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 of 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.