Yasmina Reza

And that somebody did something that deprived him of his high spirits

It’s all over for me, I give up.”

I sensed that JeanLino Manoscrivi was lonely.

His first wife had left him after the restaurant failed.

petrified on that uncomfortable chair,

sent out forty or so invitations. I immediately regretted it.

Who knows what murky, and perhaps long-ago, confluence of circumstances governed the business?

My anxiety attacks had exhausted me and the party loomed like a punishment.

that look of delight entirely gone now, the way he probably was just before I turned up.

every time, that smile when he would catch sight of me, the yellowed teeth and their overbite, dazzling in its way.