The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories

by Simon Rich

  Kyle understood why they had put him in the program. Scared Straight was designed for “high-risk youths”—and he clearly fit the bill. Since the Winter Formal, he’d been hooking up with the same girl, Alison, every weekend. And recently, over Gchat, she’d asked him what they were. Still, that didn’t mean he’d end up imprisoned in a long-term relationship. He was only seventeen, after all. His entire life lay ahead of him.

  He glanced at the other teenagers in his group. They’d all acted tough on the bus ride to Park Slope. But all of them had ended up breaking. Christian had lost it first, during the tour of Belle Cochon.

  “Look at this fucking restaurant!” a red-faced guard had screamed at him as he shuffled through the candlelit bistro. “This is the kind of place you’re going to have to take her to every Saturday night! Because when you’re in a relationship, Saturday night is date night!”

  Christian tried to keep it together, but when the guard shoved a menu into his hand and made him read out the price of the steak au poivre, his lips began to quiver.

  The other kids managed to hide their fear—until the tour of Bed Bath & Beyond.

  “Look at this fucking bench!” a guard shouted at them. “This is the bench you’re going to have to fucking sit on while your girlfriend picks out weird shit for the bathroom! And then, when she comes over with two fucking identical light fixtures, you’re going to have to pretend you prefer one of them over the other! ’Cause otherwise, she’ll say you’re not ‘participating’! What do you think about that shit?”

  By the time they left the store, every kid was trembling.

  Every kid except for Kyle. He wasn’t scared at all. At worst, he was bored. And now the day was almost over. He just had to get through one more hour of bullshit and he’d be home free.

  “Okay, listen up!” a guard shouted. “Your program is coming to a close. But before we let you back onto the street, we’ve got a speaker for you. His name is Dan Greenbaum. And he’s been in a long-term relationship with his girlfriend, Sarah, for seven years.”

  For the first time all day, Kyle felt his shoulders tensing up. He’d never actually met a real inmate before.

  The guard took a key out of his pocket and let the prisoner out of his brownstone. He was wearing a standard-issue uniform: khaki pants, Kenneth Cole loafers, and a sweater from Brooks Brothers.

  “My name is Dan,” he said. “I’m twenty-nine years old. And I’m serving a life sentence as boyfriend to my girlfriend, Sarah.”

  He paced down the row of teenage boys, his jaw clenched tight with bitterness.

  “My story started out simple,” he said. “A random hookup, a couple of dates. The next thing I knew, I had a drawer for her clothes in my apartment. Then one day, I looked up, and I was here. Trapped in a Park Slope brownstone for the rest of my goddamn life.”

  The prisoner stopped pacing—right in front of Kyle.

  “What did this punk do?” he asked, staring icily into the teenager’s eyes.

  The guard checked his clipboard.

  “Hooked up with a girl named Alison six times,” he read. “She recently asked him ‘what they were.’ ”

  The prisoner whistled.

  “That’s how it starts,” he said. “That’s how it fucking starts.”

  He grinned at Kyle.

  “You ever hang out with her friends?”

  Kyle shook his head awkwardly.

  “Why not?” the prisoner asked. “Answer me, boy!”

  Kyle swallowed.

  “I guess… I don’t really like her friends.”

  The inmate laughed and clapped his hands sarcastically.

  “I don’t like my girlfriend’s friends, either,” he said. “But guess what? I hang out with them every fucking Sunday. Sarah throws a weekly dinner party and invites every one of them over. They quote Borat for hours and I have to laugh, like it’s a new thing. If I don’t, Sarah accuses me of being ‘antisocial.’ That’s my fucking life now! Every single Sunday! A dinner party with her fucking friends who still quote Borat! What do you think about that?”

  Kyle tried to look away, but the prisoner grabbed him by the chin and pulled his face toward him. Kyle could feel the man’s hot breath on his skin.

  “You ever hear of Junot Díaz?” he spat.

  “No, sir,” Kyle mumbled.

  “He’s a writer,” the inmate said. “Sarah’s got me reading this book he wrote. It’s so fucking boring I can’t get past page fifty. My eyes just glaze over. But guess what? I’ve gotta finish the whole fucking thing, because she signed us up for a book club and I’m going to have to fucking talk about the book in front of her fucking goddamn friends. What do you think about that shit?”

  Kyle felt the blood draining from his face. He hoped the prisoner would move on to somebody else. But the inmate could obviously sense that he was on the verge of breaking.

  “Want to see some fucked-up shit?” the inmate said, rolling up the sleeve of his sweater. “Check out these fucking triceps. Look how fucking developed they are. That’s from Pilates. Do you know what the fuck Pilates is? Neither did I, until I had a long-term girlfriend. Now I’ve gotta do it every fucking Wednesday because she cried one time and said I needed to get serious about my health! Are you listening to the fucking shit I’m saying?”

  Kyle bit his lip, trying his best to keep from crying. The inmate folded his arms and stared off into the distance.

  “I used to dream about busting out of here,” he said. “Just dumping Sarah and being single again. But now? This life is all I know. I’m an institutional man, pure and simple. Hell, even if she released me, I wouldn’t know how to live on the outside. Where would I go to pick up girls? Is Radio Bar still cool? Or is it played out? I don’t even know, like, what the cool places are anymore.”

  He took a step toward Kyle, boring into him with his dark-brown eyes.

  “Prison does things to you,” he whispered. “Strange things. At first, the routine makes you crazy. But after a few years, you get used to it. Then, at some point, you start to crave it. You start to look forward to the monthly grocery trip to Costco. A new episode of Mad Men is enough to get you through a Sunday. Your world’s so small you can fit it on the head of a pin. And the sick truth is you like it that way.”

  Kyle felt a scalding tear roll down his cheek. The inmate smiled subtly at the guards; they smiled back at him, nodding with respect.

  “Well, I’d love to stay and chat,” the inmate told the boys. “But I’ve gotta go back inside and pack. Sarah just sentenced me to three days in the hole.”

  Kyle knew he wasn’t supposed to ask any questions, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “What’s the hole?” he murmured.

  “The hole is what I call her mother’s house in Connecticut,” the inmate said. “We go there twice a year. Her sister’s going to be there this time and the whole thing’s going to be a fucking nightmare.”

  Kyle watched in silence as the inmate shuffled back into his brownstone. Then he took out his cell phone and broke things off with Alison by text.

  Center of the Universe

  ON THE FIRST DAY, God created the heavens and the earth.

  “Let there be light,” He said, and there was light. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening—the first night.

  On the second day, God separated the oceans from the sky. “Let there be a horizon,” He said. And lo, a horizon appeared and God saw that it was good. And there was evening—the second night.

  On the third day, God’s girlfriend came over and said He’d been acting distant lately.

  “I’m sorry,” God said. “Things have been crazy this week at work.”

  He smiled at her, but she did not smile back. And God saw that it was not good.

  “I never see you,” she said.

  “That’s not true,” God said. “We went to the movies just last week.”

  And she said, “Lo. That was last month.”

  And there was evening—a ten
se night.

  On the fourth day, God created stars to divide the light from the darkness. He was nearly finished when He looked at his cell phone and realized that it was almost 9:30 p.m.

  “Fuck,” He said. “Kate’s going to kill me.”

  He finished the star he was working on and cabbed it back to the apartment.

  “Sorry I’m late!” He said.

  And lo: she did not even respond.

  “Are you hungry?” He asked. “Let there be yogurt!” And there was that weird low-cal yogurt that she liked.

  “That’s not going to work this time,” she said.

  “Look,” God said. “I know we’re going through a hard time right now. But this job is only temporary. As soon as I pay off my student loans, I’m going to switch to something with better hours.”

  And she said unto Him: “I work a full-time job and I still make time for you.”

  And He said unto her: “Yeah, but your job’s different.”

  And lo: He knew immediately that He had made a terrible mistake.

  “You think my job’s less important than yours?” she said.

  “No!” God said. “Of course not! I know how difficult it is to work in retail. I’m totally impressed by what you do!”

  “Today I had to talk to fourteen buyers, because it’s Fashion Week? And I didn’t even have time to eat lunch.”

  “That’s so hard,” God said. “You work so hard.”

  “How would you know? You never even ask about my day! You just talk about your work, for hours and hours, like you’re the center of the universe!”

  “Let there be a backrub,” God said.

  And He started giving her a backrub.

  And she said unto Him, “Can you please take the day off tomorrow?”

  And He said unto her, “Don’t you have to work tomorrow? I thought it was Fashion Week.”

  “I can call in sick.”

  And God felt like saying to her, “If your job is so important, how come you can just take days off whenever you feel like it?”

  But He knew that was a bad idea. So He said to her, “I’m off Sunday. We can hang out Sunday.”

  On the fifth day, God created fish and fowl to swim in the sea and fly through the air, each according to their kind. Then, to score some points, He closed the door to his office and called up Kate.

  “I’m so happy to hear your voice,” she said. “I’m having the hardest day.”

  “Tell me all about it,” God said.

  “Caitlin is throwing this party next week for Jenny, but Jenny is, like, being so weird about it that I’m not even sure it’s going to happen.”

  “That’s crazy,” God said.

  And she continued to tell him about her friends, who had all said hurtful things to one another, each according to their kind. And while she was repeating something that Jenny had said to Caitlin, God came up with an idea for creatures that roam the earth. He couldn’t get off the phone, though, because Kate was still talking. So He covered the receiver and whispered, “Let there be elephants.” And there were elephants, and God saw that they were good.

  But lo: she had heard Him create the elephants.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You’re not even listening to me.”

  “Kate…”

  “It’s so obvious! You care more about your stupid planet thing than you do about me!”

  God wanted to correct her. It wasn’t just a planet he was creating; it was an entire universe. He knew, though, that it would be a bad idea to say something like that right now.

  “Kate,” He said. “Listen. I’m really sorry, okay?”

  But lo: she had already hung up on Him.

  On the sixth day, God called in sick and surprised Kate at her store in Chelsea. She was in the back, reading a magazine.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I blew off work,” He said. “I want to spend the day with you.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really,” he said.

  And she smiled at Him so brightly that He knew He had made the right decision.

  They bought some beers at a bodega and drank them on a bench in Prospect Park. And Kate introduced Him to a game her friend Jenny had taught her, called Would You Rather?

  “I don’t know if I want to play a game,” God said. But she made Him play anyway, and after a few rounds, He saw that it was good. They played all afternoon, laughing at each other’s responses. When it got cold, God rubbed her shoulders and she kissed Him on the neck.

  “You know what I kind of want to do right now?” Kate said.

  God tensed up.

  “What?”

  “See a movie,” she said.

  And God laughed, because it was exactly what He wanted to do.

  They decided to see The Muppets because they had heard that it was good. They had a great time and when it was over, God paid for a cab so they wouldn’t have to wait all night for the L train.

  “I love you,” Kate said as she nodded off in the backseat. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too,” God said.

  And both of them saw that it was good.

  On the seventh day, God quit his job. He never finished the earth.

  Girlfriend Repair Shop

  MAX? Max.”

  Max swiveled his head toward Dr. Motley.

  “Yes?”

  “Your girlfriend was just making a very interesting point. About you not listening to her. Were you… listening?”

  Max sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” he admitted, his puffy cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “I must’ve zoned out.”

  “Unbelievable,” Karen said. “Even here, during this, he’s so self-involved he can’t even pay attention to me for five minutes!”

  Dr. Motley squinted at Max through his horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Do you think there’s any truth to what she’s saying?”

  Max nodded glumly.

  “I guess.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Karen break into a gloating grin. It occurred to him that it was the first time he’d seen her smile in months.

  “Have you always had this problem?” Dr. Motley asked. “This tendency to ‘zone out’?”

  Max hesitated, unsure of how to respond. He’d been zoning out since childhood. But it wasn’t until he started dating Karen that his zoning out had been classified as a problem. He was a software designer, and zoning out had led to his best work. He’d perfected algorithms by zoning out, virus-proofed systems by zoning out. Zoning out had paid for the house he shared with Karen and their ten-day trip to Hawaii and the therapy session they were sitting in right now.

  “Max?”

  Max swallowed and looked up. Dr. Motley and Karen were exchanging a knowing glance.

  “I was asking,” Dr. Motley said, a slight edge to his voice, “if there are any problems you would like to address.”

  Max let loose a long, defeated sigh. In his mind, there was only one problem with their relationship: two years into it, for no discernible reason, Karen had started being mean to him. It was like a switch had turned in her brain. One day, she was complimenting his beard and mixing him scotch and sodas and asking him about his work. The next day, she was rolling her eyes at his jokes and shrinking away whenever he tried to kiss her. When he asked what was wrong, she became offended. The problem, she insisted, was his: he just didn’t know how to make her “feel loved.”

  “Tell me this,” Dr. Motley pressed. “Why did you agree to come here?”

  Max looked down at his lap. The truth was, secretly, he had come to be proven right. He’d assumed that a third-party witness (particularly a male one) would take one look at the facts and declare him innocent. His girlfriend would be diagnosed with some mental problem: depression, possibly, or something menstruation-related. She’d be given pills of some kind. And then everything would go back to the way it was, in the beginning, before she went crazy.

  “If t
his relationship is going to work,” Dr. Motley was saying, “you’re going to have to start paying attention to her needs. She’s been feeling vulnerable for months and you’ve done nothing to validate her.”

  “I’ve been trying,” Max insisted. “But whenever I ask what’s wrong with her—”

  “Nothing’s wrong with her,” Dr. Motley interrupted. “That’s what you need to understand. Your girlfriend doesn’t need ‘fixing.’ She just needs you to listen. And it’s going to take some major effort, on your part, to learn how.”

  He glanced at the clock.

  “We have a little over twenty minutes left. Karen, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to spend some one-on-one time with Max. I think he’d benefit from some individualized treatment.”

  “I understand,” Karen said.

  Max could detect a slight bounce in her step as she made her way out of the office. He closed his eyes as the heavy door shut, sealing him in.

  “Scotch?”

  Max opened his eyes and coughed. To his great surprise, his therapist was pouring out two drinks.

  “I don’t know,” Max said suspiciously.

  “Come on,” Dr. Motley said. “Don’t be a pussy.”

  Max took a drink and watched in stunned silence as his therapist downed the other.

  “Man,” Dr. Motley said. “That girlfriend of yours is nuts.”

  Max remained perfectly still, unsure of how to respond. Was this some kind of psychological test?

  “Jesus,” the doctor said. “You can calm down, okay? I’m on your side.”

  Max squinted at him.

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am! You didn’t actually buy any of that crap I said, did you?”

  Relief slowly seeped through Max’s veins and he broke into a childish laugh.

  “No!” he said. “Not a word of it!”

  He took a swig of scotch and the doctor topped him off.

  “Drink up,” he said. “This session’s costing you a fortune, the least you can do is get a buzz.”

  Max took another gulp and felt his muscles start to relax. It was only eleven in the morning and he was already fairly drunk. He closed his eyes, letting his body sink pleasurably into his leather armchair.