First episode : https://nathjy.travel.blog/2020/07/23/the-purple-rose-bouquet/

Looking up, he saw her. As if guided by magnets, their eyes immediately met. Eyes as blue as an August sky in Italy, immense as the Pacific Ocean, as deep as the Mariana’s pit. It had been more than ten years, and yet Julien felt himself melting again under this burning gaze from which it is impossible to hide anything. He would have liked to hide and even disappear. Why not turn himself into a book, like Herbert George Wells’ « The Invisible Man », pocket edition, and slip into the book box, just behind, between a biography of General Patton and Jacques Attali’s « Eternal Life ». In the midst of so much ego no one would find it, except her of course. She who would not only have grasped it immediately, but read it to the last page in a few seconds, including everything written between the lines, exactly as she was doing, although she was still twenty metres away from him. No need to try to run away.
Julien then remembered their last meeting and the conclusions he had drawn from that painful moment. Indeed, the few subsequent electronic exchanges had been completely in vain, and it was ten years ago that everything had been brutally stopped by one of those hurricanes of which only Lucie had the secret. What a temperament Julien still says to himself. And to think that the Indians have put up with it for ten years now. If it wasn’t for his extraordinary capacity to listen, empathy and deduction, Narendra Modi himself would undoubtedly have put him back on the plane for France.
Come on, » Julien thought to himself, « what did I conclude from that day? First of all that the florist was wrong: roses don’t fix everything, even purples. Then that the florist was right: we needed a thornless bouquet. That’s why I didn’t have to invent a story about a pack of angry cats that would have come after me, and why I still have eyes for it today. Then that my uncle Jean is really a triple pretentious fool. But hey, now that he is in his EHPAD, he doesn’t do any more harm. And finally, that I still don’t know how I should have announced my decision to Lucie. Meanwhile, Lucie, with a graceful but decided step, is getting closer and closer. 15 metres: God that she is still as beautiful as ever, time has only perfected everything that was already perfect ten years ago. 10 metres: with what a decided and firm step she moves, her will has not weakened with time. 8 metres: if her dress is longer, it is made of the same pattern as ten years ago, small flowers of all colours, but predominantly blue. 5 metres: she still perfumes herself with Chloé. 4 metres: in its movement, the air becomes so charged with electricity that Véronique, Paul and Abi, with whom I was talking, prefer to begin a cautious retreat, probably considering the risk of collateral damage too high, and so here I am alone. 3 metres: if she doesn’t decide to slow down, do I throw myself to the right in the rhododendron massif, or to the left, under the bench? 2 metres: finally she takes out her airbrake, at last, I mean a broad smile lights up her face and here she is motionless in front of me.

« How are you doing? « she asks me. Now I remember that I haven’t had air in my lungs for a good two minutes, and it’s time I thought about it if I want to answer her. What do I want to tell her anyway? Better from the moment I noticed that you weren’t holding a pistol, a machine gun, a sabre, a club or a bunch of roses… but I abstained, remembering just in time that she didn’t always digest my humour very well. So, how am I. It’s a big question. I tremble so much that of the thousand ideas that pass through me, none find their way to my mouth. How am I doing? Fine, no doubt, and I’ve been doing it for ten years since I decided not to go to New York. I hate traveling, especially abroad, it has always scared me. I’ve always hated the management of organisations, studies I had embarked on after my second failure in the medical competition, at the insistence of my uncle Jean and the emotional blackmail of my mother. She has never managed to escape the harmful influence of her brother, who now contributes as a guinea pig to the training of the new nurses in her EHPAD – the least gifted I hope. Yes, you guessed it, I have a grudge against him. So I’m fine, now that I’ve found my way, permaculture market gardening. I have been fine since I recovered from that traumatic shock in June 2010. Good, although I think you should pay me back at least half of the several thousand euros of psychotherapy that have been needlessly spent over the last ten years – and I’ll be much better even if that happens, because then my relations with my banker will calm down seriously. Well, even if my mother, between two visits to the EHPAD, keeps asking me when she will see her grandchildren. Fine, but terribly lonely. Good, but soon very bad if my heart continues at 200 beats per minute. Good, even if it is still in pieces and now it is facing the one it has beaten so many times before she crushes it. Good, even though I feel like both kissing you and choking you.
It’s amazing the number and precision of the elements that the brain can emit in half a second, and which allow us to elaborate an answer that is at the same time just, true, powerful, liberating and finally appropriate. My answer was therefore a model of balance, at the same time wildly audacious and quietly open: « Well, what about you? »

Par Jean-Yves

Continued in Episode III : https://nathjy.travel.blog/2020/10/08/the-purple-rose-bouquet-episode-iii-lucie/

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)