The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories by Simon Rich

Author:Simon Rich [Rich, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Short Stories (Single Author), Short Stories, Humorous
ISBN: 9780316219396
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2013-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Girlfriend Repair Shop

35 W 45th street

Open Late

“Ask for Han,” Dr. Motley said. “He knows his stuff.”

Max stared into the doctor’s eyes.

“Is this a joke?”

The therapist laughed.

“No, it’s not a joke.”

He gestured grandly at his office.

“This is.”

“I’m so glad we met with him,” Karen said. “Now you can finally start working on your issues.”

“Yeah,” Max said, squinting at a nearby street sign.

46th Street. They were almost there.

“Where are we going?” Karen asked.

“I just have to run an errand.”

“Right now?”

“It’ll only take a second. There—there it is!”

He pointed excitedly at a small dark shop adorned with a fluorescent sign.

“What’s GRS?” Karen asked.

“It’s, uh… General Radio Supplier. I need to get some new transistors for a project.”

Karen rolled her eyes.

“I’ll wait outside.”

Max swallowed anxiously.

“It might be a while,” he said. “Why don’t you come in with me? It’s so cold out.”

Karen sighed demonstratively and followed Max into the store.

The interior was small and bare; just a table, two chairs and a cash register.

“What is this place?” Karen asked, folding her arms suspiciously. Max could feel his underarms prickling with perspiration. After a few tense seconds, a short Asian man walked out from behind a red curtain.

“Ah,” he said. “You Max?”

Max nodded and Han politely shook his hand, completely ignoring Karen’s presence.

“I am Han Woo,” he said. “Repairman. Dr. Motley send you, right?”

“What the hell is going on?” Karen asked. “What is this place?”

With zero hesitation, Han jabbed his index finger into Karen’s left eyeball.

“Oh my God!” Max screamed. “What the fuck?”

“Is fine, is fine,” Han assured him. “See?”

Max looked at Karen. She was frozen, as stiff as a mannequin.

“What did you do?” he asked, his voice shrill with panic. “What did you do to my girlfriend?”

“Just freeze her,” Han replied calmly. “See?”

He waved his hand in front of Karen’s eyes. Max noticed that her pupils remained rigidly centered.

“How did you…?”

Han ignored him and took a screwdriver out of his pocket. Max watched in frozen horror as Han gently pressed the tip to Karen’s forehead, applying pressure to a small mole near her hairline. There was a cranking noise, like when you shift gears on a bicycle, and then Karen’s scalp popped open.

Max screamed but his terror quickly turned to fascination. There was no blood, no brains, no gore—just a grid of wires and microchips. It reminded him of a standard PC motherboard.

“Here is problem,” Han said, gesturing at cluster of transistors. “Is loose, see?”

Max peered anxiously into his girlfriend’s head. There did, indeed, appear to be some faulty wiring.

“Has she been acting mean?” Han asked.

Max nodded in amazement.

“How did you know?”

“She probably say, ‘I no feel loved,’ or something like that.”

“Yes! She said that exact thing!”

“Don’t worry,” Han said. “I fix.”

Max watched in awe as the repairman went to work, replacing wires, flipping circuits, tightening bolts. At one point, he wrenched a screw clockwise—and Karen’s lips simultaneously curled into a smile. After about an hour, he was finished. He put away his tools, shut Karen’s scalp and walked calmly to the cash register.

“Forty-thousand dollars,” he said.

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