by J. J. Bella
Paul lifted the box, curiosity taking the place of any anger or fear for his father. Opening it, he saw a ring glinting back at him: an old family heirloom he recognized, that had been owned and worn by his great-great-grandmother—a rich Frenchwoman who’d married a Duke from England.
“You are to give this ring to the woman you choose to marry,” Otto continued. “And if you do not succeed in finding a woman, you will not only lose your position as CEO, but you will not receive your inheritance. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Paul said, his nostrils flaring.
It was not unlike the board to do extreme things like this. His father was dramatic, European by all counts, and considered his life as a movie—one that involved toying with as many characters as he could.
“Above all, Paul,” his father began, his voice weaker than Paul remembered. “You need to create a stable environment for your daughter. So you can get her back. Family is the most important thing. And it seems you’ve forgotten that.”
Turning his eyes toward Jack, Paul glared at him—sensing that Jack had delivered information regarding his daughter’s life to the members of the board, making it seem as though Paul wasn’t demanding, nearly every single day, that his daughter come live with him.
If Elena would allow it, he would stop dating in a second.
Ripping up from his seat, Paul clipped the ring box closed, turning toward the door. “All right,” he said, his words snarky. “I’m off to find my own Cinderella. Because true love happens just like that. Right, Jack?”
Jack didn’t respond. Blood left both his parents’ faces, making them look ghoulish. Without another word, Paul turned from the boardroom, hopped into the elevator, and made up his mind, then and there, to get drunk.
5
It was the last hour of work. So close to finish. That’s when it all fell apart: when Brittany’s cell phone began to blare. Realizing she hadn’t turned it off, she panicked, lurching toward it in the midst of pouring a coffee and dribbling black liquid across her apron.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Glancing at the phone, she noted that her design school was the one on the other line. Giving a firm wave toward Sarah, she mouthed: “This can’t wait!” and then raced into the back room, which was miraculously void of Ian. He hadn’t yet returned from his delivery run.
“Hello?” Brittany said, her voice high-pitched. “This is Brittany.”
“Brittany, hello,” the woman began. She sounded synthetic, like the voice on an answering machine. “This is Deborah from the scholarship office. I need to tell you, we’ve noticed a discrepancy in your scholarship, and we need you to come directly to the office to get it worked out.”
“A discrepancy?” Brittany asked, slipping her fingers across the coffee stains. “That’s impossible. I gave you all the documents a few weeks ago. For the new semester?”
“Yes, the one that begins Monday. That’s the semester we don’t have funds for at this time,” the woman responded, smacking her lips slightly at the end of her sentence.
“Well, I’m telling you—I mean, could you please check again?” Brittany asked, becoming breathless. Sarah turned toward her from the register, bringing her eyebrows low over her eyes.
“If you could just do us the service of coming to our offices as soon as you can,” the woman continued. “Mr. Jennings, one of our scholarship managers, has a bit of time this afternoon, set aside for you. If you want to take it?”
“I’ll be there in 25 minutes,” Brittany boomed, feeling adrenaline course through her veins. “I’m sure it’s just a minor mistake.”
“Happens all the time,” the woman agreed, snapping the phone on her receiver.
As she explained her predicament to Sarah, she felt hot beads of sweat begin to course down her forehead. Sarah pointed toward the door, giving her head a quick twitch, and demanded: “Why haven’t you left yet? Go get that shit worked out, girl. I can sling coffee for your last hour alone. Seriously.”
After lending her best friend a final, gut-wrenching hug, she bolted from the door, finding traction on the sidewalk and running headlong toward the subway. After taking the steps two at a time, she met with the last seconds of the closing subway doors. Darting within, she narrowly missed crushing her arms in the gap—a moment of zeal and luck that would surely follow her into the scholarship offices.
“That was close,” a burdened-looking, 40-something woman whispered to her, giving her a wink.
“Tell me about it,” Brittany sighed.
The scholarship offices were on the far side of campus, tucked away in a stone building with stain glass windows—giving it a church-like appearance. At the front step, Brittany whipped her apron from her waist and stabbed it into her side bag, hoping she didn’t look as if she’d been sweltering in a café for the better part of the day. Giving a last glance into the small square of window on the door, she entered the building and gave her name to the bright-toothed, grey-haired woman at the front desk. The same one, incidentally, who’d called her.
“Good thing you came in right away,” the woman said, ringing Mr. Jennings with a firm press of a button. “He’s just had his lunch and should be ready to see you.”
The room reeked of sour cream and onion chips, making Brittany’s stomach squirm. Sitting across from Mr. Jennings, she watched as he dove through the various papers she’d signed, giving her the occasional ominous glance, and then burping half-heartedly into his hand.
Wonder what he had for lunch? Brittany said to herself, keeping her eye roll to herself.
“It’s just dried up, kid,” Mr. Jennings said then, his voice scratchy.
“But I sent in the paperwork. The state-funded scholarship?” Brittany began, remembering, with a stab of fear, that she hadn’t bothered to read all the fine print. Had she taken a misstep?
“That’s just not for people of your age. You have to be younger. And you just had a birthday a few weeks ago?” he said, glancing at the paperwork. “That’s right. And the other scholarships didn’t come through this year, because you’re in your second year. Just for first-year design students, unfortunately.”
“So you’re telling me that all of the scholarships I had last year are completely gone?” Brittany asked, aghast. She tossed forward, her large brown eyes wide and drying out. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Please be careful about your language in my offices,” Mr. Jennings said then. “I’m a Christian man and won’t stand for it.”
Brittany forced herself to take a long, easy breath. Still, anxiety fueled her, causing her fingers to quiver, her feet to clack together beneath the chair. “What does this mean?”
“Well,” Mr. Jennings said, eyeing her darkly. “This means that if you don’t find another way to get your tuition paid, you’re going to have to stop going to class.”
“But we’ve only just started the summer semester,” Brittany all but whispered, her voice raspy.
“And you’d better stop wasting your time,” he boomed back.
Despondent, her heart aching, Brittany excused herself from the offices, walking past the front desk with her head hung low. Reaching the exterior, she felt the sunbeam across her face, making her eyes glimmer with tears. Unsure of where else to go, who else to turn to, she found her steps tracing back toward the coffee shop—the one and only place she belonged, now. As she peered in through the window, she realized, with a lurch, that the coffee shop was in the midst of its after-work rush, a time she often had to stay late for, despite the ending of her shift, if only to help Sarah fulfill all the orders.
And today, in her place, stood Ian: wrangling lattes, cappuccinos, and flat whites, with flailing arms and a constant frown. Bolting through the crowd, Brittany found herself leaping over the counter and taking over at the espresso machine. Tears and sweat began to mix across her cheeks as she worked, fulfilling orders and listening to Ian’s commands: “Almond milk with this.” “Cappuccino.” “Americano, no m
ilk.” “Soy. Come on, Brittany. Can’t you go any faster?”
Until, all at once, the crowd had depleted, leaving only their empty cups and plates and gleaming forks at the various booths and tables—and three exhausted, gasping people behind the counter, their knees wobbling and their skin reeking of coffee grounds.
“Wow. Good thing you got here when you did,” Sarah said, beaming toward Brittany. “Because I don’t think Ian and I could have clambered through that without you. Huh, Ian?”
Ian glowered down at Brittany. With two firm fists on either side of his waist, he cleared his throat. “And why on earth did you leave in the first place? You know you usually have to stay to help with the rush. You always do. Brittany, this was out of line.”
Brittany felt her lips part with confusion. After the conversation with Mr. Jennings at design school, she felt punched, smacked, still reeling.
“I’m sorry…” she whispered, her eyes hunting for something to latch onto. She couldn’t peer into his angry ones. Not now. “It was an emergency.”
“It can’t have been more of an emergency than the one here, at the shop,” Ian boomed. “If I can’t trust you, Brittany, then I think we have to do something about that.”
“Ian, you can trust me,” she stammered. “I’m not even going to school anymore. You won’t have to work around my schedule. It’s—it’s what you always wanted…”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. You, abandoning Blue Line like you did. It’s irresponsible. There are loads of other little, adorable girls like you out there, looking for a job like this. Working with artisanal coffee is their dream.”
Brittany held her eyes completely still, trying to ensure she didn’t roll them. As she hunted for the proper words to say—words that affirmed her greater love for artisanal coffee—she felt the tension release in the room around her. Her shoulders slumped forward. Oxygen became void in her lungs.
“I just don’t think this is working out anymore,” Ian said, speaking words like a former boyfriend. “I think you should hang up your apron and leave Blue Line for good.”
Aghast, Brittany stumbled forward, unlacing her apron from her waist and tossing it toward the corner. Glancing toward Sarah, who held her hands over her mouth, she gave a brief shrug, then tossed herself from the back of the counter, toward the door. Easing into the outdoors, she took a deep, horrible breath, realizing she was about to face her future alone, jobless, without an education. And she wasn’t entirely sure what it would look like.
But just across the street, a bar seemed to beckon. And so, barely checking both ways before, she crossed and hunted for the only thing that would give her solace: alcohol.
6
The age-old romantic comedy on the wide screen of the Brooklyn bar was heart-wrenchingly gorgeous, romantic, leaving Paul scoffing at the bar counter, his third drink in his hand. Gesturing, he spoke to the bartender—a balding, 30-something man who seemed like he’d inhaled more than his fair share of cigarettes: “This love. This on-screen adoration. It doesn’t exist, not in real life. But maybe love existed like that back in the ‘40s? Maybe it’s all dried up, now. Dead, in the age of Internet and porn.”
The bartender, who’d introduced himself as Clyde, slipped his wrinkled hand over his forehead. “Not so sure about that, champ,” he said, his eyes flashing. “You know, the actor and actress in this movie—they play folks who have an arranged marriage, who fall in love, yada yada. You already know that. Everyone does. But did you know that they were forced into these roles by their agents—and then they ended up falling in love and having two children of their own? Romance was the same back then as it is today. It’s just a bit more clunky today, is all. People aren’t open to it in the same way. Kind of a tragedy.”
“That’s what you’re blaming your sad love life on, Clyde?” another person at the bar, a 50-something gambling addict named Marvin, asked.
“Marvin, we’ve all got our own problems. Mine’s that I like to live alone,” Clyde said, shrugging.
“And the halitosis you’ve got. That can’t be helping,” Marvin said.
Clyde pointed at him, smirking. “You keep this up, I won’t give you that fifth round you’ve been demanding. Can’t have you slumped over the bar before eight p.m. again. Doesn’t bode well for the other Brooklyn customers.”
“All these pretty 20-somethings,” Marvin said, shaking his head. “Don’t they know what Brooklyn used to be?” His eyes flashed toward Paul, who was growing progressively drunk. “These rich assholes.”
But Paul was lost in the chaos of his own mind. Still seething from the conference meeting with his parents and the rest of the board, he found himself guzzling whiskey too quickly, knocking them back and bringing a buzz to the back of his brain. Interrupting the conversation between a slumped Marvin and a wrinkled Clyde, he pointed at the screen, looking scruffy and wild, despite the expensiveness of his suit.
“An arrange marriage just might be the solution to my problem, Clyde-o,” he said. “Think of it. They don’t give two shits who I marry, as long as I do it. That was the stipulation.”
“Sure…” Clyde said, trailing off. He knocked several peanuts into a small, glass bowl and passed it to Paul, urging him to eat.
Stabbing a few peanuts into his mouth, Paul watched as the main characters kissed at the top of the Eiffel Tower, their bodies wrapping close and all thoughts of their “arrangement” falling out the window, leaving room for love.
“Howdy,” Clyde said, addressing a new arrival at the bar. Smacking a drink coaster on the wood, he leaned closer to the pretty, short-haired blonde, addressing her. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Just a wine, please,” the girl said, her voice soft.
With a quick glance, Paul immediately recognized her as the barista from across the street. Gorgeous, tinier and finer-boned than he remembered, she peered up at the black and white movie, allowing tears to course down her cheeks.
Yearning for a bit of distraction, Paul gestured toward her, tilting his head. “Hasn’t even reached the dramatic part yet, and you’re already crying.”
Shocked, the girl’s eyes grew wide—making her look akin to a deer in the forest. Drawing her hair behind her ears, she flashed a small smile, recognizing him from earlier. But of course she recognized him. Everyone did.
“I just really need a drink,” the girl said. “Looks like you’re in the same boat as me.”
“Something happen?”
“Fired.”
“No. You’re the best thing that stupid, hip coffee shop has going for it.”
“Apparently not.”
Knocking his knuckles against the counter, Paul’s eyes danced toward Clyde. “We’re going to need a few rounds of tequila shots, I think,” he said. “To cheer up the girl. Nothing says screw your boss like a round of tequila.”
Slipping a few seats toward her, he gazed into her eyes, feeling a rise of passion within him. She held such fire within her, an essence that made his groin stir. He didn’t generally feel this way about the models that thrust themselves toward him at nightclubs, wanting to become the next on his “list.” They were all similar: in form and in function, with brains that seemed to take on the same patterns of thought.
Counting back from three, Paul instructed them into first one, then three rounds of tequila shots, watching as the girl’s cheeks took on an alert redness. Her eyes dancing toward him, she began to giggle softly. The noise jingled like music in his ears.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You don’t even know my name.”
“You can fix that.”
“It’s Brittany. Brittany Haverford. And you’re Paul. Paul Le Montaigne.”
“Has been all day, unfortunately,” Paul affirmed. “Tell me more about what happened with you back at the café. Seems an unfortunate turn of events. You were really wonderful this morning. I’m sure if I went back in there and demanded it—“
Brittany stretched her palms in front o
f her face, looking mortified. “No. Absolutely not. I’ll—I’ll figure something out.”
But as she was already generously tipsy, she began to flutter through conversation of what had happened to her that day: the call from the scholarship office, the realization that she wouldn’t be able to go to school for a while, perhaps ever again, then the subsequent firing, from a boss who wouldn’t stop using the word “artisanal” without irony. The story was heartbreaking; emitted from such gorgeous, pink lips, with her red cheeks lined with tears.
Paul couldn’t help considering that this girl’s problems and his could be linked, inextricably. That they could tie them together, much like the people in the black and white movie, and solve one another’s issues. Peering at her, almost incredulously, he recognized she was one of the most gorgeous, interesting women he’d been around in a long time—and that, almost more importantly, she probably seemed “simplistic” and “common” in his parents’ eyes.
After all: when you spent the majority of your time in a chateau in the south of France, almost everyone looked relatively “common.” All the heiresses they’d introduced him to over the years—from places like Tokyo to London to Los Angeles—had been tight-lipped and pale, with bones sticking out at their waists and hollow cheeks. They’d held not a glimmer of warmth, not the way Brittany the barista did.
He could get back at his parents. And he could help this girl dive through the stressors of her common, horrible life.
And when it was all over, he could see his daughter again.
In his mind, as he knocked back the fourth shot, he couldn’t imagine a better course of events.
He just had to find a way to present them to Brittany in a way that seemed feasible. He had to layer on the charm.
7
Manhattan stretched across the horizon across the East River as Paul and Brittany walked, their hands falling to their sides and their arms occasionally brushing. The romantic tension between them seemed taut, electric, with Brittany occasionally glancing up at him with hopeful eyes. Slipping her thin arm through his, her drunkenness her excuse, she sighed evenly, saying:
