The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories

by Simon Rich

  I try not to mention Santa Claus, but on Christmas he inevitably comes up. This last time was my daughter’s doing. She’s six years old and still not sure whether Santa Claus is real.

  “Grandma?” she asked while we were unwrapping the presents. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

  My mother looked into my daughter’s eyes and sighed.

  “I used to,” she said. “But not anymore.”

  Man Seeking Woman

  You:

  You are an intelligent woman, with a sweet and caring soul. You’re mature and sophisticated, but you know how to let loose and have a good time. Your first name is Chloe.

  Me:

  I am a thoughtful, intelligent guy with a sense of humor. I like to stay up late talking about the big questions. I have a large, irremovable tattoo of the word “Chloe” on my chest from a previous relationship.

  Invisible Man

  THE INVISIBLE MAN WALKED beside his ex-girlfriend. She was obviously on her way to meet someone. He could tell by the way she kept checking her watch and glancing at her reflection in parked cars.

  It was possible, he told himself, that she was going to some kind of business function. A job interview, maybe, or drinks with a client. But this sad illusion vanished when she took a left down Greenwich and ducked into a dark Moroccan restaurant.

  The invisible man—whose name was David—watched queasily as Kat’s date entered. He looked insufferable, a grinning, puffy-faced moron. When he kissed her hello, his lips made a slobbering sound against her face, like someone slurping soup. It was too much for David to take. He headed for the kitchen.

  Two chefs were arguing in Spanish. He walked right between them, feeling their hot breath on his face, and found what he was looking for: the wine closet. He knew it was a bad idea to grab a bottle. If the chefs saw him pick one up, they would think the object had levitated. They’d panic and scream and eventually the government would have to come over and vaporize everyone.

  “Fuck it,” he thought.

  He grabbed a ’93 Bordeaux, uncorked it, and chugged as much as he could in a single gulp. He glanced at the chefs. Luckily, they weren’t looking in his direction.

  By the time David got back to Kat’s table, she was batting her eyelashes and giggling. He couldn’t figure out why until he knelt down on the floor and peeked under the tablecloth. Kat’s date was stroking her calf with his foot. David considered punching him in the face. It would be so easy. Just take aim, rear back—and blammo. But then he realized how frightening that would be for Kat. One moment her date is playing footsie with her. The next moment he’s screaming in terror as blood shoots insanely out of his nose. He didn’t want to put her through that.

  Kat went to the bathroom, and her date reached out for the check. David looked over the guy’s shoulder while he paid, hoping to catch him tipping poorly. But the guy gave a solid 20 percent. He was a decent person, David realized with misery. Boring, fat, but decent.

  David sat cross-legged on the floor, staring up at Kat’s date with despair. The guy was humming softly to himself now, drumming his fingers jauntily against the tablecloth. He clearly had high hopes for the rest of his evening. For the first time all night, David wondered if the pair had made love. Somehow, the thought hadn’t occurred to him until now.

  Eventually, Kat returned to the table. Her makeup looked freshly reapplied.

  “Shall we?” she asked.

  “We shall,” her date responded idiotically.

  David sighed and followed them out into the cool September night.

  “Well, this was really nice,” Kat said.

  “Yeah,” her date said. “Really nice!”

  David rolled his eyes. They were holding hands and swinging their arms back and forth like a couple of fucking teenagers.

  David had swiped an open bottle of Merlot on his way out and he was chugging it brazenly, right in the middle of the sidewalk. If somebody walked down Greenwich, they’d see the bottle hovering in midair, its contents disappearing into an invisible void.

  “When do I get to see you again?” Kat asked her date.

  “The sooner the better,” he said.

  David smashed the bottle on the ground and the couple swiveled toward him.

  “What was that?” Kat asked. She was just a few inches from David, her sparkling blue eyes looking right through his invisible face.

  “It was probably nothing,” the date said.

  The two of them shared an awkward chuckle.

  David looked down the avenue; a cab was coming. This was it, the moment of truth.

  “You can have this one,” the date said.

  “You sure?”

  “Of course! Unless… you want to get in together.”

  Kat smiled sweetly at her date, clearly debating whether or not to sleep with him. It was too agonizing for David to watch. He covered his eyes—then remembered that his hands were invisible. He turned around and faced a brick wall.

  “I don’t know,” Kat said. “I should really get back to Brooklyn.”

  David spun around, smiling with relief. She wasn’t going to spend the night with him! She probably never would! This was just a rebound date—a desperate attempt to soothe her loneliness. She still had feelings for him. It was obvious. Their “breakup” was just a bad fight, something they’d laugh about in a few years—or even a few months. They still had a future. David was already visualizing their reconciliation when Kat lunged suddenly at her date and kissed him deeply.

  “Tomorrow night,” she said. “Let’s spend the night together.”

  David watched in horror as the blushing idiot helped her into her cab. There was nothing he could do but go back to the base.

  By the time David entered the laboratory it was nearly midnight. He drank the antiserum, put on a robe (he’d been naked all night), and entered the conference room. The generals stood as he entered.

  “Well?” General Mason asked breathlessly. “Did you find Mahmoud?”

  David sighed. He’d been assigned to track a terrorist and, if possible, eliminate him. He’d intended to look for the guy but had gotten somewhat sidetracked.

  “I couldn’t find him,” he lied.

  The president of the United States buried his face in his hands.

  “Then all is lost,” he said.

  The generals and the president spoke for a while in hushed tones. An attack was coming, something having to do with bombs or missiles or something. David wasn’t paying attention. He was pretty drunk.

  “We have one more ounce of serum,” a scientist was saying. “That’s three more hours of invisibility…”

  David thought back to his final talk with Kat. She’d complained that he’d been distant. But what did she expect? He worked for a top secret wing of the CIA. He’d shared more with her than anyone on earth. His own parents thought he was a dentist. Someone nudged him politely on the shoulder; when he looked up, he realized that the president was staring at him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Must’ve zoned out.” He shook his head. “My girlfriend, she broke up with me last month. One day everything was fine and then all of a sudden—boom. It’s like, if I was doing something wrong, she could’ve told me and I would’ve tried to fix it. I would’ve made an effort, you know? But she didn’t even give me a chance.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Agent Five,” the president said. “We’ve spent decades perfecting invisibility technology. Four good agents have died. The serum is matched to your DNA; that means we can’t replace you on this mission. If you don’t catch Mahmoud tomorrow, thousands will die, perhaps millions. Can our nation count on you or not?”

  David shrugged.

  “I guess.”

  The invisible man followed Kat to La Boulange. She’d referred to it once as “our place.” Now it was their place: her and Kurt Parrola’s.

  It hadn’t been easy finding the guy’s name; David had had to slip one of his hairs into a DNA scanner and run the enzymes
through the government’s secret people-tracker. After that, he’d spent six hours on Google.

  Kurt was thirty-one—the same age as he was—and worked for some kind of nonprofit. He’d gone to Wesleyan and occasionally took improvisational comedy classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. David feared that he was rich.

  His invisible earpiece buzzed.

  “Have you located Mahmoud?” General Mason demanded.

  “Uh-huh,” David mumbled absently. Kat was feeding Kurt a bite of chocolate cake. She was literally spooning it into his mouth like he was a fucking child. What the fuck was this? What the fuck was going on?

  “You have executive authority to assassinate Mahmoud,” the general was saying. “By whatever force necessary.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “He’s here.”

  The general sighed.

  “Agent Five,” he said. “If you don’t take out Mahmoud in the next two hours, he’s going to carry out his attacks and…”

  David took out his earpiece, tired of the distraction. Kat and Kurt were getting up to leave. If he was going to do something, he had to act now.

  Kat kissed Kurt on the nose.

  “Let’s go back to my place,” she whispered.

  “Sounds good to me,” Kurt said, clumsily hooking his arm around her back. David watched with horror as his hand drifted lower and lower before settling on her buttock. He gave it a proprietary squeeze and grinned at her.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He strolled toward the bathroom, humming softly to himself. David followed close behind.

  Kurt was calmly relieving himself when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted, spraying urine all over his hands. “What the fuck!”

  “Kurt Parrola,” David said. “You’re having a schizophrenic break.”

  Kurt swiveled his head around in a panic.

  “Who’s talking?”

  “I’m a voice inside your head,” David continued. “You’ve gone completely insane.”

  He hiccupped a few times. He’d been drinking since noon and was very drunk.

  “You should go to a hospital.”

  Kurt looked helplessly around the bathroom, his eyes wide with terror.

  “What is this? Who’s talking?”

  David picked up a roll of toilet paper and waved it around. Kurt gasped at the sight of the hovering object.

  “This isn’t real,” Kurt whispered to himself. “This isn’t real!”

  He began to cry, and David felt his first spasm of guilt. But he pressed on, fueled by drunkenness and envy.

  “The voices will continue,” he continued, “unless you go to a hospital, commit yourself, and—”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Sweetie?” Kat said. “Are you all right?”

  David gasped. He couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror, but he could sense that he’d turned pale.

  “No,” Kurt murmured. “Something’s happened to me… I think I’m sick!”

  Before David could move out of the way, Kat shoved open the door. The knob smacked into his tailbone and he let out an involuntary curse.

  “Fuck!”

  Kat’s eyes widened.

  “David?”

  David bit his tongue, trying his best to keep as still as possible.

  “David, are you in here?”

  “Who’s David?” Kurt asked.

  “My ex-boyfriend,” Kat explained. “David, I know you’re here! I heard you!”

  David sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  Kat kicked the door with anger.

  “I can’t believe you’d follow us like this!” she shouted. “You asshole—you were trying to make him think he’d gone crazy, weren’t you?”

  David sighed again.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “Un-fucking-believable. You’re drunk, too, aren’t you?”

  “No!” David shouted, a little too loudly.

  “You swore you would never spy on me. When you told me about the serum, you swore you would never use it on me!”

  “Well, you swore you would never tell anyone about the serum! And now you’ve told Kurt!”

  “What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let him think he’d gone insane?”

  Kurt fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. His pants were around his ankles. Kat knelt down beside him and gently rubbed his shoulders.

  “Honey,” she said. “It’s okay. My ex is in the CIA—”

  “That’s top secret information,” David interrupted.

  “Oh, fuck you!” she snapped.

  She rubbed Kurt’s back and whispered in his ear.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you—my ex is just a jealous, pathetic jerk.”

  “I’m sorry,” David muttered for what felt like the thousandth time of the night. “I still love you.”

  Kat rolled her eyes.

  “Come on,” she said to Kurt. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m sick!” he cried.

  Kat sneered in David’s general direction.

  “See what you’ve done? I’m going to have to give him a Valium or something.”

  She swung open the door and helped Kurt out of the bathroom. David watched as the couple shuffled toward the door, their arms around each other. Just before they left the restaurant, Kat swung her arms wildly in a circle to make sure David wasn’t still following them. Then she took her new boyfriend by the hand and led him out into the night.

  David got back to the lab about an hour later. The generals were huddled in a corner, speaking in whispers.

  “Washington is lost,” one said. “And Chicago will never be ‘Chicago’ again.”

  General Mason was staring at a map of the United States. Every few minutes, an underling whispered something into his ear and he solemnly crossed off the name of a major city.

  The president was sitting in a folding chair while a woman applied makeup to his face.

  “Which would you prefer to say?” a speechwriter asked him. “ ‘Atrocity’ or ‘tragedy’?”

  “ ‘Atrocity,’ ” the president said.

  The makeup woman finished powdering the president’s face and he opened his eyes.

  “Ah,” he said, recognizing David. “Agent Five. I’m sorry things didn’t go as planned.”

  David nodded. He was thinking about the first time he met Kat, at a bar near the Pentagon. He hadn’t even planned on going out that night; he’d just put in a sixteen-hour shift. But some voice in his head made him go out for a beer—and Kat had been right there, in a shiny red dress, like a gift-wrapped present from God. He’d sung out loud on his way home. He could remember thinking, very distinctly, that he would probably never be so happy again. It turned out he’d been right.

  “It’s not your fault,” the president said. “You did all you could.”

  David’s eyes welled up with tears as the old man squeezed his shoulder.

  “A new day will come,” the president said. “You’ll see.”

  But David knew better.

  It was the end of the fucking world.

  The Present

  I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Professor Xander Kaplan said while his girlfriend sobbed into a pillow. “I thought you liked tulips.”

  “I do,” she said. “It’s just… you get them for me every year. It’s starting to get a little impersonal. I mean, this time you didn’t even include a card.”

  Xander winced. Her reasoning was sound.

  “I apologize,” he said. “I obviously made an error in judgment.”

  He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it out of reach.

  “Do you remember what I did for your birthday?” she said. “I got you that new Bunsen burner you wanted. I knit you a pair of wool socks so your feet wouldn’t get cold in the lab.”

  She covered her face with her hands.

  “You never make that kind of effort for me!” she cri
ed. “All you do is think about yourself.”

  “That’s incorrect,” Xander said defensively. “What about emiladium? It took me nine months to synthesize that element, and I named it after you.”

  “You were going to synthesize that element anyway,” Emily said. “You needed it for your ‘secret project’—that silver orb thing in your lab. Emiladium wasn’t about me. It was about you. I mean, for God’s sake, you won’t even tell me what it does.”

  Xander sighed. She’d made an excellent argument.

  “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” he asked.

  Emily blinked back some tears.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean… it’s not like you can just go back in time and get me a different present.”

  Xander’s expression brightened.

  “Wait there,” he said, leaping to his feet. “I’ll be right back!”

  Xander hurried down the hall, crept into his laboratory, and locked the door behind him. His time machine was right where he had left it.

  He climbed inside the silver orb and flicked on the power switch. His plan was simple: travel back in time to this morning, find a new gift for Emily, and bring it to the present. But there were a couple of risks. There was a chance, for example, that using the machine would cause the universe to explode. (He’d never tested the thing out before.) There was also no guarantee that he would be able to find a good present. He only had enough emiladium to fuel five minutes of time travel. That didn’t give him a lot of “wiggle room.” Wherever he went, he’d have to shop efficiently.

  Xander was usually a pretty good problem solver. (He had, for example, invented a time machine.) But quantum physics and nuclear hydraulics were trivial compared to the rigors of gift shopping. He massaged his temples, trying to remember if Emily had dropped any hints lately. He vaguely recalled her staring at a vase in Crate & Barrel. But that place was full of vases. There was no way he’d be able to pick out the right one.