Faces in Time by Lewis E. Aleman Read Free Book Online Page B

leash around her hand, pulls the dog to her face with a squeeze, and then places it on the ground while hanging onto the end of the leash.
    The dog is small enough to be bullied by a large rodent, and at this moment, it lifts its leg at the corner of a dark blue newspaper receptacle. Suddenly the inconsequential scene sparks his attention.
    Patting his back pocket, he makes sure that his wallet hasn’t fallen out during last night’s backseat ordeal. Tapping his other pocket, he assures himself that the device is still there too.
    He walks quickly, not knowing if what he’s looking for will still be there when he arrives. The dog seems to be finished his business as both he and his owner walk into the store immediately to the side of her parked convertible. The store’s façade is still out of his sight.
    He digs his wallet out of his pocket and scans over his cards. He saw them briefly last night as he paid for his ticket to the play, but he was too focused on getting to that woman’s hat to pay them much mind. His original driver’s license from this time, the money dated two decades prior, and his birth certificate all reside in their designated partitions exactly as he had prepared them before embarking on this unnatural journey. He taps his pocket again now that it is missing the wallet. He hears some jingling, which provides a small relief.
    Now, he can see the woman and her dog inside a hair salon.
    Chester looks at the dark blue machine, and sees there are ample unbought papers inside. He drops in some coins, opens the flap, and yanks a paper onto the top of the machine.
    Flipping through its contents, he finds the Riverview section, and he sees the article. The headline is the same, “Drama Director Receives 20-Year Service Award.”
    But, the picture is different.
    The new picture is of the loudmouthed woman from the bathroom hallway handing the same award to Mrs. Edna Hoover. The fancy hat woman is nowhere to be seen. His eyebrows rise as the significance sinks in.
    The description beneath the picture is slightly changed, now reading, “Doris Delbeccio of St. Christopher’s PTA, hands 20-year service award to drama club director Edna Hoover.”
    He grabs up the rest of the paper between tight fingers and makes his way back to his car.
    It’s different. I changed it. Things can be different here! Well, some things can be different that’s for sure. At least some things can be changed, maybe even all of them…
    He looks at the activity of the people moving along the busy street. Urgency pumps through him, but he knows that the car is unsafe and that he doesn’t want to wait a short drive to access the device. He turns around ungracefully, directing his course toward the hair salon again.
    The woman from the car reclines in a chair with her head pulled backward and over a black sink made for washing hair. On a hard-looking stylish couch sits the pink hat and her miniature canine beside a fluffy purse that quite resembles the dog.
    The dog lets out a few yaps as it watches Chester walk through the door, stepping toward its owner and the stylist testing the temperature of the water with her hand before dampening the customer’s hair with it.
    The stylist looks up with an annoyed expression, sniffles while crinkling her nose, and tries to hold a smile at him as she asks, “Can I help you?”
    “Uhh, yeah, do you have a restroom that I could use?”
    The dog owner snorts and snickers quietly without moving her head to watch the scene.
    The stylist, whose smile has shifted to a disgusted face, responds, staring at the newspaper in his hand, “Bathrooms are for customers only.”
    “Okay, I’ll get a haircut then.”
    “All booked up, no openings today,” with annoyance clinging to her words.
    Knowing he doesn’t have much time, his anxiety soars, “Well then, how about I pay you for a haircut anyway, and we’ll call it even?”
    Her disgusted face breaks a little, “Awright, you’re on,” pointing