The last few minutes had easily been the lowest moment in Charlie's life; sure, he might not have been all that confident before coming to Mexico, but now his loneliness and desperation was on full display for his fellow Golden Ticket winner to see. It was tough for Veruca to sympathize with what Charlie felt, and not just because she struggled to sympathize with anyone else, but because Veruca simply couldn't imagine a world where she could not at least summon a group of people to at least pretend they cared about her and her feelings. But Charlie had never had any friends, even fake friends, growing up so to him being lonely was just another part of life, but that was not to say that he took his loneliness in stride. The pain of loneliness can never be normalized and so Charlie had spent the last twenty-four years trying to find a way to fill that void, but his urgency to feel normal resulted in him coming on too strong onto the current target of his affection. But strangely enough, Veruca did not cast him away as one might have expected considering she had thrown people out of her life for even less than what Charlie had just done. Instead, she kept him around and actually began to try to understand why the Good Boy acted in such a strange manner when it came to courting women. The little brute concluded the best way to get to the bottom of this problem would be to start off by analyzing the Good Boy's relationship history, but since he told her he hadn't even had his first kiss, she was relegated to having to study those relationships he had that could have turned romantic had the stars aligned years ago. Yet, this did not result in much as the Good Boy only had one girl be truly interested in him in his entire life, something that he was deeply embarrassed about. But seeing as how Veruca just couldn't seem to let this go, Charlie concluded that it might be time to get this story off his chest.
He had never told this story to anyone else, partially because he had no one to tell it to but mostly because he was now embarrassed at how he had acted throughout the entire affair, but he was finally ready to get it off his chest, confessing, "Well, if you must continue to press me on that, I guess there was someone who could fit the criteria of an interest. I told you I used to spend a lot of time in America conducting business in the New York Office, well, during my longest stint in New York I met a woman who I spent a lot of time with looking back on it. Mr. Wonka gives to a lot to charities, mostly as a tax write-off, and one of the charities he donated to was one that promoted literacy and education among young girls started by an education activist named Matilda Honey. She was like five-years-and-some-months older than me but we both got along great. She always invited me to dinner and shows, come to think of it, we once went to see the ballet. For all I know, we went to see you perform. Small world, maybe? Now, I'm going to be honest with you, the whole time I thought she was just being a great friend, but it wasn't until later that one of Mr. Wonka's old friends that runs the New York Office, Terrance Souza, pulled me to the side to talk man to man that I realized Matilda liked me, you know, liked me. However, by the time I figured it out she had already moved on and I don't blame her, why would she wait for me? To this day, I don't understand why I didn't pick up on the hints she was dropping that she liked me, they seemed so obvious in hindsight. I remember she used to flip her dark hair whenever she saw me, she used to laugh at every one of my jokes and she always found an excuse to sit close to me. She would've made an ideal partner, she is caring, talented and she has a great personality, no wonder someone swooped her off her feet before I realized what her intentions with me were."
The Good Boy lamented the mistakes he made when it came to Matilda, but he had managed to put them behind him and get on with his life, unfortunately, the little brute wasn't so quick to forget about what she had just heard from her inviter. Despite always claiming that she had no feelings for the meekly winner of Wonka's chocolate factory, Veruca felt jealous of this friend, and she couldn't just lie back and let the memory of this girl run rampant inside Charlie's mind. The little brute had to bring her down in order to preserve the spot she held in Charlie's mind following these past weeks of the two of them spending all of this time together, and what better way for the former beauty queen to do this than by attacking her rival's appearance.
She had picked up on something Charlie had said while describing his friend, so the little brute decided to attack her from that standpoint, suggesting without any concern for how the Good Boy would respond, "So, she's ugly."
"What, no, Veruca. Why would you say something like that?" Charlie blurted out, laying out an indignant defense of his old friend.
On the other hand, the little brute saw no problem in categorizing her target in such an unflattering light, not just because she felt a negative response after first hearing about her, but because the logic she lived life according to meant it was so. She didn't want to open up to Charlie on why she felt like a rival against his story's protagonist, so instead she went on to explain the reasoning she used to come to her conclusion, explaining, "People say 'She has a great personality' when she's ugly."
Leave it to Veruca to have a strict and inflexible worldview when it came to beauty, Charlie thought; and while she was not completely wrong, he knew she was far from right at the same time. So, with his friend not present to defend the status of her beauty, Charlie did his best he could do to defend it, claiming, "Well, I'll admit that she's not a model like you, but she's...cute."
Veruca noticed the delay in the Good Boy's response, and in her mind it was as if he wanted to make his friend sound as best as possible without having to admit that she was right. Now, something about knowing Charlie thought she was prettier than the girl he had just fawned over made the little brute feel really proud and giddy inside, and it let her to continue to try to convince the heir of her world view, adding, "Well, all I can tell you is that I know a thing or two about how others treat beautiful people. I mean, look at me, I've never been told I have a great personality."
The little brute gestured at her body decked in beach attire, optimal for attracting attention, as it did from Charlie before and also now again. While the Good Boy still found her to be attractive, he could also recognize the flaws in her logic, which he brought up when he attempted to discredit her aforementioned reasoning for why no one had ever complimented her personality, retorting, "I think there's another reason for that."
Surprisingly enough, Veruca chose not to get so hung up on Charlie's critique of her reasoning and instead chose to reflect on her own past like her inviter did, something that brought up a few memories of her time in New York as well. As it turned out, Charlie wasn't the first shy guy the little brute had spent time with, and she let The Lucky Boy know this, revealing, "You know, you remind me of this bloke I went on a date with once when I was in New York, Kerry Ganger."
"Ah, Kerry, so weird, that whole family, really. Trust me, their family makes for a good story," Veruca added, reminiscing about her days in New York before the scandal at the night club.
While other guys would have tried their hardest to stop a girl from remembering their exes, Charlie thought it was only fair that she tell him a story about a failed attempt at a relationship, seeing as he had just spent the last few minutes telling her about his, which led him to suggest, "Well, I'm always up for a good story."
Unconvinced that the Good Boy truly wanted to hear the story of some family he had never met, especially since she herself wouldn't have wanted to hear it if she was in his shoes, Veruca leaned over to him, and asked, "You really want to hear it?"
"Of course, I always want to hear about your time in New York as a ballerina and what your life was like then," Charlie responded honestly as he truly wanted to learn every detail about every life experience she had had, especially after the tour of the factory.
The little brute was not used to telling long stories about other people, yet she still gave it her best shot when it came to conveying the truly bizarre details of this family she knew, saying, "Very well, here it goes. First off, I need to give you some background information on Kerry's sister, Katherine. She was a fellow dancer at Dollinger, in fact, she'd been dancing there for a couple of years before I first arrived. She was a beautiful blonde with porcelain skin and cerulean blue eyes and she caught all the men's attention, but unfortunately for them she was dating her childhood crush, Kristopher Dahl. Now, let me tell you, he was fit, he truly complimented Katherine; he was even blond with blue eyes, as well. In fact, every single one of the other people I'm going to be talking about looked just the same. They all looked like those Dresden dolls that graze shelves and mantles. Strange, isn't it? Anyways, Katherine had a crush on Kristopher since they were children and they started dating when they were teenagers. They had been dating for over ten years by the time I met them and they supported each other in their endeavors, Katherine in her ballet career and Kristopher as he studied at university to become a doctor. They got married sometime after I met them, but interestingly enough, Katherine had already taken Kristopher's name as she furthered her career. She went by Katherine Dahl on stage and eventually became Katherine Dahl in real life. Anyways, back to Kerry, so, Katherine tries to set me up with her younger brother, he was a year younger than me but that didn't seem to strike Katherine as odd. We go out for dinner and I had to be the one who drove the conversation forward. He just sat there, looking at me all wide-eyed, probably taking mental notes for a new song. Oh, I should mention, he was striving to be a musician, but with his personality, I doubt he'll go far. Now, I told him he was too meekly for me after dinner and I went home, thinking that would be the last I would see of him. But, luckily for you and all the other wimps of this world, Kerry got his happily ever after in the end. As it turns out, Kristopher had a younger sister named Kori, I met her once, didn't like her; she's so loud and direct and that just doesn't sit well with me, you know. Now, remember how I told you Kristopher and Katherine first started dating when they were teenagers? Well, when they started dating, they introduced the other to each other's families, so Kerry and Kori both originally met when they were like five, and as it turns out, Kori had a crush on Kerry. He was never going to have the courage to ask her out first, so he got lucky when she put herself out there first and asked him out. Last thing I heard, the two of them got married last year and she's his perfect little housewife. I guess she spares him her big mouth, but I doubt she's as quaint with him as I've heard. Now, I didn't even know it was legal to marry your sibling-in-law's sibling, it just all seems very strange, but I guess it makes family reunions easier, if you can get over the awkwardness. Two families became one, Dahl and Ganger."
Her story truly was a handful, yet bizarrely entertaining at the same time, and Charlie commended her for it, claiming, "You do have an interesting story there, Veruca. Just not as riveting as my battle against aliens."
"And I still doubt that even happened," the little brute snapped back, albeit, after experiencing the crazy technology concocted in Wonka's factory again after so many years, she was a bit closer to believing the Good Boy's space story was actually true.
