[modern au - fic: Just a Glimpse]
Title: Just a Glimpse.
Characters: Jean Louis and tiny!Mireille.
Summary: Surely, everything else will have to find its place by way of gravitation as opposed to centralisation - the girl too, despite her father’s best intentions.
Warnings: None. Really, she's 9 years old. >_<
Just a Glimpse
The Centre-Democratic Youth Party is basically over-run by idiots. Considering their presumed placement on the political spectrum, their leader - sweet Mademoiselle Anisette - is much too focused on re-developing a coherent, theoretical left-side pendant to their mother party’s newest social-economic strategy. Economy won’t thrive by founding it on misguided generosity. At the meeting earlier today, he chose to speak his mind on the matter, consequently getting swarmed by about twenty angry women and a few, lone men who’d presumably lost their self-respect to the prospective rounds of after-work intercourse. Heaven knows the ladies are quite attractive if you like them dry and fizzy-haired; but economic principles haven’t been magically imposed on the political agenda. Reality is here to stay and it doesn’t endorse endless giving and the resultant, fiscal irresponsibility.
Mademoiselle Anisette had, in defiance of reality perhaps, spilled her cheap coffee all over his notes. Almost charmingly childish, that. He’d simply given her a look of mixed amusement and annoyance before asking to borrow hers for copying. She’d lovingly obliged. With a smile, even, though he thinks he has some cause to doubt its sincerity.
Sipping a quick espresso in the Bonn Café, he watches the street outside, late afternoon rain beating onto the cobblestones and the imposing walls of the Grand Ducal Palace claiming most of the background. Even in such inapproachable weather, the air obscured by lines of grey, the Parliamentary buildings maintain their elegance. He doesn’t work there yet - but soon. Next year, if he gets his way which is, of course, inevitable. The main reason, he thinks, that his colleagues descent into childish expressions of impotence around him. He’s too fast for them; age-wise on equal footing, but in terms of drive, so far ahead of them that they don’t even count as specks in the distance. Mademoiselle Anisette clearly knows this better than the others, considering her attitude. And certainly, he’d love to sweep her up in his wake. Unfortunately, she thoroughly hates his idealistic approach, the two of them clashing on principle. It’s a shame but not a loss truly worth lamenting. His notes are incomprehensible enough, after all, without the coffee splashes.
“Oh, how precious! Look - look at her go! And she’s getting her feet wet, the poor darling.”
He’d ignore the high-pitched exclamations of the old ladies in the booth behind his, but instinct doesn’t really lend itself to that kind of control. As such, he turns his head without meaning to, eyes searching the streets for whatever she’s talking about. He gets his answer quickly; her expensive dress dripping from water despite the equally expensive umbrella in her hand, 9-year-old Mademoiselle Mireille Barrault makes her way through the pouring rain, her gaze fixed on the entrance near the Place Guillaume. Daughter of their party’s political leading figure, she’s clearly very intent on maintaining her poise and dignity despite the miserable state of her clothes. It’s not like it’ll make her father disapprove of her presence; everyone says she’s the centre of his world. Jean Louis has his doubts, not because he spends a lot of time pondering Philippe Barrault’s family life, but because the man is so incredibly immersed in politics. Surely, everything else will have to find its place by way of gravitation as opposed to centralisation - the girl too, despite her father’s best intentions.
Granted, Jean Louis doesn’t have much of anything to compare it to which is all well and good. His main ambition in life doesn’t shape itself around child rearing. But as far as he knows, small children should be picked up by their parents in school or wherever as opposed to them, picking up their parents from work. Mireille would, naturally, assume this odd routine to be normal. He knows perfectly well that ‘normal’ is relative and your perception of it even more so. And judging from the silently content look in her brown eyes, she’s quite happy with things as Barrault has arranged them. Emptying his cup, he nearly jumps when the lady behind him pokes his shoulder, leaning into his personal space enough that he can see himself reflected in her round glasses.
“The rest of us make do with loneliness, don’t we, Monsieur?” He raises an eyebrow at her and she shakes her head. “My family wants nothing to do with me, Monsieur. Nothing - and here I am, old and done.” She turns back to her own table, her hands shaking slightly. “My grandchild runs the other way when she sees me.” The equally wrinkly lady opposite her sighs, audibly, and dries her eyes with a frilly handkerchief.
“People see what you want them to see, Madame.” He gathers his papers, throwing another glance out of the window. Various ministers are exiting the building for their daily lunch break. Mireille passes unacknowledged as she stands to the side, clutching her umbrella and watching almost dispassionately - snobbishly, his mind corrects automatically without much moral infliction. She really should have brought a bigger umbrella, though, shouldn’t she? This one is dripping water onto her shoes and socks. His eyes narrow a fraction. There’s something about her that annoys him. Something besides her wet clothes and childish ignorance. It’s the way she holds herself - like she refuses to look or even seem abandoned despite the fact that she’s utterly soaked from her efforts. Perhaps it’s impressive, too, in such a small girl. He wouldn’t know. Adults are easily blinded and children doubly so. Barrault is the epitome of moral cohesiveness, says Mademoiselle Anisette and means it, all the way from her second-hand shoes to her faded headband. But Jean Louis has always been excellent at math and he’s fairly certain people are matching up two and two in unequal pairs.
“People see what they want,” says the lady, sounding quite put-upon. Then, she turns around again and, before he can react, slaps him in the back of the head with her bony hand. At his stare, she glares right back, huffing out a breath of anger. “And don’t you ogle the small girls, either.”
Scowling, he runs a hand through his wet hair to fix anything she may have ruined. “That one’s coming out of the elderly benefits, you old bat.” She just gives him a blank look of disapproval before returning her attention to the street once again. Getting up, he signals to the waitress. In this place, he pays by month as opposed to every, single visit. Easier that way. She smiles at him and nods, returning to her business.
As he leaves the café, he pauses in the rain to cast a last glance at the Grand Ducal Palace, his clothes drenched for the second time today. He’s wet to the bone already, it’s not like it matters. At that exact moment, Philippe Barrault steps outside, unfolding a large, black umbrella over his daughter’s head in the process. She looks up at him, the measured but open-hearted expression on her face a subtle, yet - to him, at least - startling difference from her prior look of exemplary disinterest. They exchange a few words, inaudible at this distance. Then, he holds out a hand and she takes it, quietly. Follows him away from the entrance. At that, Jean Louis heeds the old woman’s advice - though really, he hopes she slips on the street and breaks her hip on her way home - and looks away, an unsettled feeling of discontent lingering in his mind.
Yes. For tonight’s debate meeting, Mademoiselle Anisette had better bring at least ten cups of coffee if she wants to stand any chance of setting her mark on the discussion. Because the world is drowning, isn’t it? In double-standards. He’ll show them all exactly how to navigate the waters and they’ll take his lead or go down in ignorance.
~