PRIDEUX, michelle ameline

[MICHELLE AMELINE PRIDEUX]

TAKE WHAT IS LEFT OF ME

AND MAKE IT A BEAUTIFUL MELODY

MICHELLE AMELINE PRIDEUX
YOU'D BE MY REMEDY

twenty ,.,., civilian ,.,., intern at the ny office for vogue magazine ,.,., holland roden
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the perfect life and times
of michelle ameline prideux
[that aren't exactly perfect]
or, the seven times that chelle prideux got her way,
the two times that she didn't get her way and sulked,
and the one time that she didn't get her way and did something about it



+ 1

michelle, or chelle as she was known to basically everyone, was daddy's little princess. daddy, who worked for the french government, got a fat pay check that got whatever daddy's little princess wanted.

that philosophy? that, 'i ask daddy for it and he'll give it to me' philosophy? had continued on throughout life. she got what she wanted, simple as that.

she had strawberry blonde, almost red hair, with big, hazel eyes that tended to change color depending on the season and the lighting. she had porcelain skin, a cute nose, and full lips. she had a sweet voice, and she was good at pouting. that, on top of being the youngest between her and her sister, basically guaranteed that chelle would grow up spoiled.

and, see, there was this doll. it was a porcelain doll, with big blue eyes and long brushable blonde hair and she wanted it. so she went to daddy, and she asked for the doll. her older-by-seven-years sister, lucille[lucy for short], had protested against her getting the doll. she said that she hadn't earned it, like she was forced to do if she wanted anything. her father ignored her, however, and chelle got the doll.

she named her amie, and she was broken less than three days later. the fact that the doll had broken wasn't what mattered, though. the fact that she had gotten it in the first place, with a little bit of pouting and a 'please, daddy?' did.

+ 2

she didn't have a mom.

well, uh, biologically she did. obviously, or else she and lucy wouldn't be there. they both looked a lot like their mom, according to her dad. but that didn't matter, since there were no pictures, and she wasn't around.

she'd left her dad, apparently. she'd never heard the full story, because lucy never wanted to share it. lucy and her didn't get along, not really. lucy didn't what she wanted whenever she wanted, and chelle did. that meant that the rift that had started because of age difference, got bigger because of jealousy.

so she asked.

"where's mama, papa?" she'd widened her eyes and looked really innocent, as innocent as a seven year old could pull off, and her father couldn't help but answer.

"your mother, she was ... she wasn't happy."

"why not?"

"she was sick, honey. she couldn't help it."

"where is she now? i can make her a card, and we can play with my dolls. maybe she can help me with my english homework. lucy said mama could speak english."

"she's ... she's in a better place, angel." and that was the end of the conversation. that was all she could get out of him before he started to tear up, and stood up, probably to go to his office.

chelle didn't find out until three years later, from lucy, that her mother had been dpsd. she'd worked with her father on some sort of case, and she'd suffered from clinical depression. 'a better place' was under a tombstone, that lucy had managed to find out from their mother's sister, when she visited a few weeks before. there was one more thing that had been off about her father's and lucy's explanation to chelle. 'unhappy' and 'she left' had meant that she had taken her own life when chelle had been two years old, and lucy had been nine.

chelle wondered if this was one of those times where she would've been better off not getting her way.

+ 3

she was eight when her father started taking her with him to the us on business. they didn't go to regular school anyway, having at-home tutors and the like, and it was never a problem. he hated leaving them at home when he left, and figured that chelle was old enough to be taken along.

lucy fell in love with america. she thought the food, the culture, the language, the people, were all wonderful. she said that when she was old enough, she'd move to america for good. her father banned her from doing so, saying that if she had any pride in her family and in her nation she wouldn't be doing that, and would live in france, where she was born.

chelle had kept her mouth shut, but she loved america just as much as lucy did. when she asked her father if she could come along every time that he did business in the states, he asked her why.

"because i love my papa, and i don't like when he goes away. you go away for a long time, and you leave me and lucy home, and it's not fair. we can bring our teachers with us, we love doing it, and you should keep doing it. please?"

from then, lucy and chelle had seats on their father's private jet, every time it went from paris to new york.

+ 4

she was ten when her sister was accepted to john jay college of criminal justice. lucy had always excelled at science and math, and she said she wanted to go into this field. she said that she knew that this would be the best college for it, and since her father spent half the year in the us anyway, on business, it wouldn't be a problem.

little did he know that not only was lucy not planning on staying in school, but that she had other ties to keep her in the country.

chelle didn't know that either.

on lucy's eighteenth birthday, all contact had been cut with the her family. her phone number had been changed, it even seemed like she was using a different name.

chelle was devastated. even though she and lucy hadn't been the closest of sisters, lucy was still her sister, and the fact that she had taken such elaborate measures to get away from them was a knife to chelle's heart.

"papa, can we go home?" she'd asked, blinking back tears. new york, then, didn't seem so magical.

he'd nodded, and the next day, they were boarding a plane.

+ 5

it was always quiet without lucy around.

chelle would stay awake at night and wonder what it was that drove her sister away. after all, she was only eleven, she must've been a nuisance. she must've done something. lucy must've hated her more than chelle thought.

her father sold their house, and moved them into a penthouse apartment in a building closer to the heart of paris. her mother was gone, her sister was gone - the two of them only took up so much room.

chelle was thirteen when she started shopping to get out of the house, and to away from the fact that she didn't have any friends. despite being a nice girl, or at least she thought she was a nice girl, she'd never really been around people her age. her father was important, and so he didn't give her free reign to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, just for her safety. she hadn't even gone to school - she had been home schooled.

shopping was an outlet for her. she had the money to do what she wanted, really, and that turned into spending hours in stores, browsing and charging things to her credit card.

her father said nothing because he knew that he was the reason that she was now alone. it was another silent victory for chelle.

+ 6

she was sixteen when she took the test to get her high school diploma. she passed. the piece of paper that told her that she was a high school graduate felt thin and weird in her hands. she didn't really know what to think of it.

her first thought was that she wanted to tell lucy. her next thought was that was stupid.

it was almost like her and her sister had gotten closer, in her mind, since she had left. now, she clung to memories of her like a starving man did to a piece of bread. she didn't know what made her do that - maybe the fact that she was lonely, maybe the fact that she didn't think college was for her, it was a number of things really.

she was smart. she was good with languages, writing ... she could be something one day. a writer of some sort, a teacher, a journalist ... she could do something totally mundane, something away from her tiny apartment she lived in with her father. but she was fifteen, and her sixteenth birthday was coming up, and she wanted to do something bigger than that.

the only thing she really liked was fashion. working with it, working around it, wearing it - she didn't know where it came from, since her sister had never taken interest in it, her mother she didn't know about, and her father could barely pick out nice ties in the morning - but she thought she could really do something interesting.

she asked her father if she could start working. getting her working papers was easy, and getting his signature was even easier. even though she didn't need the money, she needed to do something. college would be another conversation, a conversation a few years in the future, if she could help it.

+ 7

she was eighteen when she got her father to okay her going and moving to america.

papa had been throwing himself into work for the past two years, and was never home. the fact that she now had no need for a teacher, her father was always at work, and she didn't have a sister around had hit her harder than ever. she had been picking up more shifts at work - she worked at a fashion boutique in downtown paris - and hanging out with the friends she had made out of her co-workers.

but she wasn't happy.

when she was little, she used to watch disney movies. she used to giggle when the prince kissed the princess, and the movie cut to the 'the end' screen. when she got older, she'd watch the romcoms that played on pay-per-view - those eight ninety nine movies with cheesy lines and the ending scenes that had people kissing while the sun set beautifully behind them.

she wanted to be on her own. she wanted to be an adult.

did that taking to moving to another continent? maybe.

getting her papers - visa, passport, all sorts of things that took interviews and time and calls from her father - hadn't been easy.

she wasn't lucy. she was doing this right.

she was eighteen when she had everything that she needed packed into five suitcases, loaded onto her father's jet. her father was stuck at work, and had written her a text goodbye.

she left france, permanently, with a frown on her face and an unsteady feeling in her stomach.

- 1 = 6

settling in wasn't a problem. she still had her father's money, and she was talented, sort-of. more like she had a good eye.

she got an apartment in midtown. fancy, one bedroom, expensive. she didn't feel so choked, there. she felt lighter, almost. stocking up her closet and getting herself unpacked hadn't been such a big deal. it had been way too easy, really. she was a neat freak, and she was someone that was just naturally organized.

stepping out into the city on her own had been a really odd experience, as had starting to look for a job. she wasn't used to not relying on anyone else, though she was used to the sound of dropping her keys into a glass dish by the door and that being the only sound in her apartment. she was all too familiar with it really.

getting the intern job at vogue had been completely accidental. she'd been going to the office building to interview for another position, got lost, interviewed for the wrong position, and ended up getting it because they 'thought she had potential'.

things in life were good. sort-of.

when she called her father to talk, he was always busy. when he was in the states, in new york even, he didn't have the time to visit her, or anything of the sort. it was like, when she'd left, he'd cut ties with her, too.

"papa, just ... one lunch? please?"

"i've got to work. maybe next time."

it was the first time she'd ever gotten a no in her life, and she didn't like it, not one bit.

- 2 = 5

she had a boyfriend.

that had been a surprise in and of itself. really, they'd fallen into one of those relationship-not-really-a-relationship relationships. they were friends, but closer than friends. and then one day, when she was introducing him to one of her co-workers, the other girl had but in "and who are you?"

to which he'd quickly responded with, "her boyfriend."

and that had been the end of it. they'd dated for a bit over a year, meeting three months after she'd moved into her apartment and gotten all settled, before chelle had mentioned him to her father.

"he's sweet, a bit loud, but --" and she was cut off.

"i have work to do, chelle. if you're only calling to talk about your boyfriend, then i must be going."

she bit down on her lip. "i thought that maybe you could meet him next time you were in new york?"

"i'll think about it. now, i have to go."

the sound of the call ending was lost on her, as she realized that really, her father had a lot more important things to worry about her.

- 0 / + 0 = 5

it was a model that had come into the vogue offices that had hair just a bit redder and a nose just like hers that had forced her to get up and do something.

"can't you send your p.i. to dig some dirt up, or something? come on, papa, you can afford for him to not do whatever it is he's doing right now, or call your back up! i really need--"

"you need nothing, michelle ameline. you will not go chasing after lucille, as she's nowhere to be found. and i am not wasting time, money, and resources, to figure out where she has run off to. if she wants to come back, then she will. if she doesn't, then it's best to forget about her."

"how can you say that about your own child?!" she had cried out, but he'd already hung up the phone.

she'd stared at it for a long time, wondering if this was exactly what she should be doing. all of a sudden, her fingers sprung across the keypad, and she was holding the phone up to her ear.

"hello, patrick? hi, yes, this is michelle prideux - alain's daughter, oui. i need you to do me a -- just charge any fees to my personal account, oui. i need you to find information on a person for me." chelle waited, biting down on her tongue for a moment as the man on the other end grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.

"yes, her name is lucille prideux."

• - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - •
laina ,.,., nineteen ,.,., adminedit ,.,., cal o'connor, jace del rio, nate dunne

lyrics from sing it out; switchfoot
this little thing was made by
dragonwick over on caution,
or rach ?! on little white lie.
don't steal! keep the credit on.