[paris] ta fête [émilie]

le juge voudrait te faire ta fête
tout le monde de fera aussi ta fête

Christèle liked Émilie, she really did, but Merlin, at times she made her want to tear her hair out. For a woman who took as much pride in her hair as Christèle did - nearly but not quite rivaling her friend in effort spent - this was an extraordinary admission, but not, Christèle thought, entirely unwarranted in this situation. She grasped the base of her ponytail and tugged in frustration, her hand slowly sliding down her ironed-straight locks and putting a satisfying pressure on the back of her head.

"For the last time, Émilie," she sighed, her exasperation raising her voice higher than she'd like it to be. Usually just spelling things out slowly and clearly worked perfectly well with Émilie, she didn't know why this was so difficult, "don't accuse me of things that aren't true! Casting me as this villain is completely unfair. I never said that the - Melbourne Marsupials -" the new team name did not roll off the tongue, nor did it make much sense, but she tried to be respectful nevertheless, "were the best team in the world! A reporter said the words "the best team in the world, you must think" to me during an interview and I didn't have the chance to correct him because he asked a very complicated question right afterwards. I promise I still think Caladri du Camargue is the best team in the world. Merlin, D-" she cut off. Christèle had been going to say that Diederik played for them and they'd been friends much longer than she'd ever known Hefin, but she remembered that Diederik and Volker had been best friends in school and she wasn't about to say any names that might remind Émilie of Volker. She shook her head instead, her ponytail swinging from side to side. Maybe she should just say something rude about Hefin's team, but she felt bad. Most of them were good players and Christèle wasn't interested in the sorts of personal attacks she could make against some of them. "Look, I went to more Caladri games than any other team in the last year. Even though I'm supposed to be dating Hefin." If she was going to be seen with him in the context of sports, Christèle preferred it to be at galas or charity matches than the pure games, anyway. She still watched her own team play.

Christèle had tried to explain the situation of their feigned relationship to Émilie, although she wasn't entirely sure how much of it she remembered. Truth be told, the act was getting somewhat tiring. The media was even more ravenous than she'd expected; her own relationship with someone of a similar status would have carried a minor profile with potentially small, very occasional mentions in tiny corners of the paper, but Hefin's celebrity act was another thing entirely. With all the other female figures in his orbit, reporters' eyes for drama were unparalleled. Hefin would probably be amenable to ending their relationship soon if she just talked to him about it; she'd bought him a considerable respite from his mother, all things considered, and he could use her as an excuse for why he wasn't prepared to date yet for some time afterwards. "Want to help me brainstorm excuses to break up with him?"

@Émilie Côté

For the last time, Émilie-- the sound of her name like that made her roll her eyes. Contrary to popular belief, Émilie knew how to read. It said very plainly that Christèle thought the Melbourne Marsupials were a better team than Caladri, the one constant Émilie still had in her life. She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, eager to hear whatever excuse her friend was coming up with. She couldn’t believe she was being interviewed in the first place, let alone insulting their team. She was saying a lot of things and she was having trouble following, naturally, but her interest was piqued at Christèle’s promise.

She looked at her for a few more seconds with a narrowed gaze, still a little bit suspicious but feeling a little bit better about it all. “Did you really?” Émilie wished she had gone to so many Caladri games -- she had gone to one the entire season. The weekends were the only time she had to spend with her husband, thanks to his schedule, and they always managed to find something that wasn’t quidditch. It was awfully convenient. Émilie sighed again, throwing her hands up both in defeat and in sheer exasperation for having to hear about Hefin. Read the room, Christèle: Émilie did not want to talk about relationships. Fake or not -- she was honestly still kind of lost on the whole thing -- she still had a boyfriend.

“What?” Émilie leaned forward, her hands flat on the table on either side of her wine glass, trying to get as close as possible, knowing her attempt to lower her voice would be poor. “A million times yes, I want to help you break up with him.” She leaned back in her chair again, a smile on her face, running through reasons as quick as she could. “Tell him you hate his hair.” Long hair on men was so overdone, an opinion she had only recently come to have, but a firm one anyway. “Or do you want, like, something dramatic?” She nodded, deciding for her that she did. “I never did get to throw a drink at anyone, that looks like fun.” And would mess up his hair, coincidentally. “Or maybe tell him he’s gained too much weight for your tastes, or drinks too much-- could be a good reason to throw a drink at him, right?” The was distracting in all the best ways.

Christèle held her breath as Émilie stared at her, wondering if this new angle would assuage her or if she'd have to find yet another one, and simultaneously already feeling a little sorry that she'd raised her voice. Defense and Diplomacy and twenty-one years of family training was supposed to make her better at this, and she could reluctantly admit that even when she felt as though she was at her wit's end that there was always another approach open to her, but it was harder to think about such things at a bird's eye view in the midst of a heated discussion with a friend about something that she didn't think was terribly important. She was tempted to drop the subject entirely, if she wasn't afraid it would stick in Émilie's mind and be brought up at some inopportune time - or worse, never brought up at all, but lodged somewhere in her psyche. Christèle hated confrontation; she liked to believe that she didn't usually let things escalate to this point.

She nodded mutely at Émilie's question, adding after a pause, "I went to five Caladri games last year, and I went to two Melbourne ones," just to furnish proof. Fortunately, Émilie seemed to get quite distracted at that point, leaning in with excitement at the prospect of a breakup. Christèle stifled a laugh. Actually, the idea that her friend might be excited certainly increased the fun for her as well. Probably Hefin would want to embellish whatever they came up with, although Christèle didn't want anything so dramatic that it would damage the family image. That dispute about the pygmy puffs had already been a little far - it made her seem more ridiculous than she liked. She tried to convey that to her friend, although first the hair comment made her laugh out loud.

"Men with long hair are often unduly proud of it, aren't they?" she teased. "I think they like the attention, as though most of us don't take care of just as much hair by default." She considered the other suggestions. "Well, I would prefer it not be over something absolutely petty, my family won't stand for it if I make a laughingstock of us all. We already staged an argument about pygmy puff colors... Besides, his reputation is worse than mine, he can better afford to take the hit. But maybe I can work in drink throwing." She hefted her own wine glass. "Perhaps we can find someone to practice on so you can join the fun," she laughed, glancing toward the door as if an extremely good-humored member of Émilie's flat might suddenly materialize. Maybe they could be convinced it was for art? "Maybe I should just declare he hasn't been paying enough attention to me. Two months ago the papers were all about him hanging on blonde Swedes anyway."

Although Émilie had certainly been horribly unlucky in love, Christèle had actually never really had a relationship of her own, and she wondered vaguely what it would be like to be discussing such things about a relationship of real emotional import. She wondered what it was that Zoé had figured out that she didn't. Her cousin certainly had less pressure - was that really it, as she usually reasoned?

“Unduly,” Émilie agreed, even though she wasn’t completely sure what the word meant. She thought they were of the same opinion here, anyway. She laughed, pleased that her very first suggestion was such a good one. “They love the attention,” she stated, though her generalization about all men relied very heavily on her thoughts about her ex-husband and her fever dream she had where she cut all his hair off. “Hmm.” She tapped her fingernails on the tabletop, trying to think of anything else to suggest. Throwing drinks was probably as good as her ideas were going to get.

She laughed again, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “It wouldn’t do to disappoint the family, of course.” She rolled her eyes, though she was genuinely poking fun at herself rather than Christèle. It wasn’t any sort of secret that she had been the cause of some issues with her family, getting engaged, breaking up, getting engaged again, getting married and then getting divorced by twenty-two. She smiled into her next sip of wine, remembering hearing about the fight about the pygmy puff colors. Personally, Émilie thought that was a perfectly reasonable thing to fight about, but maybe it didn’t have enough substance to warrant a second round of argument.

“Oh, yes please,” she nodded enthusiastically; most likely she just wanted to be able to throw a drink at someone, had missed her chance with Volker -- seven years and zero drinks thrown. Émilie was terrible at math and even she knew it didn’t quite add up.

She nodded again, much more seriously this time. “I think that might be your best bet.” She made a yuck face at the mention of the blonde Swedes, the mention of Hefin hanging all over them, the whole situation. Émilie finished her glass of wine, convinced of nothing else except that men were trash. “You could probably work in the drink throwing with that.” She pulled the bottle of wine toward her, pausing before pouring herself a refill. “Just don’t waste anything good on him.” She nodded again. “Bad enough you’ve wasted this much time already.” She knew from personal experience that Christèle wouldn’t be able to get her time back.

Christèle sighed, though she was smiling. "This whole thing wouldn't have happened in the first place if not for my family," she admitted, though it was more to get them off her back than anything. "I just don't want to actually get married for some kind of charade like this. There have been some fun things about pretending to date, but I do not think I can keep it up for the rest of my life. I'd better start setting expectations that I'll die alone. Talk about how much I love my cat, how I'm thinking of getting another one, take up spinning as a hobby..." She took a long, dramatic sip of wine before laughing. "Such valuable time I'm wasting, no? But yes, I'll buy boxed wine for the occasion and save the champage for celebrating with you afterwards."

Finishing her own glass of wine, Christèle took the bottle from Émilie and added, "Hey, don't drink that yet." Standing up and poking her head out of the door to her friend's room, she locked eyes with someone around their own age or maybe a year or two younger, who had the misfortune of walking back from the kitchen just at that moment. She didn't recognize him, but plenty of the people here were transplants of one kind or another. He didn't have long hair, but it was blond, and maybe he could be persuaded to don a wig temporarily? Stepping out into the hallway, she flashed a winning smile. "Any chance you'd be willing to do my friend and I a favor? We're rehearsing a kind of performance art and we need a volunteer of sorts. It might be slightly uncomfortable, but also quite low effort, unless you'd like to get more into it. Please?"

He failed to immediately object, so she pulled him inside before either he or Émilie had much of a chance to say anything. Christèle hoped that Émilie didn't have a feud with any of her flatmates and that if she did it was not with this one. "Care to demonstrate what you had in mind, Émilie? Make it really realistic." She wasn't normally the type to draw random strangers into uncomfortable situations, but she had an inkling it might also be a little cathartic for her friend. Plus, wine could loosen Christèle's decorum somewhat as well.