Short Story - Why Sean Connery Always Gets The Girl

1365 words

I was sitting at a table in the Square Root Café, one hand around a dull white coffee mug, the other writing in my journal with a light blue mechanical pencil, when Charles came in and sat across from me.

“I’ll say, dear boy, you look like you’ve been having a rough spot with the ladies lately, am I right?” he said.

“Um,” I said.

“Don’t deny it!” Charles bellowed. “You’ve just been left by your woman, I can tell. The careless slouch, the half-awake eyes, your sagging cheeks, your slack lips, all give it away. I can recognize a heartbreak from a kilometer away, and you’ve got it bad.”

I believed him. He seemed to have come from an instantaneous kilometer away, and now he dominated my attention as if my – our – table were floating in the middle of the ocean.

“You haven’t been able to put her our of your mind yet, have you?” He smiled from ear to ear. “It must not have happened terribly long ago. You look to have the gait of an experienced lover; tell me, which was it? Third? Fourth?”

I mumbled, “First.”

Charles gave an animated wince, pursing his lips and both of his eyelids. “I’m sorry, old boy. You must feel dreadfully distraught.” He chuckled at the alliteration, giving no thought to his wrong guess earlier.

“Thanks,” I said to my coffee. I was sure he would have reacted this way no matter how I chose to answer, that he reacted this way each time he saw a heartbreak from a kilometer away.

“Don’t mention it! In fact, I’d love to help you however I can.” His smile took a wicked turn up on his face. “I’m sure you’d like to see her hurt right now,” he said.

“What?”

“Oh, come off it, you know you do!” He shoved his palm into my shoulder good-naturedly. “You want to make her heart ache the way yours does now, get revenge for how she wronged you, make her cry, have her realize the mistake she made in letting you go at the same time she comes to understand how she will never win you back, make her feel like she’ll never want to love someone else ever again, scar her for life, fill her with a lifetime of regrets, am I right?” Before I could respond, Charles had grabbed the shoulder he had just rammed and gave it a good shake, jostling my whole limp body with it, as he leaned in close. “My services can make all these possibilities into firm realities.”

He handed me a business card while still leaning intrusively forward, his intoxicating wintergreen breath placing me on the verge of dizziness. I hesitantly took the card and even more hesitantly looked down from him and to the nearly blank card. “Professional PhD,” I read aloud. “Making women cry for 15 years.” I looked up again, relieved and terrified to see he hadn’t moved a centimeter. “PhD?”

“Personal happiness doctor, get with the program,” Charles said impatiently. “Here’s what I do: I seduce your cheating ex-lover – she is a cheater, correct? I’m just assuming – lure her into a deep and loving relationship, drive her hopping mad over me, then like that,” he snapped his fingers so suddenly it made me jump, “leave her in the lurch, just like she left you.” He laughed heartily and leaned back again, finally. “And you get your supreme satisfaction for just two payments of $200.”

“$200?” I said.

“I have a family to feed, I’ll have you know!” cried Charles, suddenly cross. “Dear boy, you surely didn’t think I would do this for free, just because I pitied your pathetic emotional emptiness! You expect your just dues when you do a job as expertly as I!”

“You mean, seducing…”

He cut me off. “You don’t think I can do it, am I right?” I made to tell him that this accusation wasn’t so, that, for a reason lodged deep inside my brain I was sure he could carry off whatever act of seduction he please, but he was already speaking again. “Well, I can assure you that my track record for seduction is paramount! Let me ask you something: why do you think Sean Connery always gets the girl?”

“Um,” I said. “Because he’s cool?”

“Because of his accent!” Charles broke into a smile, and suddenly I understood something about him I couldn’t place before. The tone of his voice, his distinct pronunciation sounded just like Sean Connery’s as it did in any of the movies in which I’d seen him. Charles even looked like him, I came to notice, like the younger Sean Connery, as if I were seated across from James Bond on the set of Goldfinger.

“I can see what you’re thinking from the expression on your face,” Charles continued happily. “You want to know exactly how I plan to seduce… what’s the damn damsel’s name again?”

“Sherrie.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” proclaimed Charles over me, deaf to what I said. “First, along with your down-payment, you will give me her contact information, work information, and online networking personal web addresses. Anything else you can offer in this regard would be greatly appreciated as well. Using this information I will follow her for 72 hours, studying her every move.”

“You’re going to stalk her?” I was genuinely horrified.

“My dear boy!” Charles cried. “Ladies love to be stalked! It’s a maddening obsession of theirs! They’re captivated by the notion of a man waiting each day on a street she normally walks through, hoping for a glimpse of her by the laundromat, frequenting wherever she volunteers just to keep her face fresh for his lovesick fantasies, waiting to get on the bus until she arrives at the stop just to ride in her presence. Women find it hopelessly romantic.”

“They do?” My eyes darted around, looking for a way out, but all I could see was whiteness, like looking at the sun through eyelids.

“Of course they do!” Charles exclaimed. “How do you think Sean Connery gets the girl?”

“His accent?”

Charles threw his hands helplessly into the air. “Because he’s a spy! Now tell me, what lady do you know of who, when confronted with the notion of making sweet, passionate love to a spy, would refuse?”

Sherrie, I thought, sending me to the cliff’s edge of a memory when I heard, “Cheeseburger, no pickle, no onions!” I closed my notebook and tucked it under my arm as I stood up, pushing the chair away with the backs of my knees, the metal legs grinding against the hard floor. I glanced out the windows as I walked up to the counter, at that street corner in awkward Bed-Stuy, with its under-construction condo shell towering above chipped-paint shacks, blocked from the street by cheap wooden planks swarmed by 8½ by 11 black-and-white fliers printed in Hebrew. I walked past the wobbly café tables I took for granted and their stony chairs with thin cushions that helped us count of blessings. I was the only customer there except for another regular, a short black man sipping his tea as far opposite me as he could be – here it was, Sunday afternoon, and the Square Root Café had only two guests, neither of whom elected to take advantage of the lumpy, sinkhole sofas at the far end, close to the closet bathroom.

At the counter the girl, acting as the, cook, waitress, cashier, dishwasher, and only employee of the day, handed me the burger without a smile. She was the usual here, but I’d seen her a few times whenever the fat, blond, middle-aged woman was out. This young woman had a tattoo of a green snake wrapping up her arm and ducking under her sleeve at the shoulder. She looked like she was pretty young, about my age. I hadn’t looked at her in that way before.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got a question, something I’ve been wondering about. Why does Sean Connery always get the girl?”

“Beats me,” she shrugged, not looking up. She dragged a wet washcloth along the countertop. “Personally I think he’s kinda slimy.”

Fine

- Sam goldsmith