Was it a dream or was it real? Charlotte can barely tell anymore but the anger in her seems to be churning and worse...escaping. She's not a rash person but is about to make some rash decisions to cope with her suffering.
PART V - PAPARAZZI
Plumbobs, what a disaster of a night. An unmitigated, painful, embarrassing, exhausting night.
Charlotte’s phone buzzes for what seems the thousandth time since she’s returned home. She ignores it for the thousandth time.
The moments directly after and in between then and now were a blur, with hot tears, ringing ears, a boiling rage in her chest, and calling for a taxi–she had managed to get to her house at least and into something more comfortable.
She washed her face, took down her hair, and has this settled numbness all over her–she feels like she’s existing in a surreal space that was somewhere between reality and a dream.
She had said it out loud. In front of everyone.
Divorce
Another buzz from her phone, while she stares into nothing.
“Your…device…wants your attention.”
And this fiend in front of her only strengthened the feeling of living between reality and a dream.
She sighs and flips it over so the screen is face down, “Could you make them stop?”
The scene she had made at the Gala was probably spreading like wildfire among the members of Kashmire's upper crust.
Mick frowns with offense again, and crosses their arms with a chiding scowl, “I am not a djinn - I do not grant wishes, and cannot alter reality–just myself within it. Even this isn’t my true form, just what you prefer to see the most.”
Charlotte frowns and looks up curiously, “What? Do you mean the way you appear is because of my imagination? What other forms can you take?”
A corner of their mouth twists up and with a snap, the strange mist threads around them and reveals a large owl perched on her corner lounge chair that she sometimes reads in.
Oh, and they are the biggest owl she has ever seen!
“Wait, that didn’t answer my other question about how you look as a human!” She stands, points, and says it almost accusatory of them changing form to avoid answering.
[“Yes.”]
Charlotte stops advancing, startled that they can still communicate with her. She supposed she shouldn’t–after all, they had done so before–with that impossibly deep voice inside her head. It is just weird doing so with a bird.
The owl seems to roll its eyes, [“When you picked my ‘pin cushion’ up, a connection was created and I had access to all your thoughts, your feelings, and from that mess of rage, sadness, and lust my human form took shape into what you see now.”]
So, that whole ‘body-sculpted from-the-finest-marble’ aesthetic is her own doing?
She feels heat fill her cheeks, wondering if the six-pack exhibition was her fault as well. Were the piercings her preference too? She suddenly has a lot of questions about this new discovery about their human appearance and what it says about her as a person.
[“Anyway…”] their wings expand and flap, they land on Charlotte’s wrist and she lets out a shout of surprise. Mick has an exceptionally large owl form and the weight of them throws her off-balance.
[“Why are you in this state of melancholy? Did it not feel good to put your husband in his place and release the truth or the anger that had been locked inside?"] Mick asks then takes a moment to preen some feathers, before the large eyes land on her, with a nearly full head turn.
She can’t help but feel that her outburst at the Gala was so out of the blue; it had felt like a bomb had gone off inside her.
She had been trying to hold all of it in because once it was released, her life would become so much more of a hassle. If it was bottled up, it was still a hassle, but one she could suffer through silently.
She gives Mick a suspicious look since they sound a bit too gleeful having her assess her actions and feelings in retrospect.
“It did feel good but I regret it–things are going to get very complicated, and very uncomfortable pretty fast.”
[“Just tell me that you want him to fall passionately in love with you and I can make that happen.”]
Forcing someone to love against their right mind seemed very…evil. Even if it would make her life easier and be what she had wanted all along. Even if it was some demented desire that the worst of her wanted. She could at least control herself. The offer didn’t sit well with her.
“I thought you couldn’t alter reality?”
[“Not of my own will. With our connection, I am granted magic to help you enact revenge for what has broken you.”]
She narrows her eyes, “I’m not broken.”
The fiend shakes its feathers before taking flight off her wrist, once again becoming engulfed in a shrouded black and white mist and regaining the human form.
“Your heart is though,” Mick stands before her, their back to her and she can finally get a better look at their tattoos. Along the spine is a vertical depiction of the phases of the moon. “It’s a part of you.”
“I like your tattoos,” Charlotte says, trying to change the topic, “Did I imagine them onto your human form as well?”
She can hear them chuckle with amusement, “No, these markings would be on any human form I would take.”
She asks to see the ones covering the length of their arms and notices there’s an owl inked on both and wonders if that has to do with them changing into an owl. “Is there a reason for these designs in particular?”
They seem to hesitate, before saying, “It’s a story.”
Charlotte’s interest is piqued, “May I hear it?”
“Not tonight,” they turn around and gently suggest, “You should probably sleep, mortals can’t surely go on after such a long day.”
But she doesn’t want to sleep! She feels a familiar spark of something she had been missing for weeks: The inspiration and urge to paint!
She breaks into a big, genuine, smile, something she hasn’t done since at least before her wedding.
She doesn’t say anything just eagerly grabs her glasses and runs out of her bedroom, up the stairs to where her neglected easel has been sitting.
It’s a shame because it’s placed in the corner of one of the best places in the house with a nearly 360-degree view of Memosa Bay. She had half-heartedly tried to do landscapes in the days since she moved in.
She squeezes some white, black, and brown paint onto her palette, still smiling, and feels so satisfied at the sound of paint hitting a blank canvas.
Charlotte drifts into consciousness when she feels the sunlight hit her back. It’s another morning waking alone. What was even…yesterday? Last night?
She remembers painting but not falling asleep and not going to bed. How did she get back into it? Was it a dream?
A weird phantom of a memory of screaming at Marshall, her subconscious anger bubbling up into her dreams, she supposes.
That beautiful stranger only could have manifested in such a place.
She blinks awake, wondering how it all felt so viscerally real.
She rises and notices movement out of her peripheral, and a flash nearly blinds her.
Voices start talking loudly. She squints as another bright light goes off.
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Can she still be dreaming?
There are half a dozen people outside her bedroom window, gawking and taking photos. Some recording her even!
She can hear her name, she can hear them asking about Marshall.
She’s so disoriented because she doesn’t understand why, that was all supposed to have been a dream!
She doesn’t know what to do, she briefly curses herself for not buying curtains and feels like fish in a tank with all the faces on the other side of the window. She’s afraid because if it all wasn’t just a dream, then that means…
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She feels her stomach lurch with nauseous anxiety and the only thing she can do is run away, out of sight.
She falls in front of her toilet, yet again, heaving. She thinks it’s probably time to see a doctor about her diet, this sickess has gone on long enough.
She is thankful there are no windows in her bathroom at this angle that the paparazzi can take a shot.
Fuck, should she call the police?
She looks at her phone, 200 text messages, and 67 missed calls that went to voice mail.
She feels bad, because she sees a text from her mother, asking her if she is okay and knows that her family is worried about her.
Before she can text back though, she hears a din of voices, and her front door slams shut. Are they breaking into her house?!
What the paparazzi wouldn’t do to get a shot of the poor neglected bride of Marshall Cosgrove!
She frowns and notices the photographers have left her bedroom window area. She grabs a golf club from its bag she had yet to put away from moving. She liked to golf with her brothers but hadn’t for some time due to wedding prep and running her gallery.
She lightly steps across the kitchen tile, suspecting the house intruders are on the other side of the wall near the entrance. Assault was a crime, but if they were in her home, it was fair game. It was self-defense! She was scared and angry enough she was ready to thwack a camera out of a paparazzo’s hand.
She hauls the club back as she maneuvers around the corner and freezes as she sees not a photographer but Marshall standing there!
He shrinks back, seeing the makeshift weapon–he looks like he hasn’t slept at all.
"Yikes, Charlotte! What are you trying to do? Kill me?"
“What are you doing here?!” she nearly shrieks and doesn’t lower the club, and doesn't answer his question.
She is minutely aware that all the photographers are now wildly taking shots of her frozen in place, wielding a golf club at her husband with whom she is having marital issues. Shit, this doesn’t look good.
So, she forces herself to lower it.
“You weren’t answering your calls, no one can get ahold of you–not my mom, nor yours, your brothers. I thought something bad had happened to you after you stormed out of the Gala last night. I came to check on you.”
How could he think he had that right anymore when his actions had made her this miserable in the first place?
“How did you get in?”
“I have a key. I bought the place for you, remember?”
Her expression settles into melancholy, the reality of everything she had thought a dream hitting her all at once.
If that was the case, where was that fiend, Mick? Wouldn’t they be lurking around when the one to suffer was present?
Marshall sees his wife deep in contemplation and gently takes the club from her, “Here, we need to talk. Somewhere private.”
His hand lands on her waist to guide her away from the cameras and everyone watching. They both had agreed to keep his affair quiet to avoid a scene like this. His life was of great interest to the media, and his new wife publicly proclaiming she wanted a divorce was calling a glaring spotlight upon them both. Every move would be scrutinized. He could understand her anger at him, but he couldn’t understand the foolish scene she had made. Charlotte Calhoun had never been one to be petty or rash.
The kitchen windows face the backyard, which thankfully has a privacy fence to keep people out. The flashes cease and they are alone.
As she turns to face him, he braces himself, remembering how angry she had been the night before. But Charlotte’s face is wiped clean of any emotion, as she sets her back against the wall, still seeming dazed. He supposes she isn’t used to the attention like he is. Growing up a Cosgrove in Kashmire came with vast privileges and hardly any privacy.
He cared for her, he really did–and he wanted her to be happy but not at the cost of his own happiness. Maybe he was selfish for that, but he wasn’t going to apologize for wanting to be happy. So much of his life had been planned out. He’d done his duty, he appeased his parents, and he married the daughter of the family’s closest friends. He just never thought she would truly love him, and how could she when it was all so…forced?
“Char?”
She seems nearly catatonic, staring off into nothing like she can’t even hear him. Was she now ignoring him on purpose?
He knows it’s a gamble, but needs her to snap out of it, so he leans forward and gives her a kiss on the forehead.
They have a lot of history and a lot of sweet moments. Charlotte is such a beautiful woman–she was patient, talented, and incredibly kind. Any man would be lucky to have her love, but Marshall can’t feel lucky when he feels so trapped.
His kiss lingers, until he mumbles, “Let’s hold off on the divorce.”
A divorce would be disastrous for his company, his stock, and his assets. He’d had to listen to his father yell at him until the early hours of the morning, calling him ‘irresponsible’ and a slough of more undesirable insults. Pryce Cosgrove would protect Marshall from most slander and scandal but would deal out the worst of it himself when his son provoked it.
Pryce, for some reason, thought Marshall could be satisfied with and devoted to Charlotte. Maybe he could have been if it weren’t for Saskia. Saskia had a fire in her, and wasn’t afraid to tell him what she thought; she was not docile and reserved as Charlotte had always been. Charlotte’s character was wholesome, and Saskia’s was spicy. She was the spice of his life and had the zest he wanted in a partner.
His throat catches. He couldn’t even fight for his own happiness, afraid of the lengths his parents would go to get her out of the picture once they realized how he felt.
He feels Charlotte’s palms slide up his chest–good, she is responding.
She forcefully pushes him away and her blank face is finally alive with a scowl. It’s not something he is accustomed to seeing on her but knows it’s deserved.
He moves back from her of his own volition than from her push; he could have stayed closer if he so wanted but knows she is angry and doesn’t want to upset her even more.
“Why should we wait? It’s clear that neither of us is happy!
He wishes he could just buy her happiness. He can give her almost anything, and she would want for nothing.
He was startled to find out that her gallery was closed because that was when she was happiest in their relationship–when she painted. He loved her paintings and had several hung up in his offices and businesses. No wonder she was feeling miserable if she couldn’t even muster enough inspiration to paint and take her mind off it all.
“I can’t live like this,” she mumbles as her face crumples, “I can’t stay married to you, sleeping by myself every night, knowing that you love someone else and you will always choose her over me. I can’t. I can’t…”
Charlotte covers her face, he suspects trying to hide the fact she is starting to cry.
“I had to break it off with her. I can’t have the paparazzi hounding her. I can’t have my parents find out who she is or…”
Charlotte’s head suddenly whips around toward the backyard pool with a gasp. He is worried for a moment that a paparazzo has breached the fence. He’s not even sure she had heard him say the last part.
Charlotte’s impending tears never come as her eyes grow round. She can see Mick on her diving board, gingerly walking along it in a pair of swim trunks she has no idea where they obtained.
Her first thought is that Marshall can see them because Marshall is certainly focused on where she is.
How can she even begin to explain their presence? She would look like the biggest damn hypocrite if Marshall found Mick in her house the morning after they supposedly ‘just met’ at the Gala. Marshall, of course, would jump to conclusions and it would be easy to with the circumstances
Marshall makes a noncommittal hum, as Mick turns their head to smile directly at them.
Charlotte is high-key impressed her husband is not losing his mind right now.
“So...so…you’re not angry?”
He gives her an eyebrow raise and crosses his arms.
“...That you got a cat?”
Charlotte looks beyond where Mick stands at the edge of the diving board to see a pretty calico walking along the top of the privacy fence.
So…he can’t see Mick after all.
“No, I–”
Two things happen then that split Charlotte’s concentration in half.
Two things happen then that split Charlotte’s concentration in half.
Mick dives off the board, and Marshall thankfully takes that moment to look away as the water ripples to the edges of the pool.
Marshall looks away because Charlotte’s explanation or lack thereof is cut through with a stern shout.
“Marshall, stand back! Lottie, don’t say another word to this scumbag.”
It’s her eldest brother, Jimmy, storming into her kitchen looking like a lawyer ready to argue. He is leading a woman Charlotte doesn’t know, and her twin brother Charlie–they all look professionally intimidating. Charlie's scowl is especially aggressive.
Marshall’s face pulls back into a sneer, which is commonplace for his exchanges with Jimmy. In fact, she didn’t recall Marshall or Jimmy even speaking to each other at the wedding. “What are you even doing here?”
She feels so embarrassed! Why are her brothers here?
“You’ve fucked with the wrong sibling” Charlie all but slams his briefcase on her kitchen table, a table he had eaten salad on recently.
He points accusingly at Marshall, “We are going to make you hemorrhage your entire fortune.”
Marshall doesn’t look one bit intimidated.
“Jimbo, can you please interpret what your pet ape here just roared at me?” He asks.
Charlie’s fists coil but Jimmy raises his hand somewhat to gesture that he should dial his anger back. Marshall’s nickname for him is just another reason he dislikes his brother-in-law.
“We’re representing our sister in her divorce.”
Charlotte gapes at them, how do they even know?
She only has to wonder two seconds before she remembers Adrianna probably told Mira, and Mira naturally told Jimmy.
She takes a moment to nervously glance outside and sees that Mick is seemingly oblivious to all that’s happening indoors, floating blithely on his back while the cat has jumped down from the fence to investigate.
That’s odd, she thinks...why can the cat perceive Mick when everyone else cannot?
“You aren’t even divorce lawyers,” Marshall scoffs, “Let me guess, no other firm in town would do it–because they don’t want to get on the bad side of a Cosgrove–so that leaves this three-ring-circus.”
Marshall can get pretty nasty and snarky when he’s angry. Charlotte has never been on the receiving end but over the years, Marshall and her brothers had annoyed each other to the point of open hostility.
“You need to leave. You’re attempting to intimidate the client–” Jimmy frowns.
“No, I wasn’t!” Marshall denies it and turns to Charlotte, “Charlotte and I were just trying to work things out, weren’t we Char?”
He gives her a half-pleading look. She was always the one who had the power to get her brothers to back off. By the looks of it, Charlie was two seconds from punching Marshall in the face but Charlie should know better. Charlie didn’t marry a Cosgrove daughter to shield himself from the full legal repercussions if he were to resort to beating Marshall up.
Even then, violence in any capacity would tear down their very intertwined families and Charlotte didn’t want it to come to that.
She also didn’t want Jimmy to risk his firm’s reputation and clientele by taking on a personal case like this against the Cosgroves, against his own wife’s family.
“Stop your bickering,” Charlotte demands calmly like she always does. She’s the peacemaker among them all. "He did just come over to talk.”
She holds her tummy, which still feels a bit queasy. It’s only gotten worse because she hasn’t eaten yet and this whole morning has been nothing but stress-inducing and surreal. She closes her eyes for a moment trying to get her bearings back to reality.
“I appreciate your offer, Jimmy but I don’t need a divorce lawyer right now,” she has to swallow a forming lump in her throat, “I wasn’t myself last night, I said some horrible things.”
Liar, she tells herself.
It was her, her worst self that had scowled, shouted, and caused a scene. Just to be heard, and not hidden away in her own cocoon of lonely misery.
She looks at her toes. She wonders what time it is; if she slept in late? Her tummy doesn’t feel good but she is ravenously hungry. She glances out the corner of her eye and Mick is gone now.
It’s all so disorienting.
She feels a presence in front of her and looks up to see Charlie looking closely at her, with a face full of concern, “Are you sure? You’re not just saying this because he’s here, are you?”
She shakes her head, “Marshall, I want you to leave…”
Her husband looks offended, but she’s thrown him the smallest bone and he should be grateful his neck hasn’t been snapped.
Charlie grins with satisfaction as if he’d won an argument and not-so-subtly shows Marshall how he’s regarded.
Charlotte crosses her arms, her face not lifting from its slight sullenness, “I want you to leave too. I didn’t ask you to be here. There's a reason I wasn't answering calls. I just want to be left alone.”
Charlie nods, his satisfaction taken down a notch, and clears his throat, “Speaking of which, Jimmy threatened all the people on your lawn with a trespassing lawsuit if they didn’t leave immediately.”
She does give Jimmy a grateful, thankful nod for that effort.
They all leave her kitchen and she makes sure to lock the door. She should have asked Marshall to return the key but was so wrapped up in the events she had forgotten about it until now. She could always change the locks.
She figures she should get dressed before making herself lunch, maybe a shower after. She feels gross and just bewildered. How had her anger been so heightened last night? Enough to cause her to tip a domino that was making everything cascade worse and worse?
As she walks into her room she is startled because Mick is standing there, holding the same cat. They actually brought that thing into her house?
“I found this charming creature outside, you should let it live with you. She needs a friend. She told me so.”
“Can it even see you?”
“Animals and Children up to a certain age can, they are the only mortal beings that can perceive everything from my plane of existence,” they run their hands over the cat’s fur with affection and adjust their hold, “It’s why so many children have imaginary friends”
She doesn't know how to reply to that. There's a silence that settles between them.
“I want you…to make him suffer,” Charlotte finally says. Mick's gaze snaps to her, seeming startled. Gleeful even. Something about their eyes, they seem to light up and it galvanizes the anger inside of her.
“How?”
“Make him feel what I feel,” she glowers, “So he can understand what kind of hells he’s put me in. I’m trapped. No one will take my divorce case, no one smart at least, and I can’t have my brothers lose everything because of me. I want to see the person that he loves treat him like he’s nothing to them anymore, and him to spend his nights alone and miserable like I have!”
Mick sets the cat down and disappears into a cloud of mist, reappearing in her hand as the little pin cushion doll. Something in the air feels different.
[“Then pull out a pin, and stab it through my heart.”]
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