Faces in Time (27 page)

“Leave her alone. I’m the one that you want. Let her get out of here, and then we can talk,” says the man directly in front of her and closest to her.

From the edge of the hallway, “Looks to me like I want both of you, being that you’re both sitting in my living room while I’m supposed to be at work.”

“What?” Rhonda asks.

The Chester, whom she’s been talking with and who stands between her and the angry one that just walked in, turns his head where he can still keep an eye on his counterpart and catch her within the edge of his periphery and says, “Rhonda, it’s true. This is his apartment. I couldn’t let you come here and talk with him.”

“What?” shouts his purple-shirted counterpart.

Chester
counters, “Why are you here? Why aren’t  you at work?”

As he begins to speak, still standing at the edge of the hallway and the living room, the word choice sounds like her Chester, but the tone and the heavy pacing are nothing like the man she knows. Even when her Chester was talking to her earlier, imitating what he thought his past self would be like, it was but a cartoonish impression of the man who talks at them now. “A little odd that you’re asking that, being that you’ve broken into my apartment. Don’t you know why I’m not at work? You seem to know everything else.”

Hard stares.

“I came home from work to take Mouse to the vet. Has a urinary tract infection. Don’t you remember that?”

“That never happened the first time around.”

Looking toward Rhonda, “Yeah, apparently a lot of things were different the first time around.”

“Why are you trying to kill me?”

“Are you serious?”

“I asked.”

“You’re dangerous.”

“We all can be dangerous.”

“Well, no one else is pretending to be me, interfering in my life, and…” he stops short, looking to Rhonda who is still poking her head around the side of Chester.

Speaking to his past self, her Chester says, “I know. I know. I’ve felt everything you’ve felt for her plus another twenty years. If it weren’t for how you feel, I’d never have figured out how to get back here—it was all for her.”

“Says the man who has broken into my apartment and lied to his girlfriend.”

“It’s true.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s true. No one should know what you know. No one should be able to go back and tamper with other people’s lives. I’m alive outside of you! I’m not some past shadow whose life is a tool for you to use to carve out your own.”

“You’re right. I can’t pretend to be you ever again—that was only for her.”

font size="3">“Was it? Or was it for you? Tell me it wasn’t a dream come true for you.”

“The first night it wasn’t. The show party was awful.”

“What about the premiere? Do you know what it’s like to have coworkers pat your back and make admiring jokes about a dream you’ll never have? What it’s like to find out someone pretending to be you has met the girl of your dreams and taken her away from you?”

“I am you.”

“Not from where I stand.”

His purple shirt is brighter than the one she’s seen her Chester wear frequently, and his eyes seem darker to her.

His hand.

His hand seems to have no scar at all. She stares closer at it, focusing on it.

No scar.

Maybe it’s the light of the living room casting a shadow over his eyes in the dim hallway, but his ocular cavities seem to be smothered by the darkness of a heavy brow, sucking in, crushing, and imprisoning light where her Chester would exude it.

The harsher voice, “Tell me, Chaz, in twenty years, provided no one else tampers with our timeline, I’ll be the age you are now, and you’ll still be you separate from me, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re me at all. Sounds like we’re about as separate as we could be—as separate as any two people on earth. You could be in another part of the world with Rhonda, and I could still be right here in L.A.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me—for Rhonda and me to go away. There’s no need for us to be at odds, or for you to keep trying to kill me.”

A crooked smile forms under his darkened brow, “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Chaz. You messed up my life something painful already. You had no more right to do that to me than you did to anyone else. Can’t let you walk away with that kind of power.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re dangerous wherever you go. Someday you’ll have an accident and go to the hospital. Someday one of us is going to die, and there’ll be a coroner’s report. But, the other one of us will still be alive. They’ll figure out there’s two of us, and they’ll know you came from the future or they’ll think one of us was a clone or something nuts. They’ll eventually figure it out, and that’s too dangerous for everybody else in the world.”

“Then, why not settle this right now? I’m right here.”

“In front of a witness in my apartment? I think not.”

Rhonda says, “I’ll be a witness anyway; I’m with him all the time.”

“If there’s not much left of him, you won’t be a witness to much. No one’s gonna believe that there was two of me and I killed the other one. Without any remains, no one’s going to believe a crazy story like that.”

“Monster,” she says.

“Am I?” pointing to the Chester directly in front of her, “Or is the monster this abomination here? The one who has stolen my life and lied to you? Do you really think it’s me?”

“He’s not trying to kill anyone.”

“Most heroes throughout history have had to kill someone—someone who was doing something they shouldn’t have, someone whom the world would be a safer place without them in it.”

“Stop talking to her, you psychopath. I can’t believe you came from the same origins as me and turned out like this.”

“Really? How would you feel if someone took Rhonda away from you?”

“Miserable. And, I’ve had to deal with it twice.”

“Ever lose her to someone who could wipe away everything man has ever accomplished? Someone who could do horrible things to anyone he wants and then travel back before he did them and get away with all of it? It’s a criminal’s dream—no one would remember their crime, not even the victim.”

“No, of course not, but I’ve lost her and learned to live with it. I was miserable, but I took it. I didn’t come back here to take what I wanted. I came back to save her from the terrible life that she made for herself

Roughly, “It was her life to wreck.”

From around Chester’s side, she says, “It still is. I’m where I want to be.”

“Well, Miss Romero, it might be safer if you find some different company.”

Rushing toward his somber counterpart at the edge of the hallway, “Alright, that’s enough. You want me—I’m right here right now, tough guy. You threaten her again, and I’ll beat your head in.”

Glancing toward Rhonda with a voice that shakes subtly, “You still think he’s harmless, Miss Romero? Seems a bit off-balanced if you ask me.”

“You’re a coward. You’ve been coming after me when I’m not looking, and now that I’m standing right in front of you, you’ve got no guts at all.”

“Guts—I may not have so much, but stupidity I’ve got even less. Explaining how a dead man ended up in my apartment who looks exactly like me, fingerprints and all, is not something that will end up well for me. Think I’d end up being interrogated by the government on how you came to be—incarcerated and disposed of when I’m deemed to be no longer useful. No, I plan on taking my life back when you’re gone, not taking the penalty you should get for toying with time.”

Chester
’s fist yearns to punch his past self, but he knows the logic of his doppelganger is sound. There won’t be any way to assume his past life if there is any evidence that there were two of him. Even a loud argument could bring the police, which would expose their secret.

“Come on, Rhonda, let’s go.”

Past Chester says, “Thought you might see it my way after your hormones cooled down.”

“Try not to think about me, and maybe we’ll both live longer.”

“Don’t worry about me, time bandit; I don’t plan on living a short life.”

Rhonda approaches behind, and Chester pushes his past self by the shoulder to clear the entrance to the hallway. His counterpart doesn’t resist and steps to the side.

As she passes, his past self says, “Miss Romero, you’re always welcome ize="3You don’t need him to break in for you to stop by. You can come here any time of
night
,” pauses, “or day.”

She doesn’t turn around but keeps walking to the door.

Just as he turns his attention back to the Chester from the future, a fist smashes directly on the brim of his nose.

“Don’t you ever talk to her like that again. Don’t you ever come near her again. If you ever try to harm either one of us, I’ll kill you myself, and Rhonda and I will run off to another country where no one’ll ever know about the two Chester Fuzes; all they’ll know about is one dead one who was too stupid to try to enjoy the rest of his life instead of wasting it trying to kill me. Don’t think you’re the only one who can act differently. And by the way, it’s not breaking and entering—I have a key.”

Holding his bleeding nose in his hand, his past self nods his head. The cat has wandered between them, curiosity outweighing the fear of the noisy exchange.

Chester
stares at his bleeding past self, and at about knee level the tail twitches.

Less than three minutes later they are in her car. Having taken a cab there to not involve his conspicuous vehicle which would have ruined his ability to trick Rhonda into believing he was the past Chester with whom she wanted to talk, he rides in her passenger seat. Neither talks much having so much to comprehend and digest. It isn’t until they step foot into her condo that she asks what has been on her mind.

“How long, Chester?”

“I guess he’s been after me ever since he saw me driving that day. Don’t think he’ll ever stop now that I’ve been in his apartment.”

 “No, how long have you been planning all those lies to say to me?”

“At the zoo. The second I knew you were going to try to talk to him.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me it was you when I got there? Why not tell me and take me home?”