Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5)

by Krista Ritchie

  “Charlie, stop,” I say vehemently, my voice trembling with more emotion than I typically show.

  It forces his feet to a complete and sudden halt. He stands directly in the center of the path, breathing heavily, still dressed in his prep school uniform: navy slacks, button-down, Dalton emblem and tie. I left work just to pick him up after the principal called.

  I walk closer, only a few feet away.

  And then he swings around. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” His reddened face pumps with fury. “Why didn’t you tell me it’d be like this?!” He grabs at his short brown hair, as though trying to reach for his brain and say take it back. I don’t want it anymore.

  “Because you wouldn’t have wanted me to spoon-feed you. You would’ve rather drawn the conclusion yourself in time.”

  He angrily chucks his backpack onto the grass. He usually has no trouble using words, but I know besides his own family, no one has been listening to him today, yesterday, and most days before that. He’s been treated like his age. The principal patronized him five minutes ago, and that’s what pushed him to rush out.

  “You can talk to me. I’ll always listen.”

  Charlie stares at the bright blue sky, quiet for a long moment. And then he says, “It takes them forever. To think, to solve the stupidest problem, to see what’s right in front of them.”

  “People don’t think like you,” I say. “They can’t. They won’t—”

  “They should!” he screams, vexed and irate. He points heatedly at the building behind me. “Annabelle hangs out with girls that hate her, but she actually believes they’re her friends. Mr. Crowder takes an extra five minutes calling attendance because he won’t say the first name only. And these dumb guys make fun of Beckett for going to ballet class after school.”

  He takes one step near me. I stare calmly down at him.

  “I’m surrounded by stupid people in a stupid world and everyone does stupid things, and it’s slow. It’s so slow.” He cringes in distaste, his face pained. “I’m stuck here, aren’t I, Dad?”

  “What do you think?” I ask first.

  “I think that if I left here.” He motions to the school. “People would never take me seriously. Oh, look at cute little Charlie Keating pretending to be so smart and old.” He lets out a short laugh, and his eyes flood with tears but he restrains that emotion.

  “The world is frustrating,” I tell him. “When you know every answer and everyone else takes a thousand times longer than you, you just want to bang your head on the desk. You want to walk out. You want to help them solve the equation, but even if you did, they still would never be as fast as you.”

  His lips part at the realization that I know exactly what he feels.

  “You can’t make people think like you. You’re it, Charlie. The world will never go at your speed.”

  He winces. “No, Dad.”

  “Some people are illogical, irrational, and emotional, but people have to be free to fail, to fall, and yes, to do stupid things. I know it’s irritating. I know you want, so badly, to tell people which way to turn because you see that way is in their best interest, but you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because society doesn’t work like that. You can walk backwards while everyone walks forwards, but you can’t force everyone to walk backwards with you.”

  I never used my intelligence to stop crime, to save the world, to help people—I used it for my own benefit: self-knowledge, self-growth. Esteem and power.

  I’m immoral. I’m selfish and egotistical. But if you had the mind and the eyes that illuminated every facet of the world, that had the ideas and solutions to fix micro and macro problems—how maddening would it be to watch people do illogical, emotional things to their determent and others, knowing you hold all the tools but in the end, you’re powerless to stop them.

  If I took that route, I would’ve gone insane. If Charlie takes that route, he will too.

  We can’t fix what’s wrong with the entire world. I simply live by their rules and step outside when it suits me. When I need to feel free.

  And I use my intelligence for me.

  Charlie fights tears and shakes his head repeatedly. “If no one listens, if no one cares, if I can’t make them go my speed—what’s even the point?”

  “You can do anything. You can be anything. There’ll be constraints everywhere you turn, but there’ll be none inside your mind, Charlie. You don’t need to bang your head on the desk because they can’t keep up. Think about ways in which you can go faster. Only look at you.”

  I’m teaching my son how to be self-centered, so the slothful world he’s stuck inside won’t drive him mad.

  Charlie understands, more realizations washing his face.

  I notice a van in the far distance, driving through the opened school gates.

  Paparazzi.

  I pick up Charlie’s backpack. “You have to skip third and fourth grade.”

  Charlie must’ve known I would propose this because he’s not surprised at all. “You didn’t skip.”

  “You’re not me.”

  He eyes me skeptically. “Weren’t you bored?”

  “Every day, but I didn’t want to miss out on experiences that other people had. I wanted to relate to them. So I could blend in. It was useful, and I liked gaining useful skills. It was a self-interest.”

  He thinks about this for a long moment.

  The paparazzi van drives closer.

  Charlie is so quiet as he processes a future that he tries to pave out. “I don’t want to leave him…” His chest collapses at the thought. If he skips grades, he’ll no longer be in the same classes as Beckett. He’ll go to high school and college before his twin brother.

  Rose and I offered homeschool to Charlie once, but he rejected the idea. I want to stay in school with Beckett, he said. “Homeschooling is an option—”

  “No.” Charlie frowns deeply. “I want to be in the same school.” He pauses. “I’m scared to leave him…”

  “He knows how school is for you, Charlie.”

  Beckett has asked us to do something twice before because he feels his brother’s frustration, his irritation, how upset and mad he becomes by the end of the day. He senses all of that pain, and he just wants him to feel okay.

  “I can be like you,” Charlie tells me. “I can just…stay in third grade and think about myself.”

  “You’re not me,” I repeat. “If you were, every time someone patronized you, you would’ve thought, I’m better than you, and moved on.” I was six when I realized what he’s realizing now, and I had no family that needed or wanted to be loved.

  He does.

  Charlie sees the incoming paparazzi van.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, directing him towards the curb where my limo is parked. A cameraman jumps out of the van and starts asking questions. He stays about five feet away from us.

  “What are you doing out of school, Charlie?” the cameraman asks.

  Charlie unknots his tie. “Ruminating.”

  I grin.

  The truth: he told one of his teacher’s a more efficient way to teach 3rd grade math that would benefit the whole class. He argued his point until the teacher told him that it didn’t matter what he said because he was the student, “the child”—so Charlie walked out of class.

  The teacher found him sitting alone in the empty cafeteria, reading a book from home, and he was then escorted to the principal’s office.

  The rest is just history.

  Charlie ignores the camera. He’s used to its presence, and he must not be concerned whether his next question is aired.

  “You see more benefits in skipping to fifth grade when you didn’t even do it?” he asks me.

  “For you, yes.”

  He hesitates. “Why?”

  “Do you want to blend in or do you want to walk backwards?” He knows that a sea of people will always walk forwards, but he can choose to move with them or against them. Where do his self
-interests lie? To learn to be fake or to learn to be real.

  His eyes are no longer filled with tears. He holds this powerful understanding that pushes his carriage outward, pulls his shoulders back, lifts his head to greater heights. And he says, “Walk backwards.”

  “That’s why.”

  You’re not like me.

  2027

  “I believe the human brain is capable of great and terrible things. We’re dreadfully complicated creatures.”

  - Jane Eleanor Cobalt, We Are Calloway (Season 9 Episode 01 – Tacos & Pastels)

  < 52 >

  January 2027

  The Cobalt Estate

  Philadelphia

  RYKE MEADOWS

  I’m fucking used to being surrounded by girls.

  Just not these two.

  By the Cobalt’s fireplace, Janie and Maria are in a fit of laughter over I don’t fucking know what. They both wear long black robes, hiding gowns beneath. I sit on the living room chair, phone cupped in my hand, waiting for Connor to arrive from work.

  I need his fucking passcodes to his storage unit, just to grab a shotgun that we share. And yeah—we share a couple guns. My little brother, who hates guns, revolted at the idea of me buying another one for safety.

  “Just use bear spray,” he countered.

  I didn’t tell him that a cougar had attacked me on my hike to a rock wall. Alone in a desert, over a hundred miles from civilization and other fucking people. I only escaped because I threw my pack at the animal and then grabbed my knife. In any other circumstance, I could’ve been mauled to death.

  Only Daisy and Connor knew the extent of what happened. To ease my brother’s anti-gun stance, Connor bought the shotgun with me, plus another Glock.

  Lo views Connor as the most levelheaded, intelligent human being on this fucking planet, so he trusted his judgment and stopped arguing. I’m at a place with Connor where he actively chooses to side with me over Lo. It makes my life fucking easier. Except he won’t divulge his passcodes over text, email, or phone, so I have to wait for him.

  And he has reason to be cautious. Daisy, Lily, and even Rose have had their email hacked about three or four times, even when they change their passwords weekly. Tomorrow I’m leaving to climb alone in a desert again, and I want the fucking shotgun.

  Maria speaks in between laughter. “And then he said, ‘Eighteen is the new twenty-five’—and I was like, ‘no, eighteen is still eighteen. Twenty-five is still twenty-five. And idiocy is still you.’”

  I tense at this story since Maria’s eighteen. Janie is just eleven. I remember where they’re going tomorrow, and it suddenly puts me on fucking edge.

  “And what’d he do?” Janie asks, her laughter fading.

  Maria says like it’s nothing, “He called me a bitch and then walked away.”

  My jaw hardens. “Is this the fucking actor you’re dating?”

  Maria and Janie spin towards me, humor coating their faces again. Maria Stokes is nominated for a Critic’s Choice Award, and out of all people, she chose Janie as her plus-one. They fly out to California tomorrow, but I know why they’re in robes now. Maria asked if she could wear something from Calloway Couture for the red carpet. Rose calls them “haute couture gowns”—a fashion line that she unveiled in a December runway show.

  It earned more praise than I think Rose even imagined. A model wore her dress on the cover of Vogue. I’ve seen Connor look proud of his wife, but when she stepped out on the runway as the designer acknowledging the audience, his pride for Rose was overwhelming and unmistakable.

  “Uncle Ryke,” Maria tells me, “you should talk to Uncle Lo more or at least ask him why you’re always the last one to get information.”

  I roll my eyes. That’s not completely fucking accurate all the time, but she can think I’m out of the loop if she wants. I motion to Janie. “I could text your mom, and she’ll just come down here and fucking tell me what’s up.” I’ve already texted Rose: where the fuck are you?

  In my home office, making a couple adjustments. I’ll be down soon. – Rose

  Her home office upstairs has a sewing machine, so I figure she’s fixing something for their dresses.

  She also sent one more text.

  And Ryke? Do NOT let them convince you to make coffee. They’ve already had more caffeine than they’re allowed – Rose

  All the girls, in every family, come to me first if they want something. Because nine times out of ten, I give in. I can’t fucking help it.

  In my fucking defense, they asked for coffee before I received that text, so I made them a pot. Their mugs sit on the fireplace mantel.

  Maria raises her hands. “No need to text Aunt Rose. I have all the details.” She shrugs. “So that story wasn’t about the same actor you’re thinking of. I’m not dating him or anyone. The one you are thinking of—he’s seriously just a friend.”

  I can’t remember his fucking name, but he’s twenty-one and just became really fucking famous for playing Sorin-X in The Fourth Degree movie.

  Janie rises on the tips of her toes. “I’m dreadfully biased, but I think I’m a better date than her other options.”

  Maria hooks her arms with her cousin. “No contest.”

  The ceiling rattles with a flurry of fucking footsteps. The Cobalt boys must be on the second floor. I vaguely hear Janie suggest taking photos of their outfits but no social media. Maria agrees and they both slip off their robes, dressed in Calloway Couture gowns.

  “That’s what you’re fucking wearing?” I ask Janie, my brows scrunch hard.

  “Yes, isn’t it magnificent?” Janie twirls but trips all over the fucking fabric, too long. The deep red gown plunges in the back, half sequined with long draping sleeves.

  She’s eleven.

  Not eighteen like Maria, who wears a black long-sleeve gown, embroidered and sequined as fucking intricately as Janie’s dress. Look, Janie doesn’t even resemble herself, not only because it’s too old for her frame but because it’s not her fucking style.

  I shake my head a couple times. Isn’t it magnificent? “Fuck no,” I say flatly.

  Maria laughs.

  Janie smiles kindly. “Mom said she’d hem the gown before tomorrow. I know it appears long.”

  It appears more than just fucking long. “Has your dad seen the fucking gown yet?”

  “No, but he won’t mind…will he?”

  His first-born. His daughter. The baby he delivered in the back of a fucking limo. Without question, he’ll care.

  [ 53 ]

  January 2027

  The Cobalt Estate

  Philadelphia

  CONNOR COBALT

  “This is yours.” I pass a small slip of paper with my storage passcodes to Ryke. He met me by the front door, which means he’s ready to leave my house quickly.

  Ryke nods once in appreciation and steps around me, hand on the door frame. He hesitates.

  “Yes?” I arch a brow.

  “You’ll see it in a fucking second.”

  Wonderful. It’s vague enough that it could imply anything. I don’t jump to irrational conclusions. I just file his comment away and say in Italian, “Fai attenzione, amico mio.”

  Be careful, my friend.

  He nods again. “It’s an easy fucking climb.”

  “It’s the hike to the climb that carries more risks.”

  He raises the slip of paper between his fingers. “Which is why I fucking have this.”

  “Paper is a useless weapon against an animal,” I quip. “You should already know this since you commune with them.”

  Ryke glowers. “You’re such a fucking smartass.”

  “I don’t disagree.” I begin to smile.

  “At this…” Ryke flips me off and then shuts the front door on his way out.

  As I head further into the house, I unknot my tie and roll up the cuffs of my black button-down. I hear footsteps from upstairs, children racing back and forth, and the boisterous sound of my sons chatting to one an
other.

  My grin expands at one thought.

  My life is never boring.

  I crest the archway to the living room, and my stride slows. I shove my emotions aside and just pick apart the facts. Maria and Jane planned to try on their gowns today, so Rose can make minimal alterations before the award’s ceremony. Rose also has a surprise in store for Jane, one that’ll change our daughter’s mind about the red dress she wears now.

  It’s foolish to be anything other than impassive, I remind myself. Her current gown is temporary, so my feelings should be even more fleeting.

  I rub my lips once and then unclip my watch.

  “What do you think?” Jane asks, twirling in a circle. She trips on the excess fabric, and Maria catches her with a laugh.

  I think the gown suits a grown woman. Instead of chastising Jane and wailing on like a hyena about appropriate attire, I simply ask, “What are your intentions with this gown?” I near the girls, walking past the couch.

  Jane adjusts the excess fabric. “Well, I hope to display a Calloway Couture garment for Mom.”

  I pocket my watch. “She’d prefer you wore a dress in your own style. Try again.”

  Jane smiles in thought, and she sways back and forth, hands clasped in front of her. “And what if my intentions are altruistic? What if I prefer to support Calloway Couture?”

  Maria drinks from her mug of coffee, staring merrily back and forth between Jane and me.

  “Then you’d sacrifice your personal self in favor of someone else. What does that sound like to you?” I question.

  Jane looks to the ceiling. “Dispiriting, I suppose, but the benefit for Calloway Couture outweighs the personal cost.”

  I almost think I hear her incorrectly. I blink once, twice, trying to subdue the emotion that flickers in my eyes and scratches at my brain. “No,” I tell her definitively. “You’re not beholden to our companies, Jane. Unless your dream is to be a fashion designer or take over Cobalt Inc., your job is to follow your own passions, never to protect ours.”

  Jane sways once more, deep red fabric cascading. “Then I’m changing my intentions.”