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7 table isn t that too close? . . . And in the bathroom, isn t
8 that too far? . . .)
9 Dring, dring.
10 Is it fair to say I ve got the situation in hand?
11
12 Sarah Briot came in. Pretty as the day.
13
14 Later in the evening, when we d had a few good laughs,
15 eaten well,and let some dreamy silences set in,it was clear
16 that Sarah Briot would be spending the night in my arms.
17
18 Only I ve always had trouble making certain decisions
19 and yet, it was really time to put down my glass and make
20 a move.
21 Like if Roger Rabbit s wife were sitting right next to
22 you, and you were thinking about your savings plan. . . .
23
24 She was talking about I don t know what and looking at
25S me out of the corner of her eye.
26R
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Clic-Clac 169
And suddenly . . . suddenly . . . I thought about this
couch that we were sitting on.
I began to really, intensely, steadily wonder: How do
you open up a Clic-Clac?
I thought it would be best to begin by kissing her fairly
passionately and then to tilt her back deftly in order to lay
her down without incident. . . .
Yes, but afterward . . . with the Clic-Clac?
I could already see myself getting silently worked up over
some little latch while her tongue tickled my tonsils and
her hands searched for my belt. . . .
Well . . . for the moment, that wasn t exactly the
case. . . . She was even beginning to stifle the beginnings
of a yawn. . . .
Some Don Juan.What a disgrace.
And then I thought of my sisters. I laughed inside
thinking of those two harpies.
They d have had a ball if they could ve seen me just
then, with Miss Universe s thigh up against mine and me
getting all worked up about how to open the sofa bed
from Ikea.
Just then, Sarah Briot turned to me and said:
You re cute when you smile.
And she kissed me.
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170 Anna Gavalda
1
2 And then, at that exact moment, with 119 pounds of
3 femininity on my knees, all sweetness and caresses, I
4 closed my eyes, threw my head back, and thought with all
5 my might: Thank you, girls.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
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20
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25S
26R
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Epilogue
Marguerite! When are we eating?
Screw you.
Since I ve been writing stories, my husband s started call-
ing me Marguerite for Marguerite Duras as he taps
me on the ass. He tells everyone at dinner parties that he s
going to stop working soon, thanks to my royalties:
Listen . . . as far as I m concerned, no problem! I m
just waiting for it all to pan out, and I ll go pick up the
kids from school in my Jaguar XK8. It s all set. . . . Of
course, I ll have to massage her shoulders from time to
time and put up with her little crises of doubt, but
hey . . . that coupe? . . . I ll take it in dragon green.
He keeps raving about it, and people don t know how
to take it.
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172 Anna Gavalda
1 They say to me, in the tone you d use to talk about a
2 sexually transmitted disease:
3 Is that true you write?
4 And I just shrug my shoulders, showing my glass to the
5 master of the house. I grumble out a No, whatever, almost
6 nothing. And Mr.Excitable, whom I married in a moment
7 of weakness, just keeps laying it on:
8 Wait. . . . Didn t she tell you? Sweetie, didn t you tell
9 them about the prize you won at Saint-Quentin? Hey! . . .
10 Fifteen hundred euros, you know!!! Two nights at her
11 computer, which she bought for seventy-five euros at a
12 charity sale,and fifteen hundred euros fall into our laps! . . .
13 What more could you ask? And I m not even telling you
14 about all her other prizes . . . huh, Pumpkin, let s stay
15 humble.
16 It s true that at these moments, I really want to kill
17 him.
18 But I won t.
19 First of all because he weighs a hundred and eighty
20 pounds (he says one seventy-five pure coquetry), and
21 then also because he s right.
22 He s right and what will become of me if I start be-
23 lieving in it too much?
24 I quit my job? I finally say some nasty things to my
25S coworker Micheline? I buy myself a little zobi-skin note-
26R
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Epilogue 173
book and I take notes for later? I feel so alone, so far away,
so close, so different? I go meditate at the tomb of Cha-
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