100 Days of Happiness (4 page)

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.

 * * * 

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 an
extroverted 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 fire, then let me do my best to explain the situation to their satisfaction.

Signora Moroni.

Thirty-six years old, four years younger than me. Measurements worthy of a pin-up queen from the fifties: 36-24-35 (I read them on her file at the gym and promptly memorized them).

The face of a Raphael Madonna with surgically reconstructed lips.

Fair complexion with a sprinkling of freckles.

Funny as can be.

She had been married for years, to a man who traveled frequently for business.

When she chose me as her personal trainer, I immediately had one thought: “ouch!”

Seductive married women with husbands who travel for business shouldn't be allowed to go around on the loose, spending all the time they want in gymnasiums staffed by unfortunate trainers who have sex twice a month at most with their beloved wives of ten years plus. There ought to be a law against it. Buy an exercise bike and set it up in your living room,
per favore
!

At first I remained on a strictly professional basis with Signora Moroni. Or maybe we should say a reasonably professional basis. For the first few lessons I limited myself at the very most to the occasional chance brush of the knuckles against her thigh, or a grab and a squeeze here and there to test the muscle tone: I know what you're thinking, just like the classic dirty old man. Then one evening we stayed on after regular hours, alone, in the gym. I told the receptionist that I'd lock up after finishing a series of training exercises with Signora Moroni. And in point of fact, according to the Italian dictionary, an exercise is: “an act or series of acts performed or practiced in order to keep oneself physically and mentally fit and to develop, improve, or display a specific capability or skill.”

Well, that night we developed and improved greatly the world's oldest capability or skill.

And we went on training and exercising for a number of weeks. Weeks of lies, stress, and the fear of leaving telltale evidence. Usually, we did our exercising at her house, while her husband the musician was on tour with some evergreen singer or other, but a couple of times we did a series of follow-up refresher exercises in the gym. Never at home. I couldn't have done that. I know—that doesn't let me off the hook.

 * * * 

The serious thing is that Paola found out about it. Her investigation got started one night in February. I left my iPhone on the table during
dinner. I know, it's the act of an absolute beginner, an amateur at cheating. But when it comes right down to it, I really was an absolute beginner. While we were enjoying an excellent dish of chicken curry, my phone rang. Large as life on the display: Dr. Moroni. An absolute beginner but not completely stupid.

 * * * 

“Aren't you going to answer that?” Paola asks.

“No, it's . . . it's Moroni, the doctor at the gym,” I say, inventing freely with some embarrassment. “A tremendously tiresome guy; no doubt he just wants to talk my ear off.”

“If you want, I can answer and tell him you're out . . .”

“No, it doesn't matter—
grazie,
my love. I'll call him back in the morning. This curry really is delicious.”

Had she fallen for it?

Was I sufficiently believable?

Did she suspect?

Just forty-eight hours later I would discover that the correct answers were, in order, no, no, and yes. And that right there and then my wife had been transformed into Columbo turning even a shred of doubt into a hunt that ends only when his prey's been nailed for his crimes.

The evening, however, passes without incident, which calms my worries. I watch
Beauty and the Beast
with the kids, and more important, I put my phone into airplane mode. So no more annoying phone calls. But that night I don't sleep a wink, and in the bathroom, I delete all the compromising messages from the imaginary Dr. Moroni.

The next morning I call Signora Moroni and I discover the reason for the inconvenient phone call: she was hoping I could meet her after dinner because her husband had been called out of town for an unexpected gig. I tell her once again that I'm married, and perhaps more
happily married than she is, and that I've decided to put an end to this kamikaze affair. That night, a few minutes before closing time, the lovely cheater shows up in the gym wearing a skintight tracksuit and we wind up having sex repeatedly in the shower stalls of the instructors' locker room. I'm a man of healthy instincts. But above all, as you may have figured out for yourself, I am a complete moron.

The next day Isabella Moroni writes me an odd text message in which she seems to have forgotten about last night entirely.

“When can I see you? I miss you so much! I don't know how to live without you.”

I distractedly reply, without really giving any thought to the odd aspects of the text, thus walking straight into a gigantic booby trap. We go on texting flirtatiously back and forth all day long. Exciting, fun, and—especially—explicit text messages. That night, when I get home, there is Paola waiting for me, standing in the middle of the living room like a three-headed Cerberus ready to sink his fangs into anyone who tries to enter. The minute I see her, I understand. As if there were a subtitle clearly stamped across the screen: YOU ARE A COMPLETE IDIOT.

I'll admit it, I'd underestimated my wife's intelligence. After the suspicious midevening phone call from the mysterious Dr. Moroni, Paola had put in a call of her own to the gym and had learned, from the conscientious and razor-sharp receptionist, that there was no Dr. Moroni, but there was a certain Isabella Moroni, who—well, well, well, how do you like that—had none other than me as her personal trainer. A quick search on Facebook revealed that this Isabella is not only attractive but arguably hot. I know, I know, I could have and should have put a different name in my cell phone directory, but it's too late now, and even with the minimal precautions I'd taken I thought I was pretty damned smart. So now what did the Machiavellian high school teacher I married proceed to do? She went into my phone book and replaced Dr. Moroni's phone number with her own,
deleting Isabella's phone number entirely. Every time I got a text message from my wife it was marked as coming from Dr. Moroni and I texted back accordingly, sinking deeper and deeper into the raging ocean of lies into which I'd dived headfirst. As she explains the various steps of the investigation, I desperately try to come up with a justification for all the text messages I'd sent that day. I decide to improvise and do my best to prop up the following creaky defense theory: “Isabella Moroni is a good customer at the gym and she's fallen in love with me. I'm trying to let her down gently, but firmly. I just didn't want to worry you about something of no real importance,
amore mio
.”

This pathetic appeal to the court's better nature withered and died after no more than ten seconds, and so, in an impetus of dimwitted heroism—at this point completely thwarted by the strength of the overwhelming evidence of an extramarital affair—I decide to make a complete confession and throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Huge mistake.

The court is so angry it could spit.

 * * * 

In short, a full-blown tragedy with all the trimmings. Family and friends are dragged into the shipwreck of our marriage, especially Umberto and Corrado, under suspicion of having backed my play for months. The truth is that Corrado was completely aware of everything, down to the tiniest sexual details, while with Umberto, who was a close friend of Paola's as well, I'd been rather discreet. I'd limited myself to the version that I'd found myself locked in a kiss with one of my clients at the gym, but I'd promptly nipped it in the bud. The most violent reaction is from my father-in-law, who, in Paola's presence, reads me the riot act in nineteenth-century style, lecturing me on my violation of family values and betrayal of his daughter's honor. He refuses to let me get a word in edgewise and watches
impassively, standing like a majestic stag, as his daughter orders me out my own home.

 * * * 

That night I sleep at Corrado's place, bunking on his pullout couch. His chaotic studio apartment is littered with objects, trash, scraps of food, and dirty laundry. It looks like the field at Woodstock after the concert.

 * * * 

The next morning I walk past the pastry shop, tempted to venture inside and try to put in a word on my own behalf, but I chicken out and turn to go. Oscar's imperious voice stops me cold.

His first four words are explicit:

“You are a loser!”

I turn around. He's standing in front of me in all his Romanness.

“It was a mistake . . . I know that—” I try to defend myself but he immediately cuts me off.

“I told my daughter that you were a loser.”

By now, the concept has become pretty clear.

“Yes, I have to admit—”

“Because no one but a pathetic loser would go ahead and confess!” he spits out, much to my astonishment. “Never, never confess. This is rule number one of all marriages; nothing else really matters. You can have three lovers simultaneously, forget birthdays, wedding anniversaries—all that's fixable. But never confess. The priest ought to include it in the wedding ceremony.”

I was expecting yet another brutal tongue-lashing, and instead I'm presented with an unexpected display of male solidarity.

“Lucio, my lad, the truth is that sooner or later every man in the world has been forced to sleep on a cot in the office or in a basement bedroom.”

“Even you?” I ask.

“Even me. But don't ask me the details. It's a private matter I'd rather forget,” but then he can't help himself. “She was a Ukrainian apprentice pastry chef. Twenty-four years old, I was forty-five. She couldn't speak so much as a word of Italian, but she had a rack on her that had to be seen to be believed. Worthless in terms of making puff pastries or sugar icings, but she was good at everything else.”

I smile at the thought of Oscar struggling to woo a Ukrainian girl in broken English between a profiterole and a tray of beignets. Meanwhile, he goes on with his dissertation on the dos and don'ts of unfaithfulness: “Cheating in marriage isn't a crime; it's a genetic transcription error; it's been a typo in male DNA since time out of mind. There's nothing you can do about it. You're a flesh-based computer and you're programmed to cheat. The only difference is that some men have fewer opportunities, less personal charm, less time on their hands, and not as much disposable income. So now, because of a defect in your DNA, you're sleeping on a cot in some friend's apartment! Possibly for the rest of your life.”

I deeply appreciate the camaraderie of his confession, but I explain to him that in spite of all the emotional chaos and the fact that I've been kicked out of my home, Paola hasn't said a word about divorce. At least not yet. But she then mentions it about two hours later, asking me to take all my possessions and get out of her life once and for all. I have no real counterargument. It's only fair, and after all, I brought it on myself.

I have only one question: “What about the children?”