Two chapters in one month—something's wrong with me.
And I finally got the soundtrack for Don't Starve! Now I have to finish my schoolwork so I can play the game again—I miss Wilson! T^T
Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment
Great Gatsby © 2013 Baz Luhrmann
"That's my place, right there."
"No! You live there?"
The sun was shining brightly, and Wilson felt it reflected in the trio walking across Maxwell's lawn. Charlie was in the middle, her arms threaded through Maxwell's and Wilson's, her face as radiant as the afternoon sun and the bright reflections from the windows. He half-listened as Maxwell described the history of the place to Charlie, mostly taken up with a feeling of immense size and scope that he couldn't describe.
As they toured through the mansion, Wilson realized he had never seen the place empty before. In his fugue, Wilson couldn't help but think that all the guests from the parties were really there, and just hiding until they left. He could have sworn that he heard the ghost of a laugh as they left one room, but when he stuck his head back in, there was no one.
Maxwell, meanwhile, seemed to be in a cloud of his own. He was following Charlie around, as though reevaluating everything judging by her reactions. Wilson noted that for once, his cigars were absent.
Charlie seemed overwhelmed by it all, although when she burst into tears at one point, she insisted it was because of the shirts Maxwell had been showing them at the time. "I've…I've never seen such beautiful shirts." As though fabric could bring someone to tears.
As the tour continued, Wilson couldn't help but realize that everything there, the whole mansion, had been picked with Charlie in mind. It gave Wilson some indication of how largely his cousin factored in Maxwell's mind. And yet every time he reminded himself that he should be feeling badly about this, Tom and the apartment flat sprang to mind.
A second afternoon storm was rolling in, and they paused a moment by some big windows to admire the thunderheads. Mr. Skits informed Maxwell of a telephone call at one point, but Maxwell brushed it off, instead turning his attention to Charlie and pointing out the window.
"If it weren't for the fog rolling in, we could see the green light at the end of your dock."
"Really?" Charlie asked, although Wilson had the feeling she had never given her dock light any thought before. "Oh, you're right across the sound from me!"
Me, not us. Wilson wondered if perhaps she was distancing herself from the unpleasantness of her marriage, as though not thinking about it would make it so.
Something about the way Maxwell paused as they departed from the windows made Wilson feel that perhaps he had put something of Charlie into that light, and now that she was here, it was no longer anything of value.
Wilson paused and reexamined the overcast sky. It was the weather, he decided—he always got reflective when a storm rolled in.
Some organ player had been summoned, perhaps at Maxwell's behest, and was playing some swinging ragtime that echoed fantastically in the huge ballroom. Wilson and Charlie were dancing to the quick beat as Maxwell poured drinks, although he had finished that task long ago and was just simply watching Charlie.
The organ player finished one tune and went on to another. Charlie ran over and dragged Maxwell onto the dance floor.
Wilson took the opportunity to back off and observe them for a moment. It was like in his living room, when they thought they were alone.
Wilson's qualms about the day slowly evaporated. For now, at least, he felt he did the right thing.
With the ballroom empty, he was able to actually examine some of the trappings. But the more he looked, the more he realized that there was nothing truly of Maxwell around. He might have owned it, and he might have bought everything, but there was nothing that reflected Maxwell or his personality—or rather, what Wilson knew of it. His conversation with the woman in the library came back, and Wilson realized just how little he actually knew of Maxwell.
He looked back to Maxwell and Charlie, realizing the music had changed again, this time into something softer. They weren't dancing now; they were seated on a couch, chatting quietly, entirely wrapped up in each other.
Wilson raised his hand, ready to say something, changed his mind, lowered it. He quietly excused himself, departing for home.
He needed time to think, to sort out conflicting emotions, to figure out just what exactly he was doing.
Wilson sighed upon entering his home, living room still filled with flowers.
Why couldn't life be as simple as his science?