Faces in Time (25 page)

“That isn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Not finished.”

“Oh.”

“Your money ran out. Divorce was expensive. Dane had racked up an amazing amount of debt. He never worked after his two years of being the host of that stupid show on the music channel. You had to sell your house. You moved out of L.A. and went back home to live with your mother.”

“That is depressing.”

“Things got so bad that you did something sad.”

“Not me too!” she exclaims.

Realizing she’s thinking of Tristan, he continues, “No, no, not suicide. You were alive when I left, but you weren’t exactly you anymore. They developed a procedure to help burn victims and other people who have been through an accident or birth defect that deformed their face. It was wonderful. Faces would be donated from organ donors, and it would help someone put their life back to where it was before.”

“I had an accident?”

“No, you didn’t. The surgery became something that doctors finally grew comfortable with. In the beginning it was a marathon procedure that no one took lightly, even the best surgeons. But, the surgery started happening more often once a few successful attempts had been made. The procedure started involving several surgeons to combat the fatigue, and it eventually was a good option with healthy results for many people.”

“What does this have to do with me if I’m not dead and didn’t have an accident?”

“Someone else wanted to look like you, and you needed the money. I don’t think you needed it that badly, but maybe you did. The buyer had facial implants put in—cheekbones and a chin reshaping, so it would fit her head.”

“What? What! I sold my face?” her arms shaking as she sits in front of him.

“Yes.”

“I sold my face!” her hands rushing to touch her cheeks.

“It was the first time that it had been done this way. People wanted to do it for cosmetic reasons for awhile, but they could never justify the organ donation just to make someone look prettier. There were too many people in need of the repair to get back to an average lifestyle. Yours was the first.”

“I sold my face,” she says in a whisper, “What happened to me then? What did I look like?”

“You got the woman’s face when she got yours.”

“I-I can’t take this in.”

“I know. I didn’t want to tell you, but it won’t happen now. Even if I’m not around, it won’t happen.”

“You’ll be around. You need to keep me together…literally.”

“I’ll be here as long as you want me, and as long as I’m alive.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m looking out for you now. We’ll keep an eye on your past self,” she says as she lifts his arm, lies back on his chest, drapes his arm across her, and continues, “He’s not you, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“He—your past self. He’s not you anymore. You’d never try to hurt someone unless you had to do it to protect someone else. You’d never be like that. He’s not you.”

“Well, I pushed him to it. He never would’ve been that way had I not come back in time. Seeing me has warped him. I’ve interfered in his life three times now. I went to the party, and he had to deal with people having thought they’d seen him there striking out with you publicly. I saw him by the mall walking my crazy cat—his crazy cat. I went to the premiere, and worst of all for him, I’ve ended up with you. I’ve caused him trouble, stolen his identity in a way, interacted with the people he works with, and I’ve taken the one thing he wants and has dreamed about but never believed he could actually have. Sounds like I gave him a reason to go nuts.”

“Well, Dane gave you a reason at the party, and you didn’t start a fight. You would’ve fought to protect me, but not because you were angry. You didn’t do anything to harm Dane; you left the choice up to me. Your past sel is trying to kill you. He’s not giving things a chance to work out.”

“He can’t call the police and tell them his future self is here stealing his identity and his dream woman. If they were to find out there’s two of us, if he could even get them to believe him, his freedom’d be gone too. He’d be studied and tested and confined like a prisoner. I’ve given him no choice. I’m cutting in on his space—his freedom, and no one else can help him. Actions have been made by me that are being attributed to him. It’s not right. People at work are going to be asking him about you and me, if they haven’t already called him over the weekend to get the scoop. It’s an essential right in life to be yourself and not have someone else steal your life. It is a reason for war. In this case, a war on just me. I’m a plague to him. And just by being here—existing—I always will be.”

“But, that’s not right anymore, Chester. It involves me now. If he hurts you, he’s tampering with
my
life, my freedom, my happiness,” tapping his chest as she says each of the three items, “No one has the right to do that. I have just as much a right to my life and freedom as he does to his. Besides, you’re already here. You’re not a part of the future anymore. You can’t go back home and have it be the same because you’ve already changed it. Your home doesn’t exist anymore like it did when you left it. You’re a part of this time—right now, right here,” raising her arms outward, “This time is your home—you do belong now. He doesn’t have the right to remove you like you don’t belong. You do. You do belong.”

He smiles and for the moment is not concerned at all with the threat on his life, “But, he thinks it’s bigger than that. He knows I’m from the future, and he knows that’s dangerous. I could become powerful with the knowledge that I have. I could be almost unstoppable. A tyrant.”

She smiles, “Living in the place that you live? Gambling just to get by?”

Smiling, “Yeah, I guess I’m the tyrant ruler of my crummy apartment, the roaches, and those damn sugar ants.”

“You’re not so bad, Chester, not even the tiniest bit bad. And if he cared to look, he’d see it too.”

“Maybe.”

“But, he’s not looking that way. He’s looking for a chance to kill you.”

1)
    
he was a coworker

2)
    
he was 15 years younger than her

3)
    
he reminded her of her three past boyfriends, all with whom she wished she were never paired

4)
    
Elise and Eddie would never work—too silly like Jack & Jill, Tim & Tammy, or Brandy & Brendan

She doesn’t take the last reason seriously, but it is one more observation to throw on the pile of warning signs—a pile she likes to keep as a gargantuan blazing bonfire in her mind, perpetually burning scaldingly hot and intensely bright to keep her from looking fondly on the past or taking in a new version of a recurring mistake.

Exhausted is how she feels sometimes fighting the old thought patterns in her mind, holding back pulses from firing down their easy, worn, familiar paths. Despite how hard it still remains for her, it gets a little easier with every passing day. Too bad she has little hope that she’ll have many of them left.

She knows he’s coming for her.

Edmund is neither ignorant nor incapable, but so blinded by the urge to take what he wants now and the fury that he does not already have it, stupid decisions have been commonplace in his life. One rushed decision, even one with a heinous result, pushes on the next decision to be made even faster, like a canine chasing after something rushing past, not out of decision but instinct. The more objects that fly past, the more frenzied the day becomes.

The last time she saw him, his build was massive although not defined. Being a former steroid user who never worked out much rendered him built more to tear a wall down than to scale it.

When he doesn’tke what he sees in the mirror, he turns from it angrily. Usually he’ll squint his eyes at his reflection that dares not coincide with his self image. Then he’ll throw his intimidating look at the mirror—it’s the look that he puts on before he throws a right cross at someone. Following the stare, he’ll grunt and turn away in a strut-stomp. Many times he’ll actually throw the punch at the mirror. While he was incarcerated, other prisoners witnessed the exchange, often hearing him mumble at his reflection, “Beat your freakin’ head in,” before turning away.

Turning her mind from memories, Elise thinks of the roll of cash underneath Mr. Titor’s mattress—thick, tight, and fragrant with the peculiar air of worn currency. It was just yesterday that he asked her to get it out for him so he could count it and make sure the night caretaker hadn’t thinned its girth. It’s a common concern among the elderly in care, but especially so since Edmund was caught stealing from nearly all of the residents while working there. Mr. Titor had her count the bills three times in the morning and once in the early evening—she knows the number well. It’s over four times her monthly pay.

Ghosts from her past taunt her that the money could get her out of town, away from the danger that is creeping closer, slinking to her side every second of the night. She shakes her head and thinks these words so hard that they spill out her mouth, “I don’t want that life anymore. I’m not like that anymore; I’m a new person.”

Besides all that, she knows he’d find her wherever she could run.

A large white tiger paces behind her.

The light hitting the glass shines in a similar fashion as it does on her hair, except the glass doesn’t shimmer. Contrary to the seriousness of the conversation, she hasn’t stopped smiling since they entered this foreign environment, but the zoo has always made her relax.

Her favorite animals are the tigers. Their grace despite their size and their unbroken will that survives even in captivity is what draws her to them.

Chester says, “I don’t know what there is for us to plan.”

Leaning in close to him, although the zoo is pretty devoid of people at 5:30 p.m. on a Sunday, she says, “We can’t just sit around waiting for him to try to kill you again.”

“It’s a little hard to blame him.”

“Well, then you don’t blame him, but you let me blame him. He’s trying to take you away from me, and I haven’t done a thing to him.”

Nods his head.

“Plus, I’m with you all the time, Chester. It would be hard for him to kill you without killing me too. Doesn’t that make you blame him? If he had finished cutting your brakes or whatever he was trying to do at Omar’s house for the premiere, I would’ve been in that car with you too. Would’ve been just as hurt as you.”

“Of course. I think about that all the time, but he didn’t know you were going to be with me. Hell, I didn’t know you were going to be with me.”

“Maybe, but what’s to stop him when he’s done with you? What’s to keep him from removing anyone who takes something that he deems to be his?”

“A man has a right to fight for his freedom, for his name. If he wouldn’t stop with me, then he’d be taking other people’s freedoms from them, and he’d need to be stopped.”

“You are a person too, Chester. Your life would be just as easy if he wasn’t around. It’s your name too. In fact, you’ve had it a lot longer than he has. What right does he have to remove you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. It’s not right. He doesn’t have an excuse. Two Chester Fuzes exist now. You’re not trying to kill him. He just needs to accept it.”

“Why does it sound so much easier when you say it than when I think about it?”

“Because you love me,” she says as she kisses the tip of his nose.

He smiles, glances at the tiger pacing its domain, and poses, “Okay, so we have the right to stop him. How?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about, but you’re not going to like it.”

He scans his mind for what action she could be so sure that he would be against. It fires.

“No!”

“Yes, Chester, it’s the only way.”

“No, it’s too dangerous. I won’t let you.”

“You have to.”

“Rhonda, you can’t go near him. He’s dangerous!”

“I’m the only one who can talk to him.
You
certainly can’t go near him. That’s for sure.”

“Maybe I can.”

Determined, narrow, red eyebrows press down toward her eyes.

He continues before the eyebrows can influence her speech, “I’ve never been good at confrontations. Well, not back then anyway. I don’t think he’d be so brave if I went after him. He ran away when I saw him the other night at your apartment, and he ran away at Omar’s too.”

“Maybe he wasn’t running from you at the premiere. Maybe he was running from the chance of getting caught or arrested. Especially in front of everyone he works with. He couldn’t explain to them how there were two of you anymore than you could.”

“Twins. He’d think of long lost twins. It’s a bad TV plot cliché. He’d think of it, and grind his teeth while he used it,” smiling at the certainty of his past self’s hatred of hackneyed sitcom plots.

“But you don’t have a twin. There’s no evidence to back it up. Somehow, people would figure it out.”

“Exactly. That would’ve just been an emergency excuse if he was caught at Omar’s. That’s why he’s resolved to kill me. Wait a minute…”

“What? What is it?”

“The body. My body. If he just kills me, there will be proof that there were two of us. Two sets of prints. DNA evidence.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll come up with something better.”

She frowns.

The pacing tiger settles down on a smooth, flat rock that is higher than the others.

“He’s too smart not to. He’ll find a way to get rid of the body. Or…”

“What?”

“He’ll make sure none of the remains are identifiable.”

Shivers vibrate her frame, “Let’s not talk about that.”

Grabbing her hand, “Sorry. But if we know how he plans on doing it, it might make it easier to avoid.”

“It sounds like a better plan to stop him before he tries.”

Exhales roughly, “Rhonda, I don’t want you going to talk to him. He’s lost it. He was desperate enough to try to cut my brakes one house down from his boss’s house, and who knows what he was up to at your apartment. You  can’t—”

“But, would he hurt
me
, Chester?”

He stares at her in pain, and she already knows the answer.

“You know he wouldn’t hurt me.”

He looks to his shoes.

“Honestly, would you ever have hurt me? Even in your darkest moments? Ever?”

“No,” he says so softly that he hopes she can’t hear.

“I knew it. That’s why I’m the only way. I’m the only answer.”

“Rhonda, I don’t—”

“You can’t expect me to sit around and wait for him to do something to you, not when I might be able to stop it all, not when I might be able to protect you.”

“But, he’s not exactly me—not exactly the old me. He’s facing something his mind can’t entirely comprehend. I never had to go through this. Never had someone drop out of nowhere who looks like me, goes to work parties and everyone thinks he’s me, and you. It was bad enough watching you end up with a jerk, but I don’t know if I could have taken it being some imposter pretending to be me.”

“Maybe so. But, what else have we got? Can’t go to the police. I can’t tell them it was Chester Fuze who works at
Most Hipness
who was trying to sabotage a car that has a phony registration and is owned by my boyfriend who happens to also be named Chester B. Fuze. Everyone at the party saw you, thinking you were the same guy that they work with. It would be impossible to prove it was him when everyone thought he was you standing right in front of them.”

Chester
nods, “You’re right; there’s nothing to be done about it with the police. Besides all that, I happen to have the same exact fingerprints; that’s going to be a hard one to explain.”

He kicks his right foot at the ground.

Rhonda says, “He has to want to know what’s going on anyway. Don’t you think he’s figured some of this out? Do you really think he’d be upset with me going to talk to him?”

The kicking stops, and he looks back at her face, “He wouldn’t hurt you, but he’d try to protect you. He has to think I’m something evil, something dangerous. He wouldn’t want you around me. He might try to kidnap you or something to keep you away from me.”

“Well, you’ll just have to follow me,” she says smiling, “I know you’ll keep me safe, even from your past self.”

“I don’t like this.”

“C’mon, Chester. You fought time and got back here to me. You did what no one else has ever done. Don’t you think we can deal with one person that you know everything about?”

“Desperation can bring about unexpected things. Crazy things. Remember he is desperate. Remember when you’re looking at him that that’s not me, even though he looks like me.”

“I could tell you apart from a thousand clones, Chester.”

“I’m still uncomfortable with the idea of just one.”

She wraps her arm aou. He hashis back, and she offers quietly, “There is another possibility, but I didn’t want to ask.”

“What?”

“Is it possible for us to go somewhere else in time? To get away from all of this—both of us together?”

“I thought about that too.”

“And?”

“It was hard enough for me to get here. Honestly, it’s on a miracle level that I arrived in the right time at all, despite all my years of figuring. I knew the time travel would work—just wasn’t sure if I could make it send me to exactly when I wanted to arrive. I don’t know if I got lucky, or if it would always work. It’s only been done once; it could go horribly wrong the next time.”

“But, it worked once.”

“Yeah, we could also jog across the interstate blindfolded and have it work once. The next time—splat! I don’t want to risk anything with you.”

“We’re risking every moment now with your past self after you.”

“Yeah, but we’re not blindfolded,” he snickers.

She pinches his back lightly.

“Rhonda, it takes a lot. I have an ID, my birth certificate is still valid, I have credit cards although I don’t use them, I look like the person I claim to be—it’s not that easy to jump to another place and have a story that doesn’t get you thrown in jail, interrogated by a government, or killed. If anyone knew where I’m from, I’d be tortured, questioned, maybe even dissected. I’d be a threat to national security, and the secret to the ultimate weapon. If anyone knew what I’ve done, I wouldn’t be here with you, not while there is still anyone with the power to take the secret from me. And it’s not just the government—anyone who desperately wants to undo one bad event, to make a different choice, to live a better life—that’s just about everybody. Even a good person could go crazy if they knew that kind of power was within their grasp.”

“What if we went far enough back where there were no records—no IDs, no birth certificates, no fingerprints on file?”

“Life was hard back then.”

“Im okay with hard.”

“No penicillin, no cure for most things, our immune system is not used to what was around then. Life expectancy is only thirty-some years, and that’s not a guarantee. I want more than ten years with you.”

Her face was troubled while he was speaking, but her cheeks strain with a bursting smile, “Okay, okay. I already figured that if it was a good option, you’d have already asked me to go to another time with you. I just wanted to ask.”