Behind his desk sat the founder of this magnificent factory and Charlie's personal mentor and friend, Willy Wonka. He had not changed much since the first time Charlie met him; sure, the skin around his jaw, on his neck and around his eyes had begun to sink and wrinkle, but Wonka still had a great skin care routine which kept most of the effects of reaching the age of 57 at bay. The most noticeable change in his appearance was the fact that the one silver hair which frightened Wonka so much that he concocted an elaborate contest to find an heir had now nearly taken over his entire head, leaving only streaks of his original brown hair remaining. While he was once terrified of facing his own mortality, ever since he met Charlie and spent nearly every waking minute with him in the factory over the past few years, he no longer feared death as he was confident his empire was in good hands. When it came to attire, he was still as exuberant as ever; he continued his use of flamboyant-patterned dress shirts, black vests, dark velvet coats, golden collars that sported his own initial, and literally topping it all off with one of his signature top hats. With a net worth of £1.9 billion, Wonka was the 24th richest person in the United Kingdom and one of the 1,000 wealthiest individuals in the entire world, but none of that really mattered to him, the only thing that did was innovating in the field of confectionery and defending his claim to the throne as its king.
"Oh, you dialed me. I must have missed it," Charlie responded, unsure of whether or not he noticed any notifications on his phone when he signaled the Glass Elevator to pick him up.
Still a bit on edge that his heir disappeared for hours on end without notifying anyone in the factory about his whereabouts, Wonka probed Charlie for more information, asking, "So, tell me, Charlie, why are you late for work? You've never been late."
"Oh, well, I...got caught up out there," Charlie replied, stumbling to come up with a cover story as lying had never been his forte.
Charlie's inexperience with lying gave it all away to the inquisitive Willy Wonka, who smiled and asked, "Caught up? With something…or someone?"
The little bit of color Charlie had in his face all seemed to drain out with that question, but to spare his heir any more embarrassment, Wonka added, "It's alright, my dear boy. I always knew this day would come. Although, I expected it would have happened before you turned twenty-four. But hey, better late than never."
"What? No, Wonka, it's not like that, I just spent the night somewhere, nothing more," Charlie replied, almost frightened that his mentor had the idea he was up to something mischievous last night and wanting to turn the conversation away from where he was the night before.
Wonka leaned back in his chair after Charlie reacted rather terrified at his comments made in jest, and hoping to restore the peace, he joked, "Oh, then I guess I'll keep waiting. But it's good you're venturing out into the world on your own. I know finding someone is very important to you and it's not like you'll meet anyone inside our factory, now is it?"
"I could say the same for you," Charlie replied without a hint of humor in his tone as he was still quite on edge about Wonka's prodding.
Yet, in true Wonka fashion, the master chocolatier injected more humor into the conversation, clarifying, "That's where you are wrong, my dear boy. I choose to be a solitary hermit; you just don't go out much."
"Well, I'm here, so let's get to work," Charlie stated as he spread his hands across his desk made from the candy cane trees found only in the Chocolate Room.
But, still unwilling to let it go, Wonka sat at his own candy cane tree desk for a few seconds in silence, just staring at Charlie preparing his work for the day, and then randomly blurted out, "Then I guess you won't be telling me her name."
"His name?" Wonka asked additionally as Charlie stared back at him with exhaustion in his eyes, even though Wonka was unsure if such a question would even apply to Charlie.
Even though he'd had enough of Wonka's antics, Charlie wasn't the kind of person to burst out in rage, so instead he vocalized his feelings as straightforward as possible, stating, "It's nothing Wonka, there's no need to go into any of that right now."
Charlie sat down behind his desk right across from Wonka's and began pulling up reports on the newest candies in development on his computer, but as he began searching through his desk for a spare flash drive, he rediscovered one of his most prized possessions. In one of the drawers of his desk, Charlie stored a collection of newspaper articles and magazines documenting the Golden Ticket contest and the winner's tour of Wonka's factory. Each magazine featured a cover image of one of the other four winners following their discovery of the prized document, the same for the newspapers along with the collection of articles written on the day of the tour featuring interviews conducted while the ten guests waited on the outside for the gates to open. And as the metaphorical cherry on top of this emotional sundae, stood a white sheet of paper with crayon scribbles all over. It was a drawing Charlie created as a child only few months after the tour featuring him and the other four kids holding hands and frolicking in the Chocolate Room. As an adult, Charlie understood why his younger self drew this image; sure, many of them were rather mean to him but they were the closest thing he had to a group to call his own. Growing up, Charlie had no friends, gut-wrenching poverty and a personal aesthetic that was not at all en vogue did not help; the only attention he really ever got was that from bullies, but the other kids often ignored him because they just simply did not notice him. Without anything special to define him positively, Charlie often fell in between the social cracks, and at first, he thought belonging to the Golden Ticket winner's club would open up more social opportunities for him, but those dreams never materialized.
Apart from not bonding with the other children on that fateful day, they all left home right after the tour, most likely upset about their experience at the factory like Veruca clearly still was, meaning that they would most likely not be in the mood to stay in contact with either Charlie or Wonka. And with such a tragic outcome, it left Charlie with only one friend, a middle-aged recluse, and while he was grateful for everything Wonka did for him and his family, he thought he could not be blamed for doing what his mentor encouraged him to do, strive to make his reality even greater than it already was. Wonka had hired a private investigator to track down his estranged father, but he never acted on the information until Charlie accompanied him on a mission to make amends and Charlie often pondered whether he should do the same. He had already found Veruca, meaning the PI would only have to track down three more people, but he never had the courage to set up a meeting to begin the investigation and that was something he was starting to regret. Perhaps if he had reached out a year or two after the tour, they could have all came back and made peace with what had occurred behind the large, gray brick walls of the factory, and perhaps then Charlie could have had age-appropriate friends. Charlie might have been able to do all the things a kid was supposed to do like celebrate each of the winner's birthdays and have sleepovers in the Chocolate Room, but those days were long gone and impossible to do-over.