The Flower Stall – Part 1: Peonies

At six in the morning, the Cours Saleya smelled of wet stone and ten thousand flowers.

Chloé set up her stall as she did every Saturday, buckets of ranunculus on the left, lilac on the right, and glared at the stall next door. Marc's peonies were enormous this week, fat as fists, blushing from white to rose. A queue had already formed.

"Cheating," she muttered.

"I heard that," said Marc, from behind a wall of blooms. He was thirty-four, dark-haired and rumpled, in a stained apron, with petals in his curls. "I do not cheat. I have a secret."

"What is it?"

"Why would I tell you? You are the competition."

"I am your neighbour."

"The competition," said Marc, "who I have been in love with since March."

There was a short silence in which a delivery van reversed noisily and a pigeon took off. Chloé stared at him. Marc, very slowly, went the colour of his peonies.

"I said that out loud," he said.

"You did."

"I had planned to say it in June. With a bouquet. Not like this."

She burst out laughing, and couldn't stop. After a second, he laughed too, hiding his face in an armful of blossoms.

By nine, the market was crowded, and she had sold only a third of her usual stock because she kept looking over the wall. At noon, in the lull, he appeared at her stall with a single peony wrapped in brown paper.

"For you," he said. "Cold water, a pinch of sugar, and cut the stems at an angle. That is the secret."

"That's it?"

"That, and love," said Marc, deadpan.

"Can I ask you something?" said Chloé.

"Yes."

"Did you mean it? March?"

"Every petal," said Marc.

"Green?" she said, quietly.

"Green," said Marc. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Closing Time.