On the Nose

Charlotte woke up, lazily glanced at her phone for the time and sat up in bed, not really eager to start the day, but knew that she had to. She pulled up today's to-do list and today's focus quote and pulled herself out of bed, to get started on it. The routine was the same - (SESE) stretch, excrete, shower and eat. She generally ate, then brushed her teeth, because WHY do it the other way around? She never understood when people learned morning prep that way.

Anyway, after she completed her SES, she went into the kitchen where her mother was looking a little bit curiously at a basket and holding a mug of tea. "Charlotte, someone sent you a gift basket early this morning."

She furrowed her eyebrows and said, "It's not any kind of special occasion. Does it say who from?"

"Just Joss. Who is Joss, Charlotte? Some boy?"

Charlotte squinted, then it dawned on her, "Wait! Joss… Moss?" She picked apart the wrapping on the basket and found an invitation to a "Clay Pigeons and Caviar Brunch? What?" There was a phone number to RSVP, but the invitation was for today! Now, Charlotte didn't trust Joss Moss and she certainly didn't want to go to brunch with her, but maybe if she had some time around her, she could look for weaknesses and stuff… In case Henry totally disregarded her advice and wound up in one of his inevitable pickles, which Charlotte knew she'd be the one to have to crack open the jar.

She pulled out her phone and dialed the number, "Hi. I am calling to RSVP for the Clay Pigeons and Caviar Brunch at Moss Manor…"

"Charlotte… you can't go to Moss Manor!" Her mother said.

"I won't," she whispered. You know, like a liar. Her mother let out a relieved sigh, lifted her mug to her, then left the room to start her day. After the call, Charlotte went outside and there it was, one of Joss's cars. It had been sent to pick her up since the estate was about an hour away.

.

Brunch was interesting. It was Joss, Charlotte, and about 20 other girls who were simply decoys of them. "Hope you didn't mind wearing the outfit. Needed to have you match them, otherwise onlookers would know I'm me, simply for being the one that you're talking to. And your outfits are always so unique, I wouldn't have been able to guess what you'd wear here." They both had on "shooting outfits," though Charlotte was sure that hers was frumpy on purpose, while Joss was extremely cute. Didn't matter.

"Thanks for inviting me. Is it just the two of us?"

"Yes. I wanted to clear the air between us. PULL!" Joss yelled, then shot and hit a clay pigeon. "You know… for Henry's sake."

Charlotte threw her an impressed grin for the shot, then readied her own gun. "Well, I didn't realize that there was air to clear or that you and Henry were something that air needed to be cleared for. But, Henry and I have been best friends half of our lives. The air seems good to me. PULL!" She fired and hit the target even better than Joss had, to Joss's surprise.

"You've done this before?"

"No. I just have a knack for getting things right on the nose," Charlotte told her, almost in a warning tone. Because Char did not trust her and she didn't care if she knew it… though… being isolated on her property, perhaps she should? She was in contact with Schwoz in case this went South, though.

"I just want to make sure that you're okay with Henry being happy with someone else. PULL!"

"I'm okay with Henry being happy with anybody and I'm not really sure why you would think that I wouldn't be."

"Well, he sometimes puts his foot into his mouth. He accidentally told me that you didn't approve of us."

"My approval means nothing to his free will. PULL!"

"No, but it means something to him. He often taps into what I've come to call the Charlotte Philosophy Guide. He will wonder out loud what you'll think or say before he can make a choice on something. It's intimidating, a little. Knowing that another girl has such presence in his daily life. It's frustrating, really, when I'm trying to impress the guy. PULL!" Her "pull" sounded angry and she almost didn't hit her target… she was visibly upset.

Charlotte didn't GAF. "We're friends. That's a part of friendship - thinking about what your friends think about something. But, I'd be more concerned about what you're doing that Henry would feel like he has to use my rationale in your company."

"All I've done since I met him is try to get to know him. He's got this idea in his head that my father is a deterrent."

"Rich people make the rest of us leery. PULL!" Charlotte decided that was true enough. In an evil capitalist society, no rich man was wholesome and even if he was a legitimate business man, he would have had to step all over a large number of somebody's to amass his level of wealth.

"We're human too. We have feelings. We have struggles, and my father is a good man who ran into some bad luck. That's not a reason for you to convince Henry that I'm bad for him. PULL!"

Charlotte raised an eyebrow, prepared her gun and let Joss know, straight up, "Listen. I don't think I've convinced Henry of anything in the past 9 years, so I'm not about to act like this conversation matters to me. What I will say is that it doesn't matter what I think about you or your father, what Henry thinks about you or your father, or what you think I'm convincing him of. The only thing that matters is this simple fact - I don't care about any of that, and you shouldn't either. All I care about is Henry not getting hurt, and that isn't gonna happen, so I'm good. PULL!"

Joss gave her a smile and said, "The way that you said that sounded kind of like a threat. PULL!"

"I don't make threats, Girl." Charlotte shook her head and added, "But I certainly was raised to keep promises. Don't believe me, just watch. PULL!" She called for the scores, just to let Joss see that if what she planned to do was intimidate her, she didn't hit the target. "Thanks for inviting me! But, my ride's here." Charlotte handed the shotgun over and went to meet Schwoz in the Man van.

"How was the brunch?" He asked.

"I gorged myself and stole some stuff from her, for good measure," Charlotte said, "For the emotional manipulation she just tried to pull on me. I don't know what Henry sees in her."

"She's very pretty and rich!"

"Men are so simple minded and shortsighted. Not me though…" She began to mess with something in the van, at the radio and soon, she and Schwoz heard Joss's voice through the speakers.

"I'm almost certain that she stole one of my tea sets! How did she even DO that?"

"She's either toying with you to see if you are like what she imagines your father is like, looking for a crime job, or she's a kleptomaniac."

"I think she just wants to see me squirm. Send her the furniture set, too. She's gonna learn that Joss Moss doesn't blink for bugs."

"Bug?" Charlotte repeated.

"And… send a car for Henry. Make room for us some place nice that even rich people have trouble getting in. Charlotte might be in his head, but you flash enough pretty smiles and shiny gifts at a boy and they forget their little friends."

"Why do you even care? He's a silly Swellview boy."

"He's cute. I like him. I want him. And I don't like feeling like I come second to anybody. Not used to it. It reminds me of that time that I stepped in ants…"