2. The Girl Squad’s Powerpoint
TWO
THE GIRL SQUAD’S POWERPOINT
DECEMBER 2037
AFTER CHAPTER 7 IN LOVERS LIKE US
We listened to "What I Know Is All Quicksand" by Giant Rooks plus all the music mentioned in the bonus while writing this scene.
Character List:
Connor Cobalt - 48
Rose Calloway - 48
Ryke Meadows - 48
Loren Hale - 47
Lily Calloway - 36
Daisy Calloway - 41
Winona Meadows - 13
Kinney Hale - 13
Audrey Cobalt - 12
**
CONNOR COBALT
SNOW FALLS GENTLY out the window, but there is no peace in my heart. Only restless turmoil that I take out on a keyboard, typing and deleting and typing more. Deleting. Words seem trite, no matter how I connect them together. And for the hurt I caused my daughter, words fail me. For what feels like the first time in my life, words are not enough. Will never be enough.
But they’re all I have right now. All that was requested.
Three thousand words on why you love me.
I could write a million words to explain my love for Jane.
And yet, still, it’s not enough.
Time has always been my enemy, but there are very few times I wish to rewind it. But I do. I want to give her my undying support. To let her know that even in the face of facts not aligning, I believe her to be honest about her friendship with Moffy.
Time is cruel. There is no reverse. Only forward.
“Father?” Audrey, my youngest at twelve, peeks her head into the lake house’s study.
I roll away from the computer. She’s wearing pastel yellow pajamas and fuzzy slippers. It’s six in the morning. “You’re up early,” I tell her. “We don’t leave until this afternoon.” We’re heading back to Philly, and we’ll return to the lake house closer to the holidays.
“I’ve been working on something with Kinney and Nona. Are you busy? Could you come to the media room to see it? Please, please.” She makes a praying motion with her hands. There are soft, tender spots in my heart reserved for my children. But Audrey, to her credit, has the very best pleading eyes I’ve ever seen.
I peer back at the computer screen, and I scan some of the words. My stomach clenches. Not enough. I hit delete and then leave the desk.
“Thank you,” Audrey says in relief as I follow her out the door. “I promise, this will be worth it.”
“Worth is subjective.”
“Subjectively, this is worth it. To me. And you love me, so it should be worth it to you.”
I begin to smile. “I do love you,” I say, leaving it at that.
She grins back, and when we come upon the media room, I realize I am last to arrive. My irritation pools. Daisy, Ryke, Lily, Loren, and Rose are already seated in the theatre-style chairs. Daisy and Ryke are lounging in the back row. His feet are kicked up on a chair in front of him while Daisy is sprawled on his lap and cupping a bowl of oatmeal.
Lily and Lo chose the front row by the aisle. Both look half-asleep, but Lo is peeling the wrapper to Lily’s blueberry muffin for her.
My beautiful wife sits in the very center of the first row. Her ankles crossed and eyes flamed more dully than usual.
Those softly burning eyes capture me as I take the seat beside her.
“Cobalt, you alright?” Ryke asks from the back, tearing my attention off Rose. It shouldn’t piss me off, but it does. I can hear him eating out of the oatmeal bowl in Daisy’s hands.
And I know why he’s asking me this.
I’m last to show.
It’s unlike me, and his concern only pricks my skin.
“He’s three-minutes late, not bed-ridden with scurvy,” Rose snaps at Ryke like he’s obtuse. My lips rise.
“I’m sorry I fucking asked, for fuck’s sake,” Ryke growls.
Rose is frustrated and not as biting, even as she retorts, “You’re supposed to say, if you were bed-ridden with scurvy, the world would rejoice.”
“Wrong fucking audience. You’re looking for my brother.”
“Present,” Lo says and lifts Lily’s hand. “And not in the mood…” He yawns and mumbles out something about annihilation. “…too early.”
“How are you, really?” Daisy asks, and without looking, I assume she’s asking me when Rose doesn’t respond.
I don’t turn around in my seat. As gently as I can, I just say, “Wonderful.” Trying my best to conceal irritation. These past few days have been trying.
Rose is sitting stiffly, and she leans her head to whisper to me, “How’s the essay going?”
I could lie and boast about how spectacular my words are, but I wish to be honest with my wife. “Terrible, darling.” My eyes flick to hers. “Yours?”
“Not better than you,” she whispers. “Unfortunately, it’s a fucking disaster.” Her voice is tight. Sleepless circles line her eyes, still puffy from crying. Her hair is piled into a high bun.
We haven’t slept much, and I’ve contemplated how long we’ll cage guilt. How long we’ll burden ourselves with a feeling I typically shed.
Guilt.
Remorse.
Hurt. Human emotions that usually struggle to latch onto me. Human emotions that always seem made for people less than me. Yet, Rose is the one who reminds me to feel and to understand the value in being like everyone else. And the power of her burning love still makes me feel like I’m more. Even to this day.
But I can usually find a win somewhere. We had sex tapes leak without our consent, and I turned that into a lucrative and thriving diamond business. Yet, there is little victory in failing as a parent.
I tried my best to prepare myself for this, knowing that even perfection has limits. Knowing that being a father has had more challenges than running a multi-billion-dollar company. But the part I played in the cabin at Camp Calloway—the hurt I caused my daughter—is a mistake that’s been hard to bear.
I can’t plague myself with what ifs. What if I’d spoken louder? What if I voiced more reason and less doubt? What if I’d taken her side more fully and vocally?
My daughter wouldn't be this hurt.
And it wouldn’t feel like there’s an unhealed wound, trying to blister inside of me, but I can’t rewind. There is no point in mourning the rigidity of time, and even contemplating pointless things irritates the fuck out of me.
Rose swallows deeply, holding back a sharp emotion. It hurts seeing my wife like this. I take her hand in mine and squeeze it gently. We’re in this together, darling.
I shift a flyaway strand of hair that’d fallen from her bun. My lips brush her ear as I whisper, “Ensemble.”
She intakes a strong breath and then nods.
Winona clears her throat.
She’s thirteen now, but at any age, Winona has always seemed ready to burst—like her emotions could explode out of her at any second. From excitement to joy to anger or pain. I figured this is something she’d grow out of—an immaturity dedicated to rambunctious seven-year-olds. But the older she gets, the more she just reminds me of her parents.
She can’t keep still like Daisy.
Her fuse is cut short like Ryke.
And she is greatly beloved among the entire family, just like they are.
“We’ve gathered all six of you here for a really important presentation,” Winona says, rocking on the balls of her feet. She claps her hands together. “We’d appreciate it a ton if you all took this one-hundred percent seriously.”
“Because this is serious,” Kinney emphasizes.
Presentation.
Rose and I share a look, and I lift my brow. It sounds intriguing.
Winona is wearing green plaid boxers, a baggy Camp Calloway T-shirt, and knee-high socks. Pajamas. So this isn’t something special enough to dress up for—or they didn’t think it’d help their cause. I can’t discern which.
“And we thank you all for being here,” Audrey says quickly.
“It was mandatory,” Kinney adds. Her black pajama top has skeletons printed with the words it’s my party.
“We’re here. It’s the butt-crack of dawn,” Lo says, through a mouthful of muffin. “What’s this presentation all about?”
I notice the remote in Winona’s hands and she clicks the button. The 100’’ projector screen starts lowering. She clicks another button and the first slide to a PowerPoint appears.
6 Reasons Why Winona, Vada, Kinney, and Audrey Should Be Allowed to Go On Tour
Ryke starts coughing on his oatmeal.
“Deep breaths,” Daisy encourages, and if I turned around in my seat, I’d imagine she’s patting his back.
“Kinney, we’ve talked about this,” Lily says.
They have?
Audrey hasn’t formally asked Rose and me to go on tour with the older kids, and I wonder if she was stalling and waiting for the right time. That's the thing about Audrey Virginia Cobalt. She appears young and innocent with her wardrobe of soft colors and pinks, her round orb-like eyes, and her whimsical inflection on certain words. But she's still our daughter. Born from lions.
I've seen her conspire with her brothers to bake "screw you" cupcakes for Luna's bully at school. Rose caught them before they were delivered to Dalton Academy, and she noted how Tom and Eliot were nice enough not to make their little sister write "fuck you" in frosting.
Audrey, my youngest, often begs me to play backgammon with her. She wants to get better. Just so she can one day beat Charlie. So for all her sweetness, there's cleverness. I don't underestimate my twelve-year-old.
“It wasn’t Opposite Day, Kinney Hale,” Lo tells her strictly. “The answer was no.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Well you didn’t say I couldn’t try again.”
“It’s a good presentation,” Winona argues. “Please, please just let us have a chance to try to convince you.” She extends her arms. “Open your minds.”
Audrey chimes in, “We put a lot of work into it, Uncle Loren.”
Rose waves them on. “I’d like to see it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to see it, Rose,” Lo snaps. “I just said the answer is no. It’s a tour bus, not the Magic School Bus.”
“We can argue after their presentation, Loren,” Rose says with less heat than usual. It hasn’t been completely extinguished by the recent fallout, but it’s not as scalding.
Lo eases back. “Fair.”
“You can begin,” I tell Winona.
She clicks a button, and the next slide appears after the first dissolves away. It’s followed by…music. I frown, trying to place the voice. And then I realize. It’s Taylor Swift.
My brows arch.
REASON 1: WE SHOULD NOT BE PENALIZED FOR BEING YOUNG.
“Age is a construct,” Audrey begins.
“I’m going to stop you there,” Lo says, holding up a hand. He leans in his seat so he can look at me. “This is your fault, love.”
I do take blame. I’ve said the words Audrey has said. Many times. And my children, nieces, and nephews have used them against us, but I always believe context is a very important thing.
I can feel Ryke’s glare on the back of my head.
“Context, Audrey,” I say. “You’re not being penalized for being young. You have school unlike the older kids.”
“Which brings us to point 2,” Audrey says.
Winona clicks the button and the slide transitions with a whoosh.
REASON 2: WE CAN MAKE UP SCHOOL WORK. IT’S JUST MIDDLE SCHOOL.
“Just middle school?” Rose says like that’s absurd.
“It doesn’t count towards high school grades or college admissions,” Kinney says. “I could get C’s and make all A’s in high school.”
“Which poses the question: Does middle school even matter?” Audrey says with a sneaking smile.
Rose eyes our daughter like Audrey has inhaled lethal mischief.
Winona is smiling like they’re making great points. “Food for thought.” She gesticulates at the PowerPoint so we keep our eyes on the words.
“I mean, they’re kind of right,” Lily mutters.
Lo’s brows furrow like he’s also thinking hard on it. Darling.
“It’s a foundation,” I tell the girls. “Building blocks in your education are just as important as high school grades.”
“Oh! We have a question,” Winona says and points out at us. “Mom?”
I turn around and see Daisy raising her hand. “I vote to remove Vada from consideration since your Uncle Garrison and Aunt Willow aren’t here to listen on her behalf.”
“Hear, hear,” Lo says.
“Agreed,” I say.
“One second.” Winona holds up a finger. The three girls form a huddle to whisper with each other.
Rose leans into my shoulder. “A+ effort on the PowerPoint.”
“The music is distracting, and the transitions are clichéd,” I say.
She scowls, a fierce look that I’ve missed these past days. I hold her fiery gaze.
“Take it back,” she demands.
“I won’t.”
Her lips purse. “It’s worthy of an A+.”
“C.”
Her breath catches. “You gave our daughter a C?”
I put an arm around Rose’s shoulder. She doesn’t jerk away, and I lean closer. “And that is why I’m the unbiased one, darling.” I kiss her temple.
She doesn’t deny. “You’re horrible,” she says the words as she snuggles deeper into my side.
I grin down at her.
“Alright,” Winona says, drawing our attention again. “We accept those terms, and we’ll revisit this point with Aunt Willow and Uncle Garrison at a later date.” She clicks the next slide.
REASON 3: THE EXPERIENCE IS ONCE IN A LIFETIME.
“When will this ever happen again?” Kinney asks. “You have Jane, Moffy, Charlie, Beckett, and Sullivan on tour. To get those five together for four months is just freaking unheard of.”
“And we’re missing it,” Audrey says.
“Sulli and Beckett definitely aren’t going to do another tour after this,” Winona adds.
No one in the theatre seats argues with this fact.
Winona clicks to the next slide and it does a rotation before spinning off the screen. I raise my brows to Rose. She avoids my gaze and when I don’t look away, she pushes her hand against my face. “Stop staring, Richard.”
I smile underneath her palm before I turn to look at the screen again. Her hand drops to mine.
REASON 4: FAMILY IS EVERYTHING.
“Aren’t you all always saying this to us?” Winona asks.
“Well, guess where our family is?” Kinney adds.
“On the tour bus,” Audrey answers.
“Not all of them,” I say. “Ben, Eliot, Tom, Luna, and Xander are all staying in Philly.”
“They’re all in high school,” Kinney rebuts.
“Refer to Reason 2,” Audrey nods.
They have thought this out at least. I can give them that.
“But we’re also your family,” Lily says. “And I’d miss you all soooo much if you were gone for four months.”
“So, so, soooo much,” Daisy chimes in.
“It’s an awfully big adventure,” Winona says dreamily to her mom. “You can’t deny us that, can you?”
Ryke grunts out a noise that I don’t try to translate.
“You all have like five more years with us,” Kinney pipes in. “You can survive.”
“We didn’t say we couldn’t,” Lo refutes. “And I agree with your mom and aunt, I’d miss you too much.”
Kinney tries to steel her eyes.
Winona probably senses they’re losing Kinney so she rushes to the next slide “Annnd to our fifth reason.” This time the slide folds into the next one.
REASON 5: WE’LL STAY OUT OF TROUBLE. WE HAVE BODYGUARDS TO KEEP US SAFE.
“We promise to stay out of trouble,” Winona says strongly. “I’m so serious about this.”
“We’ll be in bed by curfew,” Audrey adds.
“We won’t go out late if the older kids want to.” Kinney is glaring while she’s talking now. “We promise. We’re not Luna, Eliot, and Tom. We don’t break rules just to break them.”
“But you are your own brand of trouble, little Slytherin,” Lo says.
Kinney shakes her head. “Dad. Please. I want to be with Moffy. What if he needs a sibling right now?”
Lily whispers something in Lo’s ear.
“What’s the last point?” I ask.
“I’m glad you asked, Uncle Connor.” Winona clicks the remote, and the slide makes a mosaic into the next.
REASON 6: YOU LOVE US DEARLY. YOU WANT US TO BE HAPPY.
I smile, knowing my daughter made this absurd slide.
Rose is also smiling. “Pulling at our heartstrings?”
“Do you have any of those left, Cruella?” Lo asks.
“None left for you,” Rose snaps.
“Thank God.”
I give Lo a look.
“Thank Connor.” He winks at me.
I grin.
“I love you, Nona,” Ryke tells his daughter, “and that’s why this is a hard fucking no.”
“Sorry, Nona,” Daisy says with a wince. “But it’s not a good idea. I’m in agreement on the hard fucking no.”
“Noooo,” Winona holds up her hands, her face shattered. “You have to at least discuss it. You have to talk with each other. Take like an hour. Or two!” Desperation is in the creases of her eyes.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Ryke says firmly. “You’re thirteen. You’re not going on a tour bus with a bunch of twentysomethings. You’re just fucking not.”
“We did all of this,” Kinney points to the presentation just as the music stops playing. It layers on the tension in the room. “At least give us something and talk. Like Nona said, just…take a second?”
“Or thirty-minutes,” Winona tries, her face losing color with defeat. “Mom, it’d mean a waffle-lot.”
Daisy is crumbling. “…talking about it wouldn’t hurt.”
Audrey looks to me. “Please?” And it’s Audrey’s utter doe eyes that do me in.
“One minute,” I say and stand up. I head over to Lily and Lo’s seats. Ryke and Daisy follow from the back. The six of us form our own huddle.
“It’s a no, right?” Lily asks.
“Definitely,” Rose says. “I’d rather send her off to Faust Boarding School full of boys than on that tour bus. And that’s saying something because the idea of having her around those egotistical neanderthals makes me want to vomit.”
I don’t want to imagine her at Faust surrounded by only male students.
“You hear that, Connor?” Lo asks me. “You’re a neanderthal.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “He’s the exception.”
“I’m her exception,” I gloat.
Rose groans. “Stop.”
“You said it, darling, not me.”
“Ugh,” she grimaces. “Can we get back to the topic?”
“Mom would’ve let me go,” Daisy suddenly says to her sisters. “A tour bus full of adults with the possibility of being publicized in magazines, especially if it was for modeling—she would’ve let me go at thirteen. I think she would’ve let me go at twelve.”
The air deadens.
Lily wears a deep frown.
Rose solidifies, her eyes burning. “We are not taking a page out of Samantha Calloway’s parenting handbook. Never.” Rose has always brandished the anti-Samantha handbook where our children are concerned, and in this instance, I know Daisy would want to do the same.
“The answer is fucking no,” Ryke says. “We’ve all agreed. What else is there to talk about?”
“Maybe we should say some nice things about the presentation?” Lily says. “They did work hard on it.”
“I agree,” Daisy says with a big breath, possibly trying to let go of the past. Ryke has an arm around his wife. “Let’s put some positivity into the air. I think the music was a nice touch.”
“The music wasn’t what I would choose, but it was okay,” Lo admits.
Ryke thinks for a second before saying. “It was fucking brave of them to present that to us.”
“I agree with Ryke,” I say. “It was brave.”
Everyone looks at me like I’ve lost my mind by agreeing with him. Ryke looks skeptical. So I add, “Brave because it had all the makings of a project created at the very last minute.”
Ryke nods. “There it is.”
Rose says, “I love how they came together as a unit to fight for something they wanted. It’s very sweet, even if it’s a failure.”
Lily finishes with, “I liked the transitions.”
We all laugh.
She blushes. “What? They were good.”
Lo hugs her closer to his side. “So which one of us is going to give the final blow?” he asks, looking around. The air stills.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “I can be diplomatic about it.”
“Without insulting the presentation,” Daisy says.
“It wasn’t effective, but yes, I won’t insult it.”
“We’ll do it together,” Rose says. “Lily and Daisy can say the positives.”
Lily extends her hand out. Daisy put hers atop it like they’re in a football huddle. They’re the only two to do it, and then Daisy says, “Break.”
We all split apart again and face the girls.
Audrey, still doe-eyed, stares at me earnestly. Hands cupped together. Do not fall for your daughter’s doe-eyes.
I take a breath. “We have discussed it. And while some of us have clearly been impressed by the quality of your presentation, our answer remains the same.”
“I’m sorry, girls,” Rose says. “It’s going to be a no.”
Audrey starts to cry. “Really?”
“Really,” I say with the same calm cadence to my voice.
Kinney puts an arm around her. “You all suck,” Kinney snaps.
“Kinney Hale,” Lo scolds.
Lily jumps in. "The transitions were so good!"
The girls don't seem to care about that positive. Winona looks at us. "Obviously not good enough."
Audrey is gutted, heavier tears falling. “I hate you.” Her voice squeaks. She says the tear-stricken words to me. But I know they’ve impaled her mother, too.
Winona looks wounded just seeing Audrey and Kinney this upset. She whirls towards us. “You can’t try…” She trails off, maybe seeing her dad unbending. She sighs out a hot breath that tries to boil to the surface. “We’ll be in our room as protest to this decision.” She catches their hands, and the three of them march out of the door in an angered huff.
“They’re going to lock themselves in there,” Ryke says, knowing his daughter and nieces.
“Yep,” Lo says.
We’re supposed to be leaving for Philly this afternoon. The timing is important and scheduled so that paparazzi can follow our trail once we’re in the city, and it’ll hopefully give the tour bus some time to get on the road without press following.
“We’ll deal with it later,” Rose says. “Let’s just get everything and everyone else ready to go.”
I glance at my watch. “We’re on schedule.”
Daisy rocks on her feet. “But before we leave…how’s everything going, Rose? You okay?”
“Stupendous,” Rose says dryly. “My eldest daughter won’t talk to me. And my youngest daughter now hates me.”
“Technically, she hates me, darling. It wasn’t directed at you.”
Rose rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t combat. Instead, she says, “She’s a smart girl.” Her eyes flit to me. “Stop smiling, Richard. That was an insult towards you.”
“I’ll treasure it forever.”
Lo gags. “Can you two flirt somewhere out of earshot? K. Thanks.”
Rose ignores him and looks to Daisy, who still wears concern for her sister. “I’ll be fine, Daisy.” She stiffens. “Please stop looking at me like that.” She looks to Lily and grimaces. “You, too. Your worry and concern are noted, appreciated, now wipe it from your faces.”
Daisy makes a windshield wiping motion over Lily’s face. They both laugh, and Rose eases.
“And you?” Lo asks me. “You doing okay?”
I slowly nod, words failing me like they did this morning.
I know Maximoff is talking to his parents. He hasn’t iced them out like our daughter has us. She needs time. It’s what she told us. But I want to fix things myself without the help of Time.
Yet, I can’t.
All I can do to avoid making things worse is abide by her wishes.
The three thousand word essay will be the hardest paper I’ve ever written. This one can’t come from my head. It has to be from my heart. And it took me years to believe I’m capable of love. That my heart was more than an organ made to pump blood and keep me alive.
I can write it. For Jane, I’ll do anything.
Elle est mon coeur.
She is my heart.