Happy People Read and Drink Coffee Read Free

remain a recluse any more. Come to Happy People with me tomorrow. The bookstore needs you, and you need to get out.”
    â€œI couldn’t care less about Happy People!”
    â€œWell, if that’s true, then let’s go away on vacation together. I can close the bookstore. They can do without us in the neighborhood . . . well, they can certainly do without me for a few weeks.”
    â€œI don’t feel like going on vacation.”
    â€œI’m sure you do. We’ll have a really fun time, just the two of us, and I’ll be able to take care of you every minute of the day. It’s what you need to get you back on track.”
    He couldn’t see my eyes popping out of my head at the idea of having him permanently on my back.
    â€œListen, let me think about it,” I said, to appease him.
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œYes. I want to go to sleep now, so get going.”
    He gave me a noisy kiss on the cheek before taking his cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped through his impressively large address book before calling one of his Stevens, Freds, or yet another Alex. Fired up by the idea of the evening of debauchery that awaited him, he finally let go of me. I stood up and lit a cigarette before heading for the front door. He stopped talking to the person on the other end of the phone long enough to kiss me one last time.
    â€œI’ll come tomorrow,” he whispered in my ear, “but don’t count on seeing me too early; I’m going to have a very busy night tonight.”
    My only reply was to raise my eyes to heaven. Happy People wouldn’t open on time again tomorrow morning. There really wasn’t much I could do about it. It was in another life that I had run a literary café. Felix had worn me out. Lord knows I love him, but I’d had enough.
    Once in bed, I went over his words in my head. He seemed determined to get me to do something. I had to find a way out of it at all costs. Whenever he had an idea like that, nothing could stop him. He wanted me to get better, but I didn’t. What excuse could I make up?

2
    A week had passed since Felix had launched his plan to “Pull Diane out of her depression.” He’d kept bombarding me with suggestions, each one more far-fetched than the last. I reached a breaking point when he left some vacation brochures on the coffee table. I knew full well what he had in mind: fun in the sun with everything that entailed. A kind of Club Med, lounge chairs, palm trees, watered-down rum cocktails, glistening, tanned bodies, water aerobic classes where you could ogle the activities organizer—a dream for Felix and a nightmare for me. All those holidaymakers crushed against each other on a tiny beach, or fighting to get to the buffet in their fancy evening clothes, appalled at the idea that their snoring neighbor might steal the last sausage, all those people happy to have been locked up in a tiny plane with screaming children around them: everything about it made me want to puke.
    That’s why I was walking around in circles, smoking so much that my throat was on fire. Sleep was no longer a refuge for me; it had been invaded by visions of Felix in a bathing suit forcing me to go salsa dancing in a nightclub. He wouldn’t let the idea go as long as I refused to give in. I had to find a way to get out of it, nip it in the bud, reassure him while getting him off my back. Staying at home was out. Going away, leaving Paris for good was the only solution in the end. Finding some isolated spot where he wouldn’t follow me.
    A trip into the world of the living was becoming inevitable: my kitchen cabinets and fridge were hopelessly empty. All I could find were out-of-date packages of cookies—Clara’s snacks—and some of Colin’s beer. I took one of the bottles and turned it round and round before deciding to open it. I breathed it in as if it had the bouquet of an extremely expensive wine. I took a