First day
It’s a cold cafeteria with gray walls and floors. Round and high metal tables. Waiters in white clothes. The building is made of marble and transparent glass, wedged between a residential street and the highway. It is the only meeting place for these offices of the European Commission. I live alone in Brussels with my two children. After my divorce from their father, I really want to meet someone, but it’s complicated between my job and my children to manage.
I see him in the cafeteria, having breakfast with his colleagues. To the one who accompanies me, I say that this tall boy with dark blue eyes pleases me. He answers me “blah”. I find it sweet and romantic. The following week, he is seated alone. I see it and I don’t think much. As one jumps into cold water or with a parachute, I launch myself. I approach it. “May I? » He lets me sit down, doesn’t seem so surprised by my audacity. We then exchange banalities, the general direction in which we work, he the economic policies, me the protection of the environment, our nationalities, since when we work there.
” We kiss. It’s annoying because he’s Irish, from a very Catholic family, married for ten years.
” You are married ? », I said, seeing her wedding ring gleam on her finger. Yes, he has two children, like me. We leave each other without exchanging our numbers, I only showed him where I worked. Afterwards, we meet several times by chance in the streets of the Belgian capital. But still nothing. I’m feverish, I often think of him, I really like him.
One day, he comes into my office to offer me a coffee when my nephews have come to see me in Brussels. I tell him I can’t, he leaves the room. My 14 year old nephew turns to me: “He is crazy about you, this boy, it shows”. We continue the ballet of the cafeteria, the freeze-dried coffees on the aluminum tables. ” You’re my best friend “, he announces to me in front of the distributor another day. His naivety baffles me.
I can’t stand the coffee anymore, my falsely spontaneous passages in front of his office door. Finally a lunch. This time, we are going to the museum of Tervuren to see the African masks. We kiss. It’s annoying because he’s Irish, from a very Catholic family, married for ten years to the first woman he met outside his family. But I’m in love with him, so I take the risk.
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