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me” Stephanie managed to shriek “Hi
Mr Carlton.” From the back seat before the line clicked dead.
     
    West was surprised
when Charlene finally sat up and took her hands away from her face.
The skin around her eyes was a little red and puffy, but at least
she hadn’t been wearing makeup so there were no spider scrawl runs
of mascara. He opened his mouth to speak, but Charlene cut him off,
holding up a finger to silence him. He nodded slowly and sat back,
leaning against a coffee table which occupied the space on the
floor behind him.
    Charlene wasn’t
sure how long it had taken to muster the courage to sit up, and now
that she found herself facing him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted
to say to West. Charlene had often pondered on the possibility of
this event. No, not this, not facing some unworldly doppelgänger of
a man she once knew. She had thought about what she would say to
the man she knew as Anthony Statham if she ever saw him again.
    She had been
best friends with Anthony Statham for a year, as close as she had
ever been to a man, although their relationship had never broken
into the realms of true physical intimacy. Anthony had been patient
in his love, understanding of her timidity and naivety and Charlene
could think of no better way of spending her life than in his
company. Then, a month before her mother passed away, Anthony was
gone from her life without a single word of explanation. He had no
family that she knew of, no friends she could talk to about what
had happened. She had been inconsolable at the time, but the sense
of anger and loss was soon swallowed by the emotional turmoil of
her mother’s passing.
    When she’d
thought of Anthony Statham over the years, she had imagined the
anger she would unleash, the hurt and indignation she would vent at
him for leaving her, for not understanding that she would be good
enough, better than good enough … too good for him. She had always
felt so cheated, robbed of her opportunity to hate him to his face,
and instead she had been forced to spend her years wondering what
she had done, how she had managed to turn away someone she loved so
much.
    “Who are you
really?” when the words finally came, they were effortless and they
did manage to evince a tempered disdain.
    “I have gone by
many names throughout my life, although the name I was born to was
West Yestler and that is the name I hold dearest.”
    Charlene closed
her eyes and shook her head slowly, already frustrated by the
conversation. She felt she had lived long enough to deserve frank
discourse, not half-truths or lies of omission. She opened her eyes
and glared at West, trying to push past her own frailty to portray
a mask of no nonsense intimidation, “Your name tells me nothing Mr
Yestler, except that you’re a canny liar. You know what I mean; who
are you really?”
    West touched
his fingertips to his chin, wishing momentarily that he could
remember the feeling of his skin. He had wanted this confrontation
for a long time, to be able to reveal himself to Charlene Osterman
completely. He looked around her apartment and drew comfort from
her collections of trivialities and treasures.
    “Charlene, you
were a child when you met Anthony Statham and he was a man who
loved you, but he was also a man who existed merely as a means to
an end. Anthony Statham was a persona I adopted to establish
contact with several people in this great city and that should have
been the end of him. It was your fault, at least partially your
fault that Anthony Statham became more than a figment of my lonely
imagination.”
    Charlene’s body
rocked gently, a slow and throaty laugh building into a coarse
cackle, “Impossible. I knew Anthony Statham nearly seventy years
ago; how in the name of all that is holy do you expect me to
believe …” she laughed harder and the laughter subsided into a fit
of coughing, which she struggled to control. She could barely
continue, “How the heck …” she coughed again,