Post by codeapathy on Aug 20, 2021 18:19:21 GMT -5
// Alsace-Lorraine, France - Tuesday 08/17/2021 - 4:00 PM - Facetime call \\
++I found myself curled up on a chaise lounge in my Father’s study, iPad set up straight on a dock on the coffee table in front of me, making my daily Facetime call to my daughter. As the call went through, I reached back, clipping up my bloodwine colored hair. The color was fading. As I saw her beautiful resting bitch face appear I chuckled++
“Mon petit chou, you look well. How are things in Thailand?”
Annika: La Mere. Things here are fine. Me and some of the other girls have been contacted about doing some dates in Japan and South Korea. Hansa and I talked about it and decided it would be nice to take a little vacation.
Elizabeth: How is Hansa? Have you adjusted to co-habitating well?
Annika: Honestly mom? Yeah. I have. I was really scared about the idea of her and I moving in together, even after being together for a year but It was a pretty seamless transition. I actually really enjoy this little slice of domestic normality we have now. It has really helped to keep me grounded and healthy. How’s Eoin? Is he in France with you? The winery is going into production soon isn’t it?
Elizabeth: He’s here. I think France is growing on him. We took a tour of the different lavender farms earlier this summer. The harvest was great this year by the way. We brokered some new deals with some foreign investors. I know you already received your stipend salary from the harvest but you should be getting a bonus in the next 48 hours. It seems a few of the new products and techniques we created together have become very popular. Your grandfather felt that since you were half of the collaborating team to help reinvigorate the company and our target market, you more than deserved a bonus. In fact he has asked me to put a little bug in your ear about attempting to expand into the Asian market. I uploaded all of the notes, rough ideas and general info to the workspace for ease of access. Right now you have a benefit I don’t, traveling abroad in countries where the companies I work, never go. In fact I have to catch a red eye to Nova Scotia tomorrow. I digress, the project before us now is to get a feel for the international market. You focus on the Asian influence and I will continue marketing to the deep south. .
Annika: Nova Scotia? Which outfit? Last we talked you were working out of Louisiana. Same place?
Elizabeth: No. Much to nobody's surprise, Mr. Stylez venture went belly up. A prison sentence tends to put a damper on running your own promotion. No. This is a new outfit, with some not so new people. You know I can’t veer away from burned bridges, controversy or just showing up in a bingo hall somewhere in Illinois, for the sole purpose of ruining the day of someone who I maybe worked with once and decided I didn’t like. It’s the nature of the beast that is me and my career. I would say that maybe it is just a factor of having too much time on my hands but we both know that is bullshit. I’m a creature of habit. Besides, quite a few of these dregs and social rejects are people I have worked with before. It’s kind of like old home week except I think even my own tag partner is either ignorant of the fact that we have worked together previously in another company or he is quite unhappy about the fact that I appeared out of nowhere like a fucking ghost and it struck a nerve. Either way this is more HIS fight than mine. This is just me using his being established to slither through the door and ease my way into finding the role I need to play.
One half of the team we’re facing is familiar. Though to be fair that german junkie whore forgets the name of anybody she can’t use, manipulate or get a dopamine high from. Not that there's anything wrong with such behavior. It’s a language I myself understand. And more often than not, completely appropriate. Mind you I have nothing against Fowler. No personal beef. We’re not friends, we’re not enemies, we acknowledge the other exists and we go about our business. He needed a partner, I needed to debut and here we are. This is his fight, I’m just the paid backup.
Annika: What does Eoin think about it? I mean mom, when are you going to slow down? You don’t need to keep going as hard as you do. You have said it yourself, your legacy has been built and your name carries all the weight it possibly can, so why do you keep signing on to these backwoods, small time outfits? We know it isn’t because you’re bored. You are constantly active so what is the real purpose of THIS little venture? And don’t tell me nostalgia and the desire to go down memory lane with people you don’t even like.
Elizabeth: Unfinished business and a feeling that there are those from certain circles that have just gone and forgotten who I am. I can’t let that abide now can I? It’s egoism. The answer is egoism. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dust off my name and shove it in their faces. Simple but honest answer. I did it for my ego.
Annika: Fair. But you still don’t like them.
Elizabeth: I don’t have to like them. I get paid to entertain, not hold hands and sing kumbaya.