I prefer your freckles. The words played over and over again in Charlie's head long after her dance with Floyd had ended. True to his word, he'd gotten her a drink afterwards to hold up his side of the bargain, but Charlie hadn't felt quite so jovial by then.
She had no idea what to make of the words. Clearly, he didn't like the way she looked tonight, that much was clear. But if he preferred her freckles did that mean he liked them, or simply that she looked bad like this and anything was preferable? She could only imagine the second scenario was true. No one had ever actively liked her freckles before.
Charlie sought out Skip, Alex, Malarkey, and Alton to raise her spirits back up and they did their job dutifully. Malarkey was the first to ask her, "Why the long face?" but when she shrugged and offered no explanation he let it go and insisted on a dance instead. He was a good friend.
As they danced he asked her question after question about her birthday and what she'd gotten and how her parents were and whether she was missing home. He put a smile back on her face with his responses to her answers and had her laughing in no time when he told her that Henry was here and how he was planning to get her to dance with him, too.
Charlie had laughed the most when he'd told her this. "You're going to get First Lieutenant Maddox to dance with you?" she asked, entirely unconvinced.
Malarkey only grinned. "I'm going to get Henry to dance with me, yeah." When she laughed again he scoffed. "You're laughing now but just you watch. Later on you'll be eating your words, Lancaster."
Charlie giggled brightly. "Whatever you say, Malark."
Charlie took a break after that and sat down at the table Mabs had saved for them. She watched with a smile as George and Boo danced together, their eyes solely on each other the whole time. Silently, and subconsciously, Charlie let out a wistful sigh. What would it be like to be the centre of someone's universe? To be loved and adored so much that whenever you were with them it was like no one else existed?
Charlie was sure she'd never know and she resented that fact. Eventually, after the war, she'd go back home and her parents would probably already have a man picked out for her, ready and waiting to race her down the aisle and stick her in a kitchen for the rest of her life. It was just the way of things for girls like her, the same as it had been for her mother and her grandmother and back and back and back. Her parents liked each other well enough, this much was true, but they weren't in love or anything. Love was simply too much to ask when you needed a certain amount of money to maintain a lifestyle and a reputation. Her mother had always ensured she had no illusions about that, and Charlie didn't. But, secretly, she'd always hoped to fall in love just once. Maybe she wouldn't marry him - she knew only the luckiest people got to marry for true love - but at least she'd be able to say that it had happened. That once upon a time she'd met a boy and fallen head over heels in love with him, and he'd looked at her like she put the stars in the sky.
But this dream faded with every passing day. She didn't know that anyone would ever look at her like that, see her like that. And maybe she just wasn't one of those people who had it in them to fall in love.
"What did Talbert say to you that made you go all glum?" Mabs asked out of nowhere, effectively yanking Charlie out of her reverie. She slid into the seat beside Charlie and all but draped herself over the table, clearly exhausted from dancing and just a little bit tipsy.
Charlie grimaced. She'd thought she'd been subtle about her reaction to his words but clearly she hadn't been. I prefer your freckles. The words made her cringe every time she thought of them. Such a clear dismissal. He didn't think she looked pretty at all.
"Nothing," Charlie said, forcing a smile.
Mabs made a sound of disagreement and Charlie faltered, letting the fake smile fall. This was Mabs. If she couldn't talk to her, who could she talk to?
"He said he prefers my freckles to my makeup tonight," Charlie explained with a sigh. It sounded like such a stupid thing to be upset over. Really, she couldn't understand why it was bothering her so much. Why did it matter if he thought she looked pretty, anyway?
Mabs made a sound of pure disgust in the back of her throat. "You can always trust Floyd Talbert to go 'round shoutin' out his unwanted opinions to anyone that'll listen. Christ. Who the fuck is he to have an opinion on your makeup anyway?"
Charlie pulled a face. "Well," she began warily, not wanting to be told off by Mabs for her own foolishness, "I did ask him."
Mabs sighed loudly. "Well, what the fuck did ya do that for?"
In spite of herself, Charlie laughed. "I don't know. He said, 'You covered your freckles' and I said, 'Autumn did my makeup' and it seemed the natural thing to say after that. To ask whether he liked it." She shook her head, laughing again in an attempt to brush it off. "And apparently he didn't."
"Who cares what Floyd Talbert thinks anyway?" Mabs asked with an expression of uncensored dislike on her face. "It ain't like he knows what he's talkin' 'bout. When does he ever?"
Charlie didn't say anything to that. She cared what Floyd Talbert thought. Honestly, she had shocked herself with how much she cared what he thought. Why on Earth was it bothering her so much that he didn't like the way she looked tonight?
All of a sudden, Mabs pushed herself up from the table and slapped her hands down on it. "Y'know what you need, Charlie?"
Charlie humoured her with an amused smile. "What?"
"What you need is to dance with a man who appreciates ya. Who looks at you and thinks he's never seen anyone more beautiful and is downright enthralled by every damn word that comes out of your mouth."
Charlie laughed sheepishly, shaking her head. "I don't think -"
Mabs cut her off, knowing where she was going with that sentence. "There's so many men in here lookin' at ya like that you could close your eyes and point and land on one. So -" She slapped the table again, "- let's go dance. Alright?"
Mabs held out a hand for Charlie and Charlie took it, and together they walked to the edge of the dance floor. Charlie highly doubted that this would work; Mabs would be asked to dance within seconds, of course, because she was Mabs and she was glowing, but Charlie just didn't have that same effect. And then she'd be left standing by herself on the edge of the dance floor like a fool.
She was surprised when Alton More appeared beside her, grinning. "Finally my turn for a dance?"
Charlie smiled, attempting to hide her surprise at his appearance behind a teasing roll of her eyes. "Maybe." She grinned. "What do I get in return?"
He smirked. "The once in a lifetime opportunity to dance with me."
Shaking her head, Charlie laid her hand delicately in his outstretched palm. "Well, in that case..." she said, laughing as he pulled her onto the dance floor.
Her dance with Alton was fun and talking to him was easy but it didn't make her feel all that much better. What she really wanted to do was lock herself in a bathroom until she managed to wash all of her makeup off, but she knew she wouldn't do that - Floyd would know why she'd done it, for one, and for two, why should she take it off? She'd felt pretty before he'd gone and said that. She just resented that she couldn't seem to feel that way again knowing he didn't agree.
When they finished dancing, Alton offered to buy Charlie a drink and she agreed. It was after they'd been served and had taken their first sips that she decided to say something.
"Alton," she began.
He nodded at her over the rim of his glass.
"If I ask you something, you'll be honest with me, won't you?"
"'Course," he said, then narrowed his eyes. "Wait..."
Charlie grinned. "Too late. You can't take it back now. You're sworn to telling me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Alton rolled his eyes and waved her on. "Whatever you say."
"Okay, so my question is," she began, and had to fight to get the words out, her insides mushing and roiling together in her eagerness to both ask the question and not ask the question. It was the constant wondering that pushed her to finally ask, "do you think I look pretty tonight?"
Alton choked on the sip of beer he'd been taking. "What?"
"Do you think I look pretty tonight?" Charlie repeated, hoping the powder on her face would cover her blush.
After he'd composed himself, Alton smirked. "Charlie, I ain't sure 'pretty' covers even the half of it."
"Meaning..?" She knew she was fishing for compliments now, but he didn't seem to mind. Besides, her ego could use the boost.
"Meaning I'd probably use the words 'gorgeous' or 'hot' instead."
Gorgeous. Hot. No one had ever used those words to describe her. Deep down, she knew that those were the kind of words she'd been hoping for - the kind of words she'd hoped people would associate with her appearance when she'd first looked in the mirror, finding herself looking less ingenue and more femme fatale. But the words didn't have the desired effect. All of a sudden she felt like a little girl playing dress up in her mother's clothes and makeup. At her core, whether she liked it or not, she was Charlie with the freckles and the blushing and the never quite knowing what to do with her hands, always just a little bit uncertain whether she was looking at someone too much or not enough when she was talking to them. She wasn't Charlie with the low cut dress and the smirks and the line of men waiting to dance with her just because she seemed more eager than usual. Just because she was twenty didn't mean she was different. And now all of it just felt wrong.
"Thank you," she told Alton, smiling softly, in the way that made her feel like herself, instead of smirking, in the way that didn't.
When she went outside for air a little while later, it was to seek refuge in the same way she would have in a bathroom to try and wipe off all her makeup. She wouldn't be wiping it off - it was much too nicely done for that, and she didn't want to hurt Autumn's feelings - but the cool night air and the stars were just as helpful in making her feel like she had. Outside, the stillness of the night washed over her and she felt she could breathe easier. She wasn't trying to be anyone, wasn't trying to be seen a certain way by anyone. Breathing in the chill of the night and tilting her head back towards the sky, letting the starlight cleanse her soul, she just let herself be. The normal Charlie. The way she thought she was when no one was watching.
Going back inside a little while later, she felt renewed. She felt like herself again, and she'd decided that that wasn't altogether such a bad person to be. So instead of lingering on the side of the dance floor and making it clear she was after a partner, Charlie sought out Autumn and gave her a grin. "Do you want to dance?"
Autumn laughed. "With you?"
Charlie shrugged, still with that broad smile. "Who else?"
She held out her hand and Autumn happily slapped her own into it, and together they wove through the groups of people standing around and talking until they stood amongst the masses of partners on the dance floor. And if anyone gave them strange looks for being the only couple composed of two women, the two of them didn't notice nor care a bit.
When Charlie danced with Autumn, she didn't let herself worry so much about it. Dancing wasn't supposed to be about getting it right, it was supposed to be about having fun. She didn't care what she looked like, whether the next thing she said would be interesting or funny enough to keep her partner entertained, or how good her timing was. And because of it, she started having more fun than she'd let herself have all night.
Eventually, however, like all good things the dance came to an end. Before either Charlie or Autumn could catch their breath enough to string a few words together, Mabs and Boo appeared beside them, both of them sporting their own grins.
"Room for two more?" Boo asked.
Charlie laughed brightly. There was nothing she wanted more at that moment than to dance with the three girls she'd come to think of, and love just the same, as sisters.
So they all danced together, holding hands in a circle in a world of their own with their smiles bright and their laughter loud. And when the song ended, they danced that way again, until all of them were so out of breath they could barely wheeze out any more laughter.
And it was because of them, and because of how she felt around them, that Charlie found herself feeling a little bit less lost for the rest of the night, a little bit more comfortable in who she was and what that meant. With them she felt accepted, knew that they loved her just as much as she loved them, and there was so much happiness in knowing that that she felt she'd never feel lost again.