Paris and us

Chapter 23

"Recently changes in the Management of AP Group took many of us by surprise, especially when your brother Charles left the Director Board. What caused such drastic change?"

"It is just for personal reason. Charles wanted to spend more time with his family, he made a few adjustments in the career to accommodate his new family life, since his baby was just born."

"What a loving father! And Miss Pelletier, can you tell us about the new A for Art project of AP foundation?"

"Our foundation wants every child in France and in the world to appreciate the fine arts. Fine arts shouldn't be for reserved for the privileged, anyone should have equal access to it. We will organize various school visits to our foundation museums and national museums. We will arrange talks by various artists and professors of Fine Arts in the schools. Certainly we will continue our sponsorship of art exhibitions around the world."

"It will be an exciting year for the foundation too! And you two look amazing tonight, by the way. What are you guys' plan for the future, like , will we hear the wedding bell soon?"

"Sorry, we won't answer this private question. We have to go to the podium now,"I replied.

"Thank you for talking to us," said the journalist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who would have imagined, two weeks after the fashion week, the whole France was under lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic. All the French residents became prisoners in their homes. The streets were as empty as the movie set of a post-apocalypse thriller. The noise of cars and people were replaced by the chirping of birds. Occasionally we would hear the sirens of the ambulances, hoping the patients inside were still breathing at least.

It had been three weeks since President Macron announced the mandatory home confinement. At first the confinement was supposed to be just two weeks. Sadly, they extended it to another month, because the situation got only worse. The hospitals were overthrew with sick Covid-19 patients, literally fighting to breathe, hoping that it would not be their last one. We had heard what happened in Italy. We surely would not want that horror crossing our borders.

There was a war out there, our enemy was a virus that wore a crown. Hundreds of lives were lost daily, the family did not even have a chance to say goodbye.

I looked at the almost empty Place Concorde from the bedroom window, thinking, "what an eerie world we lived in right now."

Paris, in silence.

It was 10am, or 11am? Who cared what time it was, really. What's the point of getting out of bed and change myself out of the pyjamas. At least Mr Grey agreed with me, for he was sleeping soundly in the bed. I am fired before I even started my new job. All the schools and museums were closed in France. How could we possibly introduce the children an oil painting from Cézanne? By Zoom meetings? I officially became the parasite of my billionaire boyfriend, sucking on his coffee and food, occasionally his dick.

The apartment was spacious, although I couldn't hear Aurélien, but I knew he was in his study. His world hadn't stopped because of the pandemic. Proposals and budgets had to be approved, future strategies had to be brainstormed. Who's buying a €5000 handbag when many people could not put food on the table because they were fired? Apparently some could not live without shopping, pandemic or not. Online shopping had been skyrocketed, because people were stuck at home and needed the daily dose of adrenaline excitement. When would be the next occasion they use the brand new sheep skin handbag of 2020 summer collection? Who knew? The bag would probably be out of season by the time we could all go out and live normally.