Guys Like Me Read Online Free Page B

children, two of them with his second wife, Aïcha. They live in Levallois, like me, they bought a big apartment near the shopping mall, the living room is decorated in oriental style, that’s where they receive their friends. It’s like going on a journey but not very far, several thousand miles on a Friday evening, to Porte d’Asnières. His eldest daughter is studying medicine in Montpellier, but his son, his second child with his first wife, dropped out of college. Marco tells me about him from time to time. How he feels responsible, and yet he doesn’t want to continue giving him checks to pay for his drugs. Once, because I’ve known him since he was born, I tried talking to Antoine. But I wasn’t able to really tackle the subject. He reminds me of his father at the same age, he has the same somber, feverish look, that kind of energy and anger he gives off. He stopped without saying anything, as if he was used to it. I wasn’t the first friend of his father he’d seen, and it hadn’t helped at all. Where does he go when he seems to absent himself like that? Marc-André doesn’t know. He’s never known. He feels guilty because he thinks it happened when he met Aïcha.
    He asked his son, his son replied no, don’t worry about it. It was there before, it had always been there, and he didn’t know why.
    â€œI’m surprised,” Marco said. “What a time we live in. He was in marketing, wasn’t he?”
    â€œYes, he even worked in Germany.”
    â€œDoes he speak the language?”
    â€œYes, he speaks German.”
    I heard him thinking on the other end.
    â€œI don’t know. I may be able to do something. Will you send me his résumé? Does he have an email address?”
    I realized I’d forgotten to ask him. He was busy the next week, he was looking to see when he was free, I heard his wife behind him, the children were there too. Above that background noise, I could also sense that dark look of his, I’d say it’s very human, though I’m not very sure why. Like when he talks about his first son or when he’s been to visit him on his own, because Aïcha doesn’t want to get involved, in the rehab clinic.
    â€œIt looks like it’s going to be a crazy week,” Marco said. “Can we speak again on Wednesday? I’ll have a clearer idea then, maybe the three of us could get together?”
    â€œYes, if you like.”
    Then, very quickly, he hung up. I stayed in my office. I’m too old to change my job. Aren’t there any new departures? There are no second acts. My son had that book, which I’d loved when I was a teenager. Yes, that was it. There are no second acts .

    I sensed that today was going to be one more day of regrets. I don’t like feeling like that, but I’d become incapable of fighting. It was building up inside me without my being able to do anything about it. I spent time in the bathroom. I cleaned the kitchen the way my mother used to forty years ago, and it was pointless because I’d already cleaned everything on Thursday evening and I hadn’t invited anyone over this week. So I stopped and put away my broom and my stupid mop. I told myself I should keep trying, but what? They were the only words I knew, you must keep trying. Where had I learned that? Those dumb things? I couldn’t make up my mind to go out.
    The rain was coming in over the roofs from the Seine. We’d end up having almost no winter. I wasn’t hungry. I’d had quite a lot of work that week, and I’d thrown myself into it without thinking about the weekend. I looked toward the end of my street, I have a three-room apartment. I finished paying it off one year ago. I should be happy, but I don’t like Levallois much anymore, it’s changed a hell of a lot in the last few years. I’m often one of those guys who can only say stuff like that, it seems, stuff