Tim, I didn't know you could read RHTRC anyother way except straight through. I have always been very intrigued by Charlotte. It seems as if she had a very pivitol role in Buddy and Seymour's adolescent yet the character never resurfaces later on. I have made an effort to look for her in nine stories, but to no avail. Maybe she exists in all those manuscripts sitting in the house in New England waiting for....what? Patti