Roses are red, violets are blue, we all know that, tell us something new

Yesterday, I was sent flowers to office. Much like the dream I used to nurture when I watched ‘Return to Eden’ and ‘Dallas’ and ‘Falcon Crest’ and all these dramas where women wore formidable power suits with shoulder pads and Joan Collins disrupted weddings.

So, that much was exciting.

I was in a meeting trying to explain my lost cause (meaning missed deadline and diffused product specifications) to my boss, when another editor walked in and asked my boss if she could borrow me for a minute. Around that time, my boss would have willingly paid someone to have me off his hand, so he obliged. My editor took me winking and smiling to the reception. I just thought that it was a rather unconventional but sweet way of showing someone the door, but there it was – a huge bouquet with fifty roses. All for me.

‘They’re for you,’ editor winked.

‘Really?’, I muttered.

‘Boyfriend?’, the receptionist asked, moisturizing her hands.

‘Yes’, I mumbled, looking at the note.

‘Aww!’, they tilted their heads and smiled.

I don’t particularly like roses, but these were stupendously beautiful, with pink satin tendrils intertwined. I have never seen colours so rich.

The yellow roses looked like they’d been dipped in a mixture of molten sun and a hundred egg yolks. And the red roses..I call them Rebecca roses. In that book, the first thing that strikes Rebecca when she enters her husband’s mansion are blood-red rhododendrons. These flowers intimidate her, and these red roses reminded me of that. They really were a bewitching color – the kinds magic fairytales get written about. The beautiful princess pricks her finger and a drop of her blood spills on a flower in the enchanted garden, and all the roses in that garden are infused with the color of her blood.

There was much speculation about what the number of roses denoted in the bouquet. Z said that it showed the way our love had blossomed into friendship, J said that the florist was good, SS thought that each rose depicted the number of fights boyfriend and I would have before we got together finally, and C remarked that my boyfriend was posh and loaded. Z, J, and SS agreed. Oh well.

But I didn’t need to read between the twines. The roses told me that he loved me. Some things are classic.