All Dolled Up!

Charlie

When the next weekend came up, I had to let Charlotte know that unfortunately I wasn't going to be around for too long.

"Aww," she said, pretty miffed by the realization that I would be out for one of my two days off. “We barely get any time together as is!”

"Look on the bright side though," I told her. "I'm going to get your aunt's necklace - well, it's your necklace now. And maybe I can find out something from that weird shop too without my sister breathing down my neck."

"Alright," she said. She seemed far less excited about getting that necklace back than she had initially so many days ago when she had first found it. Then again, I guess questions now came up in her mind about what she was going to do with it.

After all, even once it was cleaned - where was she going to keep it? The entire reason it hadn't been sold off along with the rest of the estate was because it had been hidden in a place where it looked like no one had checked for several decades. Now, once it was cleaned, where would she hide it?

There was no avoiding the fact that she was inactive for a good part of the day, and no one really knew that she was sentient. Even if they did, they would not acknowledge something as belonging to her. Someone could waltz in, take the necklace even if she was wearing it around her neck, and all that she could do was watch and seethe in anguish as a response if it was during the day.

It wasn't even as if she could walk outside and purchase a safety deposit box or anything like that. She could put it back where she had hidden it, but if we moved that dresser again, she wouldn't be able to access it and it would get dirty again. So, she would still ‘have’ it but it would be somewhere where she couldn’t access it.

Ah well, I guess that was a problem for us to think about later. And after all, it seemed to be the only thing left which belonged to Charlotte's family, so I couldn't fault her for wanting it back, not to mention it was quite valuable. "Say 'hello' to your parents from me."

"Uh..." I started to say. "I wasn't really sure that I wanted to drop by them honestly..." I had just seen them quite recently, and I didn’t see any pressing need to drop by.

"Why though? You are going out to the same area, right? Wouldn't they be happy if you dropped by for a while?" she asked.

"Well, I don't want to drop in on them unannounced..." I told her.

"So, why not give them a telephone call before you go? Or one of those message things we use?" she asked. She placed her hands on her hips and gave me a look that said that she wasn't budging on this, and that she had seen through my flimsy excuses.

I honestly didn't want to drop by not just because I had done so very recently, but because there was always an air of awkwardness when it came to my parents after all that had happened last year. "It also might extend my stay and I'll be back later than I normally would be..."

"You're going anyway, and as it is, I won't be active until nightfall, so it shouldn't matter too much," she said.

I sighed. I was also slightly annoyed - I was trying to help her out, but here she was making things more difficult for me, though she likely didn’t see things that way. "Why does it even bother you if I go or not?"

"Because you still have family left," she said, wagging her finger. "Do you want to end up like me one day- regretting that there was so much you could've said to them? Regretting the times when you could've tried to spend more time with them? And realizing that time has marched on, and you can’t turn the clock back no matter how you wish for it?"

Yeah, I had no answer to that. Charlotte had torn through my defenses as if they were made of cardboard and she was driving a tank. "Alright, alright, yeah... I'll drop by."

She then smirked, triumphant, before suddenly turning far more demure and rubbing her shoe on the ground again. "What would- what would your parents think about me? Do you think they would… approve of me?"

"Eh?" the sound came out of my mouth before I could actually think about what I was going to say.

Truth was, I had no idea how to answer that question without potentially hurting Charlotte's feelings and also seeming like I wasn't lying through my teeth. I could say that my father likely would've accepted her, though given her strange condition I couldn't even be sure of that. That said, I was pretty confident that my father would be fine with any girl I'd chosen.

As for my mother - she seemed to still have some lingering hope about me and Josephine getting back together. I had tried to nip such hopes in the bud over the Fourth of July weekend, but I had a feeling that she wasn't completely over it and wouldn't be for a while. She likely at this time wouldn't have accepted anyone else. "Uh, where did this question come from?"

"Well," she said, "I mean, they will also be my family eventually if we continue on long enough, correct? And back in the day our families would've been more involved if the two of us were courting even at this sort of point..."

"I mean, it really doesn't matter, does it?" I told her, trying to skirt the question entirely. "You told me that your parents wouldn't have approved of us, right?" That didn't bother me much given they had grown up over a century ago and norms were different - I guess from their point of view, indeed, I would be a bad match for their daughter.

"But that's different," Charlotte said. "They are gone now... and they mainly would've had a problem with your status, not with you personally. I... I will have to meet your family someday, won't I?"

If we dated long enough, yes. I couldn't see a way around it, though I was trying to put the thought of how to introduce Charlotte to my family out of my mind for as long as possible. I was just kicking the can down the road, though I justified it to myself saying that I might one day be able to turn her back before we would reach that stage.

Still, I guess there would be quite a bit explaining to do even if that happened given how out of time Charlotte was. She would sooner or later slip up and reveal that aspect of herself.

"My father... probably wouldn't care that much so long as I loved someone," I told her. "My mother... is a different story. I really don't know how she would react at all." I chose to say this rather than say that her opinion would likely be quite negative. "Same thing for my sister, though I think she's more on the side of my father of not really caring."

"Oh," Charlotte said. I could tell that this was important to her, but I really didn't have a good answer that I could give her which would also be in good conscience. And if I tried to fake anything, I had a feeling that she’d see right through it.

"Look, Charlotte, it doesn't matter what they say," I told her. "Even if they disapproved, I'm not dependent on them at all or anything, and I would stay with you regardless."

It was something I had said offhandedly, but it seemed to affect Charlotte quite a bit. Her eyes were moistened at this point. "Thank you... Charlie. I would never want to be a wedge between you and your family, but thank you. I... If your family doesn't approve of me, I would work as hard as I can to become a woman who they can be proud of!"

She was really overthinking this, and I didn't want her to change because my mother might make an offhand comment. "You don't have to change anything about yourself, Charlotte. You're perfect the way you are." Granted, when I said that, I did want to to change one thing about her - to make her human, but even she agreed that she would prefer that. She had not been changed into this form voluntarily, after all.

"Ah, you really are going to make me cry," she said, rubbing her eyes. "Say, shouldn't you be getting some rest then?" I was still working night shift and my internal clock was set to that, though I'd be going to where I was going during the day. It was best to at least take some kind of a nap.

"Yeah, sure I will, but I remembered there was something to do first- do you want to do something about your bicycle's training wheels?"