**Yet again I completely forgot to update the French to English translations. Here's the link!
Rose
Chapter 11
The following week consisted
primarily of dark clouds and rain that barely relented enough for le marché. Rose never minded the rain, but she did mind how frizzy her
hair got because of the humidity.
In order to avoid the annoyance, she had braided her hair down her
back. She tread through the
puddles with groceries in hand until she saw Dahlia just outside La Mine, waving her arm to catch her
attention.
“Vite! Inside, out of
the rain.” She pulled Rose inside.
“Dahlia, quoi...”
“Surprise?” She giggled while Rose’s eyebrows
scrunched together in confusion at the scene in front of her. After a moment, she pulled Rose down,
maybe a bit to aggressively, onto the blanket spread out in the middle of the
shop floor.
“Well,” Phillippe leaned back
onto his hands and spread his legs out in front of him. “I planned a fun picnic because the weather’s
been so nice, but apparently l’univers
heard and decided to work against me.
Luckily I ran into Dahlia et
Florian and we set it up inside.”
“Then I had to stand there
and wait for you to come by.”
Dahlia added, shaking out her wet, curly hair all over Florian. “We didn’t know how else to get a hold
of you.”
“Oh, Dahlia, I should give
you le nombre de mon portable.” She pulled out an old cell phone from
her purse and traded with her friend so they could easily type in their
numbers. Phillippe glanced over
her shoulder, making her feel self-conscious, so she typed faster and passed it
back. “Um, before we start our
picnic on this lovely day, I have to go back to the shop to drop these off.” She stood and picked up the bags.
“Well, I’ll come with you.” Phillippe stood and took the bags from
her. On their way out, he still
managed to open the door for her, despite his arms being full. They hurried to the shop, where Rose
insisted that he stay out in the rain while she went inside. After a minute, though, he ignored her
request and went inside to get out of the rain.
“Bienvenue!” A woman in
blue approached him. “What brings
you in here today?”
“Uh, well, the rain mostly.”
Her face fell. “Oh, so you’re not looking for
anything?”
He felt his stomach twist
with guilt. There was only one
other person in the shop, and judging by how similar she looked to the woman in
front of him, he guessed they were related. “Oh.” He shoved
his hands into his pockets while his eyes quickly scanned their merchandise. Close to the cash register he spotted a
watch display. “I could use un nouveau montre.”
“Oh!” Delighted, she showed him the options
and rang him up while chatting pleasantly.
He remained gentil on the outside, but inside he
felt maladroit. Just as she was
putting the watch in the bag, Rose appeared with an umbrella in hand and panic
in her moonlit eyes.
She interrupted her aunt who
was handing Phillippe the receipt and said, “Tante Mystie, I’m heading back to Dahlia’s. She asked if I could said, well dragged
me inside, but I had the groceries so I came back here after telling her I’d
come back.”
“Ouai, c’est bien, chère.”
“Be back by 22 heures!” The woman in red across the shop added.
“Toujours, Tante
Faline!” She kissed Mystie’s cheek
before heading out.
Phillippe signed the receipt
before handing it back to Mystie, then headed out with his bag.
When the door closed, she
turned to him and practically shouted, “What was that?”
“Je suis désolé! I
don’t even know what happened in there!
I stepped inside to get out of the rain and the next thing I know, I’m
buying a watch! By the way, this
is a really nice watch. I can’t
believe I got it for such a low price.”
Rose’s laughter interrupted
him.
“Quoi?”
Stifling her laughter but not
her smile, she said, “C’est
Mystie. She was born to sell. There is something about here that
convinces almost everyone to shop.
I warned you not to go inside!”
“Nothing happened, except I
bought a really nice watch.” He
pulled the watch out and put it on his wrist.
“If they found out about our
friendship, I would get in a lot of trouble. I’m finally starting to enjoy doing other things because of
you, and if that gets taken away...” She trailed off. What would she do without him? What did she do before he popped into her life? She couldn’t even remember back two
months ago. He had done so much
for her. It was strange having a
friend. But what was even stranger
was what he did next. She suddenly
found her face squished firmly into his chest by his powerful arms. Unprepared for the hug, she had left
her arms at her side and was so surprised that she forgot how to return the
gesture.
When he realized she wasn’t
going to hug him back, he remembered why they had never hugged before, Rose’s
unease with others. Pulling away
from her because he felt bad for forcing that on her, he realized that she
smelled like spring. “We should
probably get back to our picnic.”
“Je pense que ça c’est bien.”
She opened up the umbrella she brought, even though they were both
pretty wet now, and they walked in silence except for the drops of rain all
around them. When they sat down
for their lunch, She had to admire how relaxed and comfortable he seemed in
every situation. She was
definitely not like that, especially not right now. He and Dahlia were both so outgoing and fun, but Rose just
sat quietly watching her friends be happy. Not that she wasn’t happy, because she was, but something
felt off.
When the food was gone and
energy was replaced with total lethargy, Florian announced that it was time for
him to leave to return home, despite Dahlia’s complaints. After a moment with her head against
his chest and some murmured comfort, he kissed her forehead and left. Dahlia’s joy seemed to evaporate. Seeing her friend’s demeanor change so
quickly concerned Rose, but she didn’t know what to do so she turned to
Phillippe.
He nudged her shoulder before
packing up the ice chest. “Well, I
should probably head home too.
However, I need my blanket before I can leave.”
Both girls apologized and
stood, helping him fold up the blanket.
“Thanks for a great
picnic.” He smiled at Rose and
bowed grandly.
“Um, bye.” Not knowing what to do, she found
herself awkwardly hugging him despite the fact that he was carrying the blanket
and the ice chest. Then she turned
back toward Dahlia and Phillippe left.
Extremely confused, Dahlia
asked, “What was that?”
Rose immediately started
tugging on her earlobe and her eyes grew wide as she shrugged and shook her
head.
“Do you want to talk about it
upstairs?”
“Oui.” They headed
upstairs to Dahlia’s apartment and sat on her bed.
“What happened while you were
dropping off groceries? When you
came back, you were acting all weird but Phillippe seemed fine.”
“Well, he bought a watch, I
got upset because I didn’t want to get in trouble, and then he hugged me.” She blurted out.
“Quoi? You got in
trouble because he bought a watch so he hugged you?”
“Non!” Slower, she
explained how stressed she was about her aunts finding out about him and what
happened when he wandered into the shop.
“And then he hugged me.”
“Why is that such a big
deal?” But as soon as she said it
out loud, she realized two things.
“We’ve never hugged before.
Does that mean that you’ve never hugged him before?”
Rose shook her head. “It happened so fast and I didn’t even
hug him back.”
Dahlia giggled. “Je
suis désolée. I shouldn’t be
laughing but it is kind of funny.
You should’ve seen his face when you hugged him.” Her giggling grew louder.
Realizing how ridiculous it
sounded, Rose started to relax. “I
guess it is kind of funny.” She
sighed. “I’ve never had a friend
before him, so I don’t really know how to have friends. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the
courage to talk to you.” Then she
smiled. “It took him deux mois to hug me.”
“Deux mois? Well it
certainly took him long enough!
What is he waiting for?”
“Waiting for what?”
“He hasn’t asked you out
yet!”
“Out where? He took me Aux Jardins de la Mansonière la semaine dernière.”
“You two went on a date?”
“A date? Non!”
“Then what is he waiting
for?”
“I told you, Phillippe is
just looking to be my friend.
Nothing more.”
“Then he’s more of an idiot
than I thought.” After a pause,
she added, “Are you looking to be more than his friend?”
“Non!” But as she said
it, she wasn’t sure if that was entirely true, so she redirected the
conversation toward Florian, hoping to avoid mentioning any of these unwanted
feelings or how muscled Phillippe’s arms were.
2 comments:
Are the characters speaking English *and* French or are they always speaking in French and just some of the dialogue is being written in French?
I feel like there might be an excessive amount of French phrases, even if the characters are supposed to be speaking Franglais. Even with the dictionary it can be quite detracting from the immersion to have to look up what they're saying. This is of course assuming your audience is primarily English-speaking.
Looking forward to more Rose!
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