It's Always Summer on the Island

21. Mia

Charlotte

Charlotte tossed and turned with worry and anxiousness until two or three in the morning. By that time, the alcohol wore off, and she battled a ferocious headache. In London, Charlotte mostly drank champagne, enjoying the bubbly feeling that sustained her through an evening of hosting and socializing. With sheer mental determination, Charlotte fell asleep and awoke around nine in the morning, the time to which she tuned her alarm.

Preparing for an unofficial meeting, Charlotte bathed with her strongest smelling soap to wash away the grime of a party. Following her usual morning routine, she bushed her teeth with an electric toothbrush, combed her damp hair, and lathered her body with thick luxurious rose and vanilla scented lotion. She chose her outfit with great consideration and settled on a summer pajama set with an ivory silk shirt embroidered with a pinstripe of color that matched the solid silk tuscan sun shorts. After she dressed, she slipped into monogrammed white fuzzy open-toe slippers and smoothed rose hip oil over her cheeks to restore a youthful glow to her dehydrated and slightly sunburnt skin. Her mother drilled into her the importance of skin care to remain ageless and elegant forever.

In the mirror, Charlotte thought she looked small but at least put together. That was ultimately the goal. For her imminent apology, she wanted to look sorrowful and contrite while still remaining dignified. Her goal was for her father to see her as an eighteen year old young lady who mistakenly threw a party thinking she might get away without consequences but still realized the error of her way. She'd leave his office, where he was surely holed up, after she profusely apologized - a monologue she wrote and critiqued when she couldn't fall asleep - and made him laugh because, after all, she was his little girl even if she wasn't so little anymore.

G - are you alive?

It pained her to ignore Grayson. She knew that he was only worried about her, but she wanted to get this agonizing atonement for her sins over with.

The house was empty and rather clean considering the way she vacated it. The broken handprinted hand-spun ceramic bowl that decorated the foyer boudoir had been swept up and thrown away. In all her life, she had probably never noticed the bowl, but now she could admit that the boudoir looked awfully lonely without its lifetime companion.

Outside her father's closed office doors, those magnanimous mahogany arched doors with six paneled frosted glass windows on each side, Charlotte touched the glass with her fingertips, reminiscing on the days when her father worked with the doors open. Now, her father locked himself in his office to keep everyone out or perhaps to protect himself inside. He used to accept phone calls at all hours of the day, barking with laughter from colleagues lame jokes, reporting issues in his business, and scheduled meetings when he returned to the mainland. His privacy wasn't so closely guarded. It used to be a room where the girls would curl up with a book in the corner of an antique weathered leather couch beside the wall of arched windows and read while he read the newspaper or forwarded emails. Georgia and her father used to play chess on the tiny table opposite his desk on the adjacent wall. When he was bored with his work, her father would pick out a book from the built-in floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelves behind his desk and kick back to relax for an hour or two, peeking his head out every once in a while to insure his three girls were still alive.

He and Cordelia...sweet, smart Cordelia...would finish the Sunday morning newspaper crossword together in that office. He'd let Cordelia think she knew most of the answers. She'd proudly flaunt her achievements over breakfast.

Her finger trembled on the glass, thinking of Cordelia and the last time she had ever seen her sister. Three years passed since that fateful day when her entire world titled on its axis, throwing everything into unorganized chaos, confusion, and bewilderment. Her palms started to sweat and she shifted side to side in her slippers, wondering if she had even seen the office since that night...when she was doused in fear so tangible and paralyzing that she could taste it in her mouth, sense the residual aftershock of it in her bones, and vividly remember the way her heart rate tripled with panic.