The Time Traveler's Guide to Modern Romance

by Madeline J. Reynolds

  They didn’t. Not in his London. Elias shot Tyler a knowing look that only he could comprehend. He appreciated what Oscar was trying to do, but he genuinely did not mind when Tyler got protective and anxious over his actions. On the contrary, it was rather sweet of him. Part of him was bracing himself for Tyler to quickly correct Oscar and tell him that Elias was not his boyfriend, but he did not bother. If the label, one which had not even been brought up before this point, bothered Tyler at all, it did not show. This caused Elias’s heart to skip a beat.

  He also rather liked the ring of the word. Boyfriend. It had an undeniable charm and gave Elias a sense of finally belonging somewhere, because he was someone’s. Like he was meant to be with Tyler, there in that moment.

  Central Park was as beautiful as it was massive. No matter how long it felt they had already been walking, it continued to sprawl before them. With the buildings, Elias now knew were called “skyscrapers,” outlining the view over the trees on each end.

  Based upon his original expectations, Strawberry Fields should have been entirely underwhelming or unremarkable and yet Elias enjoyed the way this little slab of stone seemed to bring people together.

  As they continued along, Elias’s stomach told him he was ready to try some of this New York City street food. He stopped at a vendor touting “World-famous” hot dogs that were supposedly “ballpark quality,” whatever that meant.

  Tyler made a sucking noise, biting at his cheek. “I don’t know if that’s a great idea…it’s not the most…sanitary.”

  Elias wanted to laugh, but he held back and leaned in near Tyler’s ear. “You do realize that in 1886 I didn’t have such luxuries as indoor plumbing and ‘hand sanitizer.’ This is highly sanitary compared to the way food was peddled on the street back then.”

  Tyler shrugged, laughing. “You make a good point, English.”

  The sound of the nickname coming from Tyler’s mouth grated against him, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Elias raised an eyebrow and said, “Since when do you call me that?”

  “It’s what all the cool kids are doing,” Tyler said.

  “But you’re not like the rest of them…you’re different. It’s what I like about you so much.”

  The response caused Tyler to smile, turning his eyes shyly to the ground. When he had first arrived in the future, getting a smile or a laugh from Tyler felt like a tiny victory, and that was still true. It still thrilled him in a way he couldn’t quite describe.

  “Besides,” Elias continued, “you already have a nickname for me: Eli. You were the one who came up with that when I first got here, remember? I like Eli.”

  “So do I,” said Tyler.

  The unexpected reply and the sweetness of it sent a wave of warmth rippling across his skin, and he felt that warm sensation in his cheeks that let him know they were getting flushed. He raised a hand to one of his cheeks in a futile attempt to cover the pinkening skin, but he knew it didn’t matter, anyway. He knew Tyler wouldn’t judge him. He trusted that he wouldn’t.

  Tyler held up four fingers to the man wearing a grease-stained shirt. Each of them went for the condiments hastily laid out. Elias smeared his hot dog with mustard and ketchup, which he had been introduced to at the Briar Grove cafeteria and now could not get enough of.

  Upon taking his first bite, Elias immediately wondered what Tyler was so concerned over—the hot dog had to be one of his new favorite foods he’d tried yet.

  A glob of sticky red ketchup was smeared on Tyler’s cheek. Elias reached up and wiped it off with his thumb, eliciting a grateful smile from Tyler.

  “You’re a…what was that word I heard you use before? Oh right, a slob,” Elias said in a tone that was just playful enough that Tyler could still be sure he was only teasing him.

  Tyler reached up to wipe his cheek with the back of one of his hands, clearly as a precaution to make sure all of the condiment had been removed from his face. “Ah, well we can’t all be as prim and proper as the English aristocrat over here.”

  “Oh yes,” Eli responded, “I am the epitome of decorum.” As he said it, he reached up the finger he had used to wipe the ketchup off of Tyler’s cheek and wiped it instead on Tyler’s nose.

  It may have been a bit childish, but Elias felt immediately pleased with himself and could hardly fight back his laughter. “Has anyone told you that red really is your color?”

  Tyler stuck his tongue out at Elias before wiping the ketchup off and shaking his head with a smile.

  The next stop in the journey was to a dock where they embarked in a ferry headed for Staten Island. According to them, the ferry ride itself was the attraction, as it would take them past the famed Statue of Liberty. The statue had been built during Elias’s lifetime, in 1875, by the French, and had been dedicated in the same year that Elias had disappeared from his home.

  The wind whipped Elias’s hair as he gazed up toward the magnificent green woman. Lady Liberty. Though it was difficult to hear over the wind and the chatter of others around them, there was a tour guide who was rattling off different facts about the statue and noting how she was the first thing that immigrants saw as they came toward their new home. A new future. Elias smiled. Over the years Lady Liberty had welcomed countless people from all across the globe.

  The memory of his grandfather caused a small shred of pain to surge through him. He had been thinking of his grandfather more and more recently. He usually fought against the memories because to Elias, missing his grandfather was at odds with his wanting to stay. Every part of him wanted this new life—well, almost every part. There was still the small, yet present, part of him that wished he could share his newfound happiness with his grandfather and his little sister. As he looked up at the statue he wondered how it must have been for Walter Caldwell the first time he’d laid eyes on the magnificent statue.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Tyler leaned over the railing of the boat, flashing a sweet, toothy smile.

  “It is,” Elias said absently. He was no longer looking at the grand statue, though. He kept his gaze fixed on Tyler’s lean silhouette as the sun beat down, causing his red hair to glow like an ember burning bright.

  The screens and electric lights from cellular phones and portable computers were already like some brand of magic to Elias, not to mention all the incredible lights and technological wonders that had been housed within the arcade, so when they led him next to Times Square, he did not even attempt to prevent his jaw from dropping. His eyelids were peeled back as wide as they could go, and he wasn’t even sure if he was blinking regularly as he stared up at the advertisements featuring half-naked women and automobiles even more advanced (and likely more expensive) than Tyler’s. It was unlike any square that could be found in London. Tourists sat upon glowing steps that led to nowhere. And men…or at least, he assumed they were men…in strange costumes were posing for photographs with young children.

  Music collided with car horns and sirens and chatter. Elias was swathed in multicolored flashing artificial lights, and he was utterly speechless.

  “Uh oh.” Oscar chuckled. “I think we broke the Englishman.”

  Zoe laughed, too, but Tyler appeared stricken with a sudden and genuine concern. Zoe and Oscar linked arms and traipsed up the glowing red steps, scouting out a place for them to sit.

  Tyler leaned in. “I hope it isn’t too much. That’s why I didn’t bring you into the city sooner. I was a little worried it might be sensory overload.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Magically he managed to regain control of his jaw.

  “You’ve only just recently learned any of this technology exists. And Times Square. Well, it’s a lot…even for someone from this century.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Elias breathed.

  Tyler snorted out a laugh. Had he done something wrong? Said something wrong? Too sentimental, perhaps?

  “I’ve heard Times Square called a lot of things, but beautiful? That’s a first.”

  Elias stepped in
behind Tyler, placing his chin on Tyler’s shoulder and fanning out one of his arms. “You’re looking at it with too many preconceived notions and biases. Try looking at it all…this whole city, through the eyes of a stranger. Not only that—a stranger who never could have imagined any of this was possible.” Elias decided to get more specific. He pointed toward a screen showing an advertisement for a place called Sephora. “Look at that pair of charcoal-rimmed eyes blinking back at us. Staring at us, ever so seductively. And there! One may just see it as a promotion for a theatrical production they can see while in town. But me? I see men and women dancing and singing their hearts out among the buildings and the birds, the city below, a captive audience. Don’t you think it’s simply magical?”

  “I suppose it is.” Tyler smiled. “That’s one of the things I really like about you. Everything through your eyes is magical.”

  Elias slid his chin off Tyler’s shoulder and planted a small, appreciative kiss upon his cheek.

  They went and sat with Oscar and Zoe, partaking in a pastime he would in his own time as well: people watching. So many fascinating subjects and countless possibilities when it came to their potential backstories. Eventually, Zoe slipped her cellular device from one of her pockets then hopped to her feet.

  “Come on, we should get moving if we’re gonna get to the Met before they close.”

  Oscar raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Didn’t you just go to the Met for some exhibit last week?”

  Zoe gestured toward Elias. “Yes, but Eli here has never been, and today is all about him. Showing him all the good sights. Besides this week they’ve just opened a new Illingsworth exhibit, and I’d really like to see it.”

  The familiarity of the name struck a chord within Elias, and suddenly all the sounds of the city quieted. The glowing screens around them went dull and blank, and his heart constricted in his chest.

  “Did you say…Illingsworth?” Elias went to stand, but his legs were unsteady as though the stairs below were moving, ready to topple at the slightest disturbance. He’d been so focused on the here and the now. Names from his past. People long since gone from this world. They rarely came up, and so they’d been of little importance as he explored his new home. But Illingsworth was a common enough surname. Surely it couldn’t be…

  “Peter Illingsworth, the painter,” Zoe chirped, excitement beaming from her heart-shaped face. “I suppose this won’t exactly be new for you. If you’ve been to The National Gallery in London then you’ve seen the collection of his most well-known paintings. But they’re on loan for a limited time here in New York and the chance to actually see them in person— I just—” Her sentence was finished by a series of excited squeals and gasps rather than actual words.

  “Take the exchange student from England to see an exhibit on a British painter. Way to give him the full American experience, Zo-Zo,” Tyler teased, giving Elias’s hand a gentle squeeze.

  Elias forced a laugh, playing along, but inside a storm was raging. He was unsure of what to think. Unsure of what to feel. The first discernible sensation was one of amazement—if not a small degree of disbelief. He’d done it. Peter had actually done it. He was immortalized in history as a famous painter, the type whose work was loaned out to museums in major cities across the globe. His old “mate,” or whatever they actually were to each other…what had he always referred to it as….companions of circumstance—that was it. He could not wrap his mind around that the very same pieces his family and all their friends would gawk at, at galas hosted in the Illingsworths’ home were now hanging in museums to be gawked at by patrons who had paid money in order to do so.

  “We can do something else, if you’d prefer,” Zoe offered to Elias, though there was hesitance and a notable hint of remorse in the gesture, for fear he might accept.

  “No!” Elias responded, a little too loud and a little too eager. “No,” he said again, this time at a more reasonable volume. “I want to go. Really I think it would be fun.”

  Zoe’s smile threatened to burst through the sides of her cheeks as she raced ahead of them toward the subway. She, Oscar, and Tyler carried on various conversations on the ride over, telling jokes and stories, but Elias was only half listening to every passing interaction. Everything had taken on a surreal aura, as if he had stepped out of the real world and into a bizarre dream. He felt like he was now on his way to see a ghost.

  He supposed that, in a sense, he was.

  As they ascended the dirty, crowded stairwell that led them back up to the surface, Elias’s heart rattled within his ribcage, like an agitated animal trying to break free. He couldn’t exactly tell if it was from excitement or if he was simply ill. It may have been a bit of both. Either way, he must have been doing a competent job of masking his inner turmoil, for none of the others seemed all too concerned about him.

  When they arrived, he looked in awe at the massive, columned building. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the guidebook Tyler had given him on the train ride from New Jersey, it was supposedly the largest art museum in all of America. Elias had never been blind to Peter’s talent. Somewhere within him, beneath what he acknowledged was a layer of resentment, he had always known that the art prodigy had been meant for a brilliant future. But this? Even this seemed a bit…much.

  “Show-off,” Elias muttered under his breath. He shook his head and smiled to himself.

  “What was that?” Tyler asked.

  “Oh nothing. Shall we?” He nodded up at the stone steps.

  He apparently did not need to ask Zoe twice, for she was already bounding ahead of them, advancing two steps at a time.

  They caught up with her and bought their tickets to the exhibit at the main counter. Tyler handed Elias his ticket, and he nearly dropped it. There, printed next to all the details, was a tiny portrait of Peter. It was him all right. Dimpled cheeks, blond hair that was nearly white, and dark eyebrows that were in stark contrast with his fair head of hair.

  He was a shadow. A memory. Long since dead and yet, there he was, staring right back at Elias.

  He followed the others through hallways lined with assorted paintings, sculptures, and historical pieces, like vases. It was odd seeing items that could have so easily been decorating his own home on display as artifacts of another time. The others kept stopping to point and stare or read the description for a piece they found particularly remarkable, but Elias simply wanted to get to the main event.

  And just like that, his wish was granted. The next wing they entered began with a room that had Illingsworth originals lining each wall. Elias had to fight against the urge to collapse. He brought a hand to his lips and felt the sting of hot tears brimming his vision.

  If Zoe had not said a word about where they had been going, if there had not been posters advertising the exhibit draped between the columns and above the entrance, if the ticket did not feature his very image, he would have known this was Peter’s work the moment he stepped into the room. It was all so characteristically…him. The jarring yet alluring contrast of deep and pastel colors, the intricate brush strokes, the way he always managed to have his subjects looking down or off to the side because he could never get facial features quite right when he painted them straight on.

  A few of the pieces were immediately recognizable. Others were new to him, no doubt completed in the time after Elias’s sudden and mysterious disappearance. Elias wondered if Peter had been curious as to what had ever happened to the ostentatious and self-obsessed Caldwell boy, if he had ever inquired about him, if he even cared at all.

  The paintings were all equally lovely. One featured the courtyard at the Illingsworth Summer estate, out in the country. A garden predominantly featuring lilacs and lilies with little stone cherubs breaking up the floral arrangement. There was another that featured a woman in a dark room, dressed in a fine gown and her face downcast as she played the harp. He spied a third that seemed biblical in nature, though he hadn’t much of a mind for theological matters or studies, so
he could not be entirely certain.

  But there was one painting that drew his interest above all the rest. Drew him in like a moth to a flame, and he practically galloped across the gallery floor to get to it. The two lovers in Verona. Romeo and Juliet. And there, in the middle of the painting, was the crimson stain from the wine he had spilled so many nights ago. A reminder of his own incompetence there for the world to view. His breath caught in his throat, and he had to gasp to take in more. When he exhaled again, he was worried it would come out in a sob, but instead he was laughing. Laughing uncontrollably, admiring his own contribution to Sir Peter Illingsworth’s magnificent and illustrious career.

  He hadn’t noticed that the others had walked up behind him. If his wild laughter concerned them, they did not bring attention to it.

  Oscar nodded. “What’s up with the dark red splotch in the middle of this one?”

  Zoe nodded toward the brass plate on the wall beside the painting. “Check it out.”

  Painted in the year 1886, Peter Illingsworth unveiled his painting of Romeo & Juliet at a gala hosted at his family home for London’s social elite. In attendance was one of Peter’s schoolmates, Elias Caldwell, who spilt a glass of wine across the canvas. When Caldwell went missing the same year, Illingsworth dedicated the painting to his friend and later auctioned the painting off, donating the proceeds to the Caldwell family to help with their efforts to find Elias.

  After he finished reading, Elias looked over his shoulder at the others. Unsurprisingly, Tyler’s eyes were wide.

  “Caldwell,” Zoe said in a near whisper. “I knew that name rang a bell for some reason when we met.”

  “Is Eli short for Elias?” Oscar asked. “Did your parents name you after some famous missing kid or something?”

  Elias just shrugged, so moved by what Peter had done so many years ago that he could hardly formulate words.

  Tyler leaned in and whispered, “You okay?”

  Elias forced a smile and nodded.