100 Days of Happiness Read Online Free PDF

entry in the improvised “Belle of the Ball” contest, he’ll eventually wind up with a “Sure, why not?”
    In my single days, I’d watch as he’d take her off to the nearest bed or dark corner, under my wide, sad eyes. Chalk it up to statistics. He’dcalculated that out of a hundred girls, at least thirty would be willing to go to bed with him. To find those thirty, he just had to start optimistically with the prettiest one and then settle for the first one to fall into his net, never the homeliest girl at the party, and always one who was at least cute. All this while I was furiously courting the prettiest one there and coming up empty-handed after two hours of pointless conversation in a fruitless attempt to seem interesting and sexy.
    When all is said and done, Corrado is the most thrilling and amusing man in the world to spend time with as a buddy. But, and now I’m addressing my female readers, if you ever meet him, avoid him like the plague. You’ll recognize him immediately: he looks like Aramis.

WE’RE ALMOST THERE
    N ow you have nearly all the ingredients necessary to enjoy this story without a happy ending and witness the imminent arrival of my buddy Fritz. Just a few more essential details and we’re done.
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    Until a few months ago, I’d leave our apartment in San Lorenzo around quarter to eight every morning, and first I’d drop off Paola at her school, then the kids, and then finally I’d park on the banks of the Tiber about a ten-minute walk from the gym because of the much-detested ZTL, the
zona a traffico limitato
—Rome’s restricted traffic zone. That short walk served me perfectly as a second morning espresso. Nearly every day, as I made my way through Trastevere, I’d make a stop at Oscar’s pastry shop, which was conveniently close. A pleasant chat about the weather and politics, then my favorite father-in-law would hand me a hot, sweet-smelling doughnut, without my ever asking.
    I’d sit down at the badly painted wooden café table set up on the sidewalk out front, which looked as if someone had left it there at the end of World War Two. Those were the five best minutes of my day. The confectioners’ sugar that puffed out over my lips, begging to be licked off; the crunchy spring of the golden crust that lasts just a fraction of a second before collapsing and allowing itself to be bitten into; the hurrying strangers there to be watched as if they were actors in a play. I was never alone. Wait a few seconds and there was always anextroverted sparrow gliding down onto the table to harvest my crumbs. It was always the same bird; I knew him by sight—not exactly friends, but close to it. I’d break off a few bits of doughnut and toss them to the bird, and on a couple of occasions the sparrow actually fearlessly came to eat from my hands. When the sparrow flew away, it was like an alarm clock going off: it marked the beginning of my day.
    My “doughnut time” was a secret that remained between me, my father-in-law, and the sparrow. I never said a word to Paola, who urged me on a daily basis to go on a more balanced, healthier diet. She’d never forgive me.
    Paola and I, during the past ten years, have had our ups and downs, and a few months ago we scraped absolute bottom thanks to a completely banal event, to which I’ve already made reference and which can be summarized in a single, nondescript word: infidelity. I had a little affair with a new customer at the gym, Signora Moroni. It was, in fact, a little affair. A very little one. We went to bed maybe two or three times total. In any case, no more than five. At the very most, ten or so. All right, a dozen. But it was just sex, never anything more than sex. For us men, that’s a significant difference. And, I hope, a mitigating circumstance.
    If my female readers have not already slammed this book shut and tossed it into the