Charlotte Cosgrove feels like she's living a lie, and losing her sanity.
PART IV - GALA
The silent ride to the old theater is barely tolerable to Charlotte. As soon as the limo stops, Charlotte bolts outside, not even waiting for the driver to open the door for her. She can feel Marshall's bewildered gaze on her back.
“Char, wait!”
She stops and bites her lip. So much for adhering to her wish to never speak to her again.
Marshall brushes his hand against hers–testing her resolve–and she pulls it away.
“Mom and Melinda will be here,” he mumbles, and though he doesn’t say she can already know the entire meaning behind those words.
They should keep whatever issues they are having from spilling out to the public and causing the elite of Kahsmire to gossip, including her in-laws.
She doesn’t agree, just looks up at the night sky and appreciates the beauty of the city–the varying lights poking out windows in no particular pattern on the tall buildings surrounding them.
Once inside Marshall leaves her side to schmooze with some men he does business with. She stands by herself in the foyer before heading up to the second story where she knows there is a bar. She could use a drink.
“Charlotte!” she hears her name and turns to see Marshall’s mother and sister already near the bar. There’s no avoiding them. Not that she dislikes them at all, she actually gets along well with them both.
Adriana is one of those women who came from a wealthy family and married into one, leaving no gap for wanting of comfort. She has a pleasant temperament, thankfully for Charlotte.
Adriana orders a white wine for Charlotte, knowing it’s her favorite.
“How was Twikkii? How’s the gallery?” Melinda asks.
“Oh um, we had to leave early…” Charlotte explains but hasn’t thought of a reason to cover.
“Marshall mentioned that! He said there was an awful plumbing issue and all other hotels on the island were booked,” Adriana lamented, “Not a very good environment for romance is it?”
He was such a liar.
“Mhm,” Charlotte confirms, albeit with nothing convincing. Melinda raises an eyebrow. Charlotte would have to watch herself. She is sure Melinda will report back Charlotte’s behavior to her brother. Speaking of which…
“Did Marty not come with you tonight?” Charlotte asks her before lifting her glass to take a sip.
“He decided to stay home. As you know he’s ‘working on his novel’, which he’s been doing for over a year now. I think his publisher is going slightly mad waiting for it. Besides, you know him, he’s such an introvert–he hates coming to these types of galas.”
That made Charlotte smile slightly. Her brother could be a horrible procrastinator and was also very good at avoiding crowds.
“Who is the one to suffer?” a startlingly deep voice cuts through the din and she almost chokes on the wine that she hasn’t even gotten to drink yet.
She looks up in horror as the same figment from before is standing in the middle of the event guests, wearing the same grass skirt and nothing else.
“Dear, are you quite all right?” Adrianna asks as she sees her daughter-in-law’s eyes go wide.
Charlotte can feel her stomach lurch, even though she hasn’t eaten dinner to avoid any nasty reprisals of that afternoon.
Her knuckles clench her glass stem as she stares at the figure, surrounded by fading wisps of that same misty smoke as before encircling them.
They simply stare back as if waiting for her answer and no one makes any indication they can also see this figure.
“I have to...use the restroom,” Charlotte hands her glass to Adriana and basically flees the social scene.
Once inside the restroom, she curses because she checked her purse at the cloakroom and can’t see if that pin cushion is still inside. Why would it be gone? Why can’t she get a hold of herself?
“This isn’t real,” she whispers.
“Isn’t it?” the figment appears behind her
She whirls around and instinctively reaches out to push them away and her hands hit flesh.
Tangible, real, warm, skin.
She swallows, unsure of how to react. She feels like she is going mad and averts her gaze. She doesn’t want to keep staring and withdraws her hands with a blush.
“If you were real, then others could see you,” she says softly, reminded of no one even blanching at their sudden appearance moments ago.
“They could,” the figment snaps a pair of fingers and at that moment a guest walks in and gives a shout of surprise then urgently apologizes and promptly leaves.
Charlotte gasps and finally meets their dark eyes.
“But you likely don’t want me to be seen by every mortal in your vicinity,” they snap again and the next person that enters gives Charlotte a polite smile and makes her way to a bathroom stall as if the half-naked person isn’t there at all.
Charlotte takes a heavy breath and nods–not necessarily accepting this all as real or true but it’s more than a psychotic episode–something different. Something very, very strange.
“What are you?”
That same grin she’s seen on them before resurfaces, telling her nothing.
“I’m your–what you say? Pin Cushion?”
“I never said anything about a pin cushion,” she says. She’s only ever had thoughts about it. Where it came from, wondered what it was exactly. How did they know her thoughts? Unless they also came from her head…
The same woman who had entered a few moments before takes leave but not before giving Charlotte an odd look.
“Could she see you again?” Charlotte feels the edge of panic hit her once more.
“No, but you are appearing to talk to no one and I imagine that is strange for people to see."
She covers her face in mortification. She might be having conversations with herself again, there is no way to really prove to herself this person is real or imagined, no matter how real they felt. Perhaps the woman who had been startled had seen something else. This…entity…said they were the pin cushion, which seemed far-fetched and unrealistic.
“If you are real–really real,” she says quietly, hoping she doesn’t regret it. “I want you to come with me back out there and…and…”
She couldn’t finish her mad idea before they snap both fingers and are suddenly dressed in appropriate black-tie attire. Their hair is now slicked back yet the piercings remain, and they hold out their arm. “Very well.”
She doesn’t take it but brushes past them and does a wild gesture that they should follow.
“Wait a moment. I don’t want to be seen exiting the restroom with someone. Join me in a few.”
She feels a frenzy of doubt, fear, and yet…excitement. Her imagination was vivid and deep, it’s why she had been painting since she was a child. Had she conjured up such a beautiful and frightening manifestation of a daydream with her mind?
She pushes out of the restroom and makes her way back to where she had left her mother-in-law and Melinda.
She sees that Marshall has joined in and she tries not to frown too harshly and give it away they aren’t a happily married couple.
“Hello my darling,” Marshall greets her with infuriatingly artificial saccharine. He could pull off the biggest lies behind his smile that looked so genuine that she had a hard time even remembering why she was mad at him for a few moments as his arm slips effortlessly around her waist.
Liar.
“Miss Charlotte?” a voice, sounding like it was cut from obsidian, joins the conversation.
“Y-y-yes?” she freezes and barely can look at the handsome stranger, hoping the others don’t think she is staring at the air in front of her.
But Marshall, Adrianna, and Melinda are also staring.
So are many women in the immediate area.
It’s not often one sees someone dressed to the nines and sporting five piercings in their face.
So they were real? As real to others, as they were to her?
They take her hand and kiss it, before saying “I’m pleased to meet you.”
It certainly felt real.
“And you are..?” Marshall asks, a note of tension evident in his voice as his hold on her waist takes on a hint of possession–his ego was clearly shaken by that power move on his wife. No one else would have dared.
The Cosgroves knew every family there was to know, every potential investor, every charitable widow, anyone who was a mover and shaker in Kashmire and had simoleons to play with and lose. All around them were familiar faces, but this one–this one was new.
Charlotte notices the same small smile form on their lips, they don’t look at Marshall but keep their eyes focused on her, “Call me Mick.”
“Hello…Mick…?” she plays along, tasting that simple name that doesn’t suit this creature at all–unsure of what the plan is but suddenly she hears that same voice clearly in her mind.
[“Am I real enough for you now?”]
“Yes,” She says out loud in a near-squeak and Marshall raises a brow.
She realizes her mistake, “Yes! Mick! I believe you reached out about the temporary closing of my gallery and were looking to commission a few paintings for your new home. I didn’t think to see you at the fundraiser tonight, what a small world!”
The lies, though she loathes lying, are woven nearly perfectly as she gives the stranger a background and reason as to why they are there and how they could know each other, because the truth is stranger than fiction at this point. She can feel Marshall’s hand relax somewhat.
Mick nods in approval, catching on to her charade.
“Mick,” Marshall reaches out a hand to shake in greeting. They take it with a broad smile and Charlotte can tell its one of those handshakes to suss out strength, “I’m Charlotte’s husband, Marshall.”
“Much obliged,” Mick says, showing teeth in a grin.
“Char, your gallery is closed?” Marshall asks with concern.
She wonders why he would even care.
“I thought you moved into that house so you could be closer to your work?” Adrianna asks, mildly puzzled.
“I did, it’s just that…I was feeling sick this week and didn’t open it. This is the first night I’ve been out for a while…”
Mick coughs, obviously trying to get their attentions once more. A slight tilt of their head galvanizes Charlotte, “Sorry, can you excuse me for one moment? I just need to get some information from Mick about that commission. It’s boring business stuff. I’ll be right back.”
She leaves them and assumes the stranger follows.
She needs privacy, true privacy. Out of all earshots.
And she knows just the place.
They emerge into the very top of the theater, an old, musty floor that holds all the chairs if and when someone needs to set up a play or spectacle on the stage in the main theater that requires the audience to sit and watch. It’s a place she and Marshall, her brothers, and his sisters used to escape to when they were kids because they were the only youth that seemed to attend these types of events. Jimmy would bring playing cards and deal in the other siblings, or Mira and Melinda would gossip while she and Marshall would climb all over the crushed velvet chairs and look at stored art.
She checks and makes sure Mick is still behind her.
They are.
And they are real.
It’s such a contrast to all she has seen and all the good sense that tries to tell her it’s all in her head. Everyone has seen them; Marshall has spoken to them even. It proved something.
“Is Mick even your real name?” she asks, it shouldn’t be, but is the question that is most pertinent to her. They just don’t seem like a ‘Mick.’ If she had to give them a name it would be something alluring and mysterious like…Zenithan?
That’s probably not even a real name either.
“I’m called Mr. Mickles by the children of Twikkii,” they adjust their cuffs with a small smile but then meet her eyes with seriousness, “but no, my real name has been lost to time.”
“How old are you exactly?”
They answer with a shrug, “I’ve existed since the ancients wielded power in the islands, Amassa–”
“Amassa! You’ve mentioned Amassa before, who is that?” Charlotte interrupts and she cannot help it, because this is all fascinating to her and she has so many questions.
“The Diety that heard your cries and witnessed the crack through your heart. It is not often a mortal comes to Twikkii and suffers that kind of loss. The island is used to the blooms of love and revitalization of peace and joy.”
Diety? DIETY?!
“Are you…a diety too?”
They look mildly affronted or something comparable as they shrink back, “Dare not compare me to a divine, I am a spirit of Twikkii.”
“A spirit?”
“More specifically, a fiend,” their lips curl in a rather mischievous smile that she doesn’t doubt.
“And why are you really here?”
They scoff and take a seat in one of the old chairs, a blanket of dust puffs up from the movement. They slide back and into a slouched position, their long arms hanging off the arms–they are almost too tall for such a chair.
“I already told you all this. You decided to ignore me instead of listening. I do not make a habit of repeating myself.”
“I’m sorry but I didn’t think you were even real! Honestly, you show up in a cloud of mist or whatever, looking like you’re sculpted from the finest marble and speak words I can’t even understand–I had a little bit more to worry about, such as my sanity than what you were saying,” Charlotte apologizes, yet is frustrated. She still doesn’t understand why they are there and following her around.
Their head, which had fallen back with exasperation at first, lifts with intrigue, “You think I look sculpted?”
“That’s not the point,” she feels herself blush and look away. They are exceedingly charming on the eyes, no doubt. Their presence leaves her feeling bewildered but in a pleasant way, no longer the fear and alarm she initially felt. It’s only been a few hours, what has changed?
She crosses her arms, “I just don’t understand why you are here. I didn’t have a great time in Twikkii, and don’t know why Amassa cares about my problems…”
“Surely you know why? You put a coin into Amassa’s pool and wished for someone to suffer.”
First of all, Charlotte had no idea that a deity actually existed, one that would respond no less. She stops and considers, remembering in a last, desperate attempt to salvage her marriage what she had wished for. “No, I wished for Marshall to love me.”
Mick stands with purpose, “I am that answer. I can make him feel a passion for you that eclipses his real love until she gives up on him. I could also make him suffer the worst of embarrassments. I am the providence that he deserves. All you have to do is tell me how he should suffer.”
Charlotte is horrified, “No, this is wrong. I’m sorry but I can’t use you to hurt him.”
Then turns her back on them.
A rumbling growl escapes Mick’s lips as they stand behind her, “Amassa sees all heart’s truths, and despite how kind and gentle you think you are, Miss Charlotte, you yearn for retribution–for him to feel that pain he caused you. To have him want you so badly he would jump off a bridge to prove it to you. I have seen it in your very thoughts.”
He leans in close to her ear with a desperate hiss, “Reffus Tsum eH Tahw Em Llet.”
She still doesn’t understand those words, slightly different but with the same insistence as when they first appeared.
She feels their hand slide over her arm, coaxing her.
“It’s normal to feel angry when you have been wronged." Their voice has risen an octave, disguising itself as something more gentle than what sounds like the lowest string of a double bass.
Memories of Marshall standing her up on dates in college with various excuses, all clearly to cover the fact he was cheating on her with his lover. How he didn’t listen to her, how he wasn’t considerate. All the lies. SO many lies.
She hears a snap.
Something inside her seems to snap as well
“Did you get your business sorted?” Her husband smiles at her as she returns. She sees Mick materialize behind Marshall, assumedly not visible to anyone but her by the lack of surprise and attention.
“I’m tired of lying,” Charlotte approaches with a fierce scowl. She usually can be calmed with his easy smile but it’s the first time that she sees right through it.
She sees red.
“You are the worst! The absolute worst husband and I shouldn’t even be married to you. You don’t want me anyway. You never did! I can’t live a lie hoping you’ll come around and fall in love with me because it’s never going to happen since you’ve been screwing Sashkia or whoever since college,” all the truth of it spills out and she can’t seem to stop. “Our marriage is a mistake, so I’m going to make it easy…”
“I want a divorce.”
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