your mothers, decades younger. Teenagers.
The world seems to crumble all around you, and you feel yourself falling, falling, falling, into this chasm of confusion. You're so far from home, you're so alone, and you haven't got a single clue what you're supposed to do. You don't understand anything or where you are or what's going on, and all you can do is lose every ounce of composure you had up until this moment. The tears come suddenly and relentlessly. The anxiety becomes heavier and heavier until you can't even stand and you find yourself sitting on the floor, hugging your knees, not giving a crap who stares at you wailing.
Suddenly, there are gentle hands lifting you by the elbows from the ground, then an arm around your shoulder, guiding you to the nearest empty classroom. Whoever your savior is, you can't tell, because your tears have formed a clouded barrier between yourself and whatever this new world is. All you can concentrate on now is stopping your uncontrollable sobs from taking over your lungs and swallowing you whole.
"Shhh…shhh…honey, calm down, it's okay…"
"But…but…I…" Words struggle to make their way out of your mouth. You feel so far from your body and everything you try to say sounds hollow and distant from yourself. All you can do to stop the feeling of falling is burying yourself into this woman's shoulder and crying. It's all you can do to anchor yourself in some of physical contact, lest the Universe try to snatch you up again and take you even farther from home.
When you separate yourself from her hug for just a second to get a look at her, it feels like you've been punched in the stomach for the fiftieth time within the past ten minutes. It's Shelby Corcoran, that show choir coach your mothers love so much and invite to dinner every so often. Like your mothers, she's decades younger and doesn't seem to recognize you.
"Honey, just tell me your name and what's wrong. Do you need me to call your parents to come get you?"
You know that's not possible because the two girls you saw earlier aren't exactly your mothers.
This isn't the family you know.
And…oh god…Charlie.
Suddenly, all you can think about is your little brother, feet dangling happily at his seat at the kitchen table, schoolbag on his back, waiting for you to take him to the bus. You start bawling again at the thought of it all: his disappointment, his sadness, the hug he'll need after he's bullied all day. He's going to need you and you're stuck here, in whatever hell this is.
All you can manage to say over and over again, pressed into Shelby's hug is, "I can't…I can't…I promised him…oh god, I PROMISED…"