Épisode 1

Do you know the song "love stories usually end badly"? For me, it's much more than that. It is my business. I am a lawyer. Divorces. In Nice. I've been doing this for over ten years now and I have to say it works out pretty well for me. I have acquired a more than enviable reputation in this field and customers flock to my door because they know that I am not giving up. It takes, I believe, a certain amount of cynicism to do this. Not just take a step back from their files, which is what any lawyer should. It takes, I am convinced, a certain realism to assimilate that more than one in two marriages ends in separation. To know that fairy tales, in half of the cases, end badly. Of course, my clients do not suspect it when they pass the ring on their finger, quite busy as they are in the preparations for their ceremony, in choosing their dress, the petits fours, drawing up the list of the invited guests. to sit down Uncle Albert with cousin Roger, hesitating between three different decorations for the tables, repeating the ceremony and, for the more daring, writing to himself wishes dripping with love and good feelings. They plan that ideal life they dream of and project it into that day - which has to be the most beautiful of their lives, even before it has started. Frankly, don't you think that sounds like a stupid bet? I call it buying a cat in a bag. And I'm going to tell you something: when they show up in my office and tell me about the horrors they do to each other, well believe me, we are far, but then really far from this idyllic vision, crystallized in these photos of marriage which is all alike.

I know. Now you're starting to find me unfriendly, aren't you? Don't worry, I'm used to it. And it is even thanks to this that my reputation is forged. My clients are also very happy that I adopt this realistic position and I no longer count those who tell me that they had met me earlier, they would have avoided many mistakes ... Except that I am not a prenuptial counselor, me. I'm not going to saw the branch I'm comfortably sitting on anyway! It's just that when they show up in my office, sheepish or angry, sometimes both, from their first words, I feel like a freeze frame occurs, followed by an express rewind of their couple life. Six months or fifty years of marriage, the film is played backwards in my head (time-lapse soundtrack included), always coming back to this magical day. I am the Penelope of the tapestry of their wedding, except that I am not content to undo the work of the day before. I slice in the quick, I resolve the situations and I reset the coils to zero. However, I am not a magician, you must not push. To the despair of some fathers, I cannot make the children disappear, just as to the chagrin of some wives, I cannot prevent their ex-husbands from making others to the first child. Which is rather funny since most of the time, it is the same men who find themselves in these two situations. You get it, marriage, I don't really believe in it. I am convinced that the unions that last are made of work, sacrifices, concessions and often a good deal of resignation, abandonment of dreams, cowardice, and perhaps, sometimes, but then very rarely, of 'love. The thing is, behind that magic word, so-called sesame for absolute happiness, we put anything and everything. The truth is, what is commonly called love, is a fleeting, fleeting sensation that only takes three short turns before giving way to the horrible daily routine, the dreadful routine. This is probably where the great scam lies. Skillfully maintained by a flourishing film industry, literature with or without rose water, the lobby of florists, Valentine's Day and restaurateurs who only set tables for two guests, and some of the best. All these people who agree to make love rhyme with always, without explaining the side effects to the poor madmen who fall into the trap, willing victims that they are of this gigantic scheme!Don't worry, I'm no conspiracy theorist and I'll even tell you something: I believe (a little bit) in love. But above all, I am convinced that it does not last. It's just that for each couple, the expiration date is unknown. A bit like that of our death. We don't know when that will happen and maybe it is better that way. While there is not much that can be done against the Grim Reaper, however, we can fix the situation of marriages that take the water. And that, I told you, is my specialty. And since I'm not totally stupid, I leave the clients who still want to believe in this artistic vagueness, which will allow me - it's only a matter of time - to see them again sitting in my office, for their next divorce. . Recurrence should never be overlooked, and some of my clients are serial married. Admit it is convenient: I already know everything about them! I have a quiet cynicism, this is a question of business ethics. One of the few colleagues with whom I enjoy crossing swords had this expression which I found very apt. He once told me that we are forensic pathologists of love. It is well found. I autopsy the relationships and deliver my patient's cause of death, with no margin for error. Adultery, boredom, incompatibility of mood, out of tune dreams, the range is finally limited, but the variations are numerous. As endless as each couple is different. This is what makes my job so salty. Most of the time I get bored because I get over things very quickly and once the autopsy is done I go around in circles. Fortunately then I have the procedures, the negotiations, these confrontations in which I excel - I'm modest, you see? - come on, let's say I thrive in other people's conflicts. But this morning, the letter I received shook my horizon. A wedding invitation, but not just any wedding invitation. Aurelian's. The one with whom I did all four hundred hits in college, inseparable as we were, sometimes going so far as to form the most unlikely of couples in the space of a few hours. A small, handy arrangement that allowed us to meet our needs without having to worry about looking elsewhere and going through the whole process of first dates, questions, hesitations, beginnings of a relationship, temporary discomfort that sometimes lasts, in short. , what the Anglo-Saxons call "friends with benefits" and whose most common translation under the term "plan cul" does not do justice to the deep friendship that has always united us. Because going on weekends with him only involved having fun without false promises or role-playing, because hanging out at the beach in his company was always a pleasure, because we knew how to make each other laugh and especially that we we put up with it, which is far from obvious with our pig characters… No love, no jealousy, no possessiveness: no problems.