IV 'I feel an infinite tenderness for you. I always will. My whole life.'

After her last class, Adele tidied her desk, added the homework she needed to do from her paper notes in her teacher's planner to her Google Calendar, before shutting off the classroom lights, shutting the door and rushed to the staff room. She looked around for Beatrice but she wasn't there yet so Adele walked to the coffee machine and made herself an espresso, pressing the correct button and placing a cup she took from the cupboard nearby under the espresso machine. She waited as it purred into action and the lights began to flicker. With a ping the coffee was ready. She took the little cup and began to sip when she noticed Beatrice approaching her.

'Hi' said Beatrice, grinning, before adding, 'ugh! Don't drink that crap! We'll go to a real coffee shop!' Adele took another sip,made a face (it really wasn't that great!) and - a bit embarrassed inside – (what would her parents think of her wasting coffee like this? Too bougie now are we? ) – poured the rest down the sink and turned on the tap to clean it before putting the cup away.

'Hello!' she replied with a big smile on her face. 'So where are we going?'

'I know a really good place in the centre of town.'

About a quarter of an hour later, parking in an empty spot on a side street Beatrice got out of her car and she and Adele walked for about five minutes before arriving at a small restaurant situated on the corner, it's facade painted red with gold lettering. Although Adele did not recognise the new name, she recognised the place and she stiffened momentarily as her mind went back to that heartbreaking day when she had met her Emma at this very cafe, hoping against hope to earn her forgiveness and that they'd get back together again. She remembered how, despite their words, both of them could not take their eyes of each other; of how they had begun to kiss hungrily, to pleasure each other with their fingers right in the cafe oblivious to anything else and at that moment she was certain that Emma still loved her as much as she loved Emma but then, all of a sudden, Emma had forced herself away, compelled by her new family situation;but the pain and hurt were still visible in her downtrodden eyes, her hot tears, her snot. The words of the entire conversation were etched into her heart as if by hydrochloric acid and she recalled it word for word as if she had an eidetic memory:

[Adele]: I miss touching each other, seeing each other, breathing in each other's scent. I want you. All the time. No one else.

[Emma]: No. I can't. I'm with someone else now. You know that.

[Adele]: You don't love me anymore. Are you sure?

[Emma]: Yes.

These words had finally broken Adele's heart and she recalled them again now as she followed robotically behind Beatrice and took a seat, outwardly appearing calm and forcing a smile.

The words Emma had said next had haunted her ever since and she had seen them in her dreams many times over the years although the last time had been over a year ago.

[Emma]: I feel an infinite tenderness for you. I always will. My whole life.

As they both took off their coats and hung them behind their chairs, sitting at a table by the window, Adele let Beatrice order for them both as she remembered the final time she had spoken to Emma and the last time she had seen her at the art gallery exhibition of her paintings to which she'd been invited but seeing herself on the canvases had only opened old wounds and she found it hard to fit in with Emma's new friends so she had left shortly afterwards, her last vision of Emma being one of her talking excitedly about a particular painting to one of her potential buyers – it was the one Emma had painted of Adel, post coitus, following the first night that she had moved in with her.

'Here are your drinks' said the waitress, smiling, startling Adele out of her reverie. 'Oh thanks!' she said as the young woman put two espresso martinis on the table.

'Drink these!' ordered Beatrice, 'and you will feel instantly better. It's got espresso, coffee liqueur, and vodka! And I love the three roasted coffee beans on top in the centre of the martini glass they put here. Adele couldn't help grinning and she took a large sip.

'Good huh?' grinned Beatrice. Adele nodded assent. She looked around her surroundings at the cafe-cum-bar and saw that the spot at which she and Emma had sat all those years ago was currently taken by a young couple obviously on a date.

'Why are you staring at that couple?' asked Beatrice. 'You fancy the girl or the guy?'

'Both!' laughed Adele. 'No', she added, 'they both look far to young for me.' Beatrice laughed and Adele looked at her and thought how beautiful she still looked but the ephemera prettiness of adolescence had matured into the captivating face of a woman at the peak of her loveliness. Those eyes and those cheekbones that could cut glass!

'How was your day at work?' asked Beatrice. '

'It was good. I thought my classes went okay.' answered Adele. 'But let us not talk about work! We've got so much to catch up on! Tell me, first, what have you been up to since we last saw each other?'

Beatrice proceeds to outline her life since high school. Graduating with the second highest GPA in her class, she went to Paris to do a degree in Psychology hoping to become a Clinical Psychologist one day with her own practise but she actually discovered during her studies that she found Child Psychology and Educational Psychology more interesting so after graduation she did postgraduate studies in these areas in London eventually getting her Master's degree. She worked for a couple of years in London at a state school, mainly to improve her English and then spent a year travelling by train across the USA. She then returned to France hoping to work at a lycee in Paris. Unfortunately, she couldn't find a job at a school she liked. She then found work as a librarian on the Left Bank which she loved but the salary was too little for her to enjoy Paris properly so when she saw an advert in one of the industry papers about a school psychologist-cum-librarian job in Lille she had applied and gotten it. She was at the school now for three years and was also doing a part time PhD in educational psychology online. She eventually hoped to still open up her own private practise in Paris after she'd obtained her doctorate. Beatrice reckoned she had another 3 more years of part time study to go. She dedicated most weekends to her studies.

'Wow! That must be so hard to work full time and do your doctorate part time?' said Adele.

'Tell me about it! But I'm lucky because my mother who still lives in Lille takes care of my young daughter on the weekends so I can devote my weekends wholly to my studies.' Beatrice said.

'You have a daughter?' said Adele. 'Congratulations. What's her name?

'Clementine'' said 'Beatrice and she is 4 years old. Her dad and I broke up soon after she was born. He was English and though he still sometimes comes to see her and sometimes sends her money and presents, he's not really in our lives very much. Asshole! '

'Why did you two break up?'

'I realised I was bi and though I tried to be faithful to him while we were together the baby was a shock to both of us and the final straw. He couldn't cope and just left me!' said Beatrice, blushing slightly, although whether it was from her already finished espresso martini or not, Adele couldn't quite be sure. 'How about yourself? Tell me everything!' said Beatrice, ordering a bottle of white wine to go alongside their dinner of a shared seafood platter which Beatrice recommended and was the restaurant's signature dish. Adele had long since gotten over her aversion to oysters and happily tucked into one of the dozen rock oysters on the platter along with clams, jumbo tiger prawns, mussels, smoked salmon, langoustines, lobster tails and crab plus salmon roe, accompanied by an assortment of breads and a small bowl of bouillabaisse each.

Adele spoke whilst she ate, talking about her career to date and her time as a kindergarten teacher and her going back to college to train as a secondary teacher of English literature (in Paris) and her job at her current school. By now they had finished the first bottle of wine and both were a little bit tipsy.

Beatrice decided to order some dessert wine for them both instead of dessert and the waiter bought a couple of small glasses of Tokaji wine from Hungary.

'This sweet wine is amazing!'' said Beatrice when it arrived. 'But she protested, 'tell me about your personal life. Tell me about what happened with that blue haired girl you were with at high school!'