One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “What is it with the women in this family?” she asked. “Why are they so grumpy all the time? I’m not grumpy.”

  “You’re never grumpy,” Phillip said.

  “That’s because life is good,” Meg said.

  She suggested they go out back and join the kids in the backyard, where they were playing some sort of running-around-and-squealing game that seemed to have no rules, and together they spent a pleasant thirty minutes with the kids, until they were called in for brunch.

  Soon enough, Clarabelle was at it again. “How old is he?”

  La, la, la.

  “Please pass the fruit salad,” Meg said. David passed it over.

  “Has he been married? Is he divorced?” Clarabelle said. “I hear a man can have four wives in Iran.”

  “Leave her alone,” Amy growled.

  “Mother, get a life of your own and stop butting into mine.” Meg made big eyes at Henry in response to his look of disapproval.

  “He’s really nice,” Henry offered. “He helps me with soccer.”

  “Those Middle Easterners do like their soccer. Is he Muslim, I suppose? Does he eat pork?” Clarabelle machine-gunned her questions. “Does he pray five times a day and face Mecca like they do? I wonder how that goes over down at city hall. Does he go to a mosque?”

  Meg felt her left eye twitch.

  “So what if he goes to a mosque?” Amy snapped.

  “He doesn’t.” Meg had asked. When he’d said no, she’d been both relieved and ashamed of her relief. “Not that it matters.”

  There was nothing wrong with being Iranian!

  “Oh, it matters,” Clarabelle said. “In this day and age, it most certainly does matter.”

  “He’s really nice,” Henry said again.

  “Leave her alone,” Phillip told Clarabelle. Meg looked at him in surprise. Most often, he let whatever Clarabelle said roll off him as if she were a fly whose pestering he’d gotten so used to that he didn’t bother to swat it away anymore.

  “Excuse me, Phillip.” Clarabelle glared at him. “Am I not allowed to ask my daughter a question?”

  “This is what I mean.” Phillip said it matter-of-factly. “Exactly what we were talking about before. You aren’t just asking questions. You’re judging. Criticizing. Acting like she’s not an intelligent woman who can come to good decisions on her own.”

  Ha. Yes! Thank you, Dad.

  “She’s not making decisions on her own, Phillip.” Clarabelle said his name with venom. “You’re making them for her.”

  “No, he’s not!” Meg said. “He gives me advice. And he doesn’t judge me.”

  “He doesn’t judge you because he doesn’t want you to judge him!” Clarabelle practically yelled.

  Meg glared at Clarabelle, who swirled the ice in her glass with a screw-you snippiness and then took a swallow of her gin and tonic.

  “Enough.” Phillip stood and tossed down his napkin. “I’ve had enough.”

  I’ve heard it said that when a husband cheats on his wife, it’s never really about the sex. I’ve never quite fully believed that—even as I know that in my case, it was probably true.

  Jonathan and I were always good together, always sexually compatible. Whatever he suggested, I was willing to try. I initiated sometimes; other times, I followed. He was playful in bed. Thoughtful. Funny. Sex relaxed him, released him from himself. Sex wasn’t what we got wrong.

  When I hear the word affair, this is what I think: Ugly. Torrid. Selfish. Sneaky. Hurtful. Jonathan’s affair, at least the one I know about, was all that and more. There aren’t words to describe how horrible it was. The damage it wreaked lingers in me until this day.

  But my father . . .

  Well, I know my father pretty well. I know my mother, too.

  What my father wants is someone who gives a shit how his day went. He wants someone to listen with an open and nonjudgmental heart when he talks. He wants to be heard, and understood, and loved. He doesn’t want someone who nags him to change. He wants someone who accepts him as he is.

  An affair, it’s true, is never just about the sex.

  A date!

  Meg, who didn’t date, was going on a date!

  With Ahmed!

  A date was just a date, she kept reminding herself. Nothing more and nothing less. In the hokey-pokey scheme of things, it was putting her right foot in, just to test the waters.

  What she obsessed over was: would they kiss? There was an etiquette to it, she knew. Perhaps the first date was only supposed to be a kiss on the cheek—but since this was really the fifth time they’d seen each other, even if only their first official date, did that rule still have to apply?

  Meg worried he’d be all gentlemanly about it. She, herself, was not feeling particularly ladylike. Kissing Ahmed, she thought, would be like having an extremely interesting conversation.

  Meg had decided to have Ahmed meet her by the pool rather than at her apartment. Since Harley was watching Henry, it would make her leave-taking that much smoother. Plus, she wanted her Loop Group friends to meet him so they could discuss him at length later.

  Kat spotted him first. “Ooh-la-la,” she said. “Is that him?”

  When Meg saw Ahmed heading down the path to the pool in his jeans and white shirt and Calvin Klein-ish sports coat, she gave herself official permission to disregard first-date etiquette, because ooh-la-la was right.

  “That’s him.” Meg started down the path to greet him. She’d decided to go simple-sexy and wore a sleeveless black knee-length dress and open-toed heels. For makeup, she wore mascara, lipstick and just a hint of eye shadow. The clincher was the diamond necklace she wore. It had been a gift from Jonathan on their first wedding anniversary, and while she’d thrown their photo albums in a garbage Dumpster and simply walked away from their household items, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the diamond necklace, because while the marriage ended up being far from perfect, the diamond itself was flawless.

  The chain on which it hung was so translucent as to be almost invisible, and it had the effect of causing one to lean close to examine what held the diamond in place at the base of her throat . . . which then caused one to inhale the delicate Estée Lauder perfume she wore. So many women wore low-cut tops and high-cut skirts and two-inch fake nails to pass themselves off as sexy (Kat, for instance), but Meg’s belief was that a woman should have one signature item that made her feel sexy, and the rest would follow naturally. For Meg, it was the diamond.

  As they closed the distance between them, Meg kept her eyes on Ahmed’s. His radiated unabashed lust—he didn’t even try to hide it. She grinned when she recognized it for what it was and then fell into intense seriousness as they moved, yet again, to that deeper level they couldn’t seem to avoid. Maybe it was the luck of her diamond or maybe it was the look in his eyes, but Meg’s approach was perfect. Her hips swayed gracefully; her heels clicked confidently. Her chin was raised and her posture, ballet-strong.

  Sultry, that was how she felt.

  She stepped into Ahmed’s space and stopped mere inches from him. Silently, she apprised him of her intentions: sultry women don’t say hello. They take a man.

  Thankful for the oleander bushes that blocked Henry’s view of them, Meg pulled Ahmed to her. Though it was their first kiss, there was nothing awkward about it. It was deep, and leisurely, and lingering. It was a fine first kiss.

  “There,” Meg said when she let him go. “Now I don’t have to wonder all night whether or not you’re going to kiss me.”

  Ahmed grinned. “I was definitely going to kiss you.”

  When they kissed again, the world beyond Meg disappeared. It was just the two of them, softening toward each other, connecting, revealing themselves. It was a kiss to get lost in, until from the pool area Henry called out.

  “Hi, Ahmed! Over here!” He pressed himself up against the bars of the pool enclosure and waved wildly. Inelegantly, Ahmed stepped back from her.

  “Hi, Henry!” Ahmed gr
inned at Meg. “Oops.”

  “It’s okay,” Henry said. “You can kiss my mom.”

  Together, Ahmed and Meg entered the pool area and went to him.

  “Hey, Henry,” Meg said, “guess what.”

  “I know,” Henry said. “He doesn’t need my permission.”

  Ahmed burst out laughing. Meg led him over to the Loop Group and introduced him to everyone, and then they went back over to Henry to say goodbye. He and Violet had created a tent using two tables and a bunch of pool towels.

  “Psst, Henry!” Meg said. “Come here for a minute.”

  She guided him to a lounge chair and sat with him. “Are you sure you’re okay with me going out with Ahmed like this?”

  Henry shrugged. “I think I should get to come, too.”

  “Another time.” Henry’s face fell into sadness and Meg felt horrible. This was what she’d wanted to avoid. This was part of the reason she didn’t want to date, so Henry would never get confused about her priorities. He was her priority. “Do you want me to stay home?” she asked.

  “No!” Henry was earnest all of a sudden. “I want you to go! It’s just that I wanted to go, too.”

  “Well . . .”

  “But, no, it’s okay,” Henry said. “Harley’s taking me for ice cream and I want to keep playing with Violet. But maybe Ahmed can take me somewhere sometime.”

  Meg laughed. “And here I thought you were sad because I was leaving, but really, it’s got nothing to do with me, does it?”

  Henry threw his arms around her neck and pulled her down heavily in a way he knew she hated. “You’re my favorite mom in the whole world!”

  Meg disentangled herself from his smothering happy-cobra grip. “And you’re my favorite boy. You know that, right?”

  “Um—yeah! You tell me all the time.”

  “Say it.” Henry rolled his eyes. Meg poked his belly and made him laugh. “Say it. Who’s my favorite boy in the whole world?”

  Henry acquiesced. “I am.”

  “And when you’re being exceptionally naughty and driving me nuts, then who’s my favorite boy in the whole world?”

  “That would still be me.”

  “That’s right,” Meg said. “And is there anything you could ever say or do to make that not be true?”

  “Mom!” But this was how it went—one, two, three times he had to acknowledge the absolute nature of her love.

  “Answer me,” Meg said. “And then I’ll let you go back to playing.”

  “I will always be your favorite boy.”

  “Yes, you will.” Meg kissed the top of his head.

  As he dashed off and crawled back into his tent, Meg stood and brushed down her dress. When she looked at Ahmed, his eyes were twinkling.

  “Fairy dust,” he said. “When I see the two of you together, that’s what I always think. It’s like you’ve been sprinkled with fairy dust.”

  Hoo-rah.

  Not every man could get away with saying such corny things. Ahmed could, because there was nothing the least bit corny about him.

  As they drove down Broadway Boulevard toward Euclid, Meg studied Ahmed in profile. He was still such an unknown. All she knew with certainty was that being with him gave her a steady burn deep inside, a rumble of rightness she hadn’t felt since . . . well, since things had been good with Jonathan.

  At Meg’s suggestion, they went to the Frog & Firkin on University Boulevard. Music, beer, pizza. What more did a girl need in life?

  “The Frog’s good,” Ahmed agreed when she suggested it. “That’s my neighborhood hangout, you know.”

  “Ah, right,” she teased. “I forget you’re a Sam Hughsie.”

  “You are, too.”

  “Yes, but you’re a home-owning Sam Hughsie. I’m just a renter, crashing your neighborhood, bringing down the property values.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “What would you say?”

  “That you’re cute.” He glanced at her, then back to the road. “And that there’s something different about you tonight.”

  “You’re just saying that because I kissed you.”

  Ahmed smiled. “Maybe.”

  “Well, also I’m trying to get over myself,” Meg said. “That could be what’s different. I’m putting my right foot in.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I haven’t told you my Hokey-Pokey Theory of Life yet, have I?” Ahmed shook his head. “Well, that’s what I’m doing tonight. Living it.”

  “You’ll have to explain it to me over a beer,” he said.

  The Frog was crowded, but a large group was leaving just as Meg and Ahmed arrived and so the waitresses separated a few tables and they barely had to wait. After they ordered their pizza and after their beers were delivered and dutifully sipped upon, Ahmed prompted her to explain her theory.

  “The Hokey-Pokey Theory of Life is that you’ve got to put your whole self in,” she said. “To life, to whatever moment you’re in, no matter what it is. If it’s wonderful, go with the wonder. If it’s painful, go with the pain. You know? You just . . . you shouldn’t hold back. I forget it sometimes, but that’s what I believe. Or it’s what I want to believe, anyway.”

  He studied her. “Tonight’s the first time I feel as if you’re not holding back with me.”

  Meg fingered her necklace. “I used to wear my heart on my sleeve,” she said. “I used to be much more sure of my place in the world. And then one day, I wasn’t anymore.”

  “Got beat up by life a bit, did you?” Ahmed had about the most beautiful, accepting eyes she’d ever seen. A girl could get lost in those eyes for days.

  “I used to come here with my ex-husband, Jonathan.” Meg’s heart pounded just remembering it. “I used to meet him here on Fridays after I got off work. He’d be here with all his law school buddies and they’d all be yapping back and forth, using these multisyllable million-dollar words, and I’d just sit there like this stupid trophy wife in training. And the worst part was, I liked it. I was happy being his arm candy, being the cute little wife with the smart guy for the husband. I was just—God—I was so shallow back then.”

  You were young.

  You were as deep as you knew how to be.

  Meg sipped her beer. Suddenly scared, she looked away from Ahmed to the band of four middle-aged men in Hawaiian shirts performing Beatles songs. Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. Now I need a place to hide away.

  A place to hide, indeed.

  She looked back at Ahmed. “What’s your story, Ahmed? Have you ever been married?”

  He glanced away from her and watched the band. I said something wrong—now I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay. Meg waited him out. After a long moment, he turned back to her. “I was married once,” he said. “To an Iranian girl. It didn’t last.”

  “What happened?” Meg wanted to get right up in his face and peer into his eyes, his heart, his soul. She needed not so much to hear what he told her, but to feel the truth of what he left out. But she made herself stay reclined and casual.

  “We were young, and we didn’t know each other very well when we got married,” he said. “That caught up with us pretty quick. I was still in college—way too young to be married.”

  “I was twenty-three when I got married,” Meg said.

  “That’s also young,” Ahmed said.

  “Please don’t tell me you cheated on her,” she said.

  Ahmed shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. We really had no business being married in the first place. Looking back, it was so obvious I was trying to please my father.”

  “By marrying an Iranian girl?”

  “By marrying Avesha in particular,” he said. “But it’s impossible to please my father. It’s not even worth the attempt.”

  “Are you still in touch with him?”

  Ahmed took a sip of his beer and set the glass back on the table, twisting it idly with one hand. “I call him the first Friday of every month. Like clockwork. He is my
father. I feel a responsibility.”

  “He never calls you, I take it.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “That would be too much trouble, to actually pick up the phone and dial it.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Three years ago in France,” Ahmed said. “I met him there when he was on business. He gave me three hours of his time.”

  Meg took his hand. “See, this is why I think it’s best that Henry’s father hasn’t ever been in his life. I think it’d be harder to have his affection be half-assed than for him not to be around at all.”

  “Henry doesn’t mind that he’s not around?”

  Meg bit her lip as she considered his question. Henry almost never asked her anything about Jonathan. Plus, he had David and his grandfather. And Harley. And now maybe even . . . Ahmed?

  “He somehow always manages to get what he needs,” Meg said.

  “I think Henry’s about the coolest kid I’ve ever met,” Ahmed said. “I think he’s great.”

  Meg looked at him for a long moment. “He thinks you’re great, too.”

  Ahmed looked back squarely at her. “Your husband cheated on you—am I right?”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  Ahmed smiled. “When you asked if I’d cheated on my wife, that pretty much gave it away.”

  “Jonathan told me about his affair the same day I told him I was pregnant with Henry.” Meg took a quick sip of beer, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. “I had no idea. Never saw it coming. I thought we were perfectly happy. I swear, sometimes I still think he was happy right up until he left.”

  “It’s hard to end a relationship,” Ahmed said, “especially when the person you’re with is a great person. He probably did love you even as he left. Just not in the way he needed to in order to make it work.”

  “That sounds very wise,” Meg said. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

  Ahmed smiled. “Sure, maybe.”

  Meg tapped her fingernails on the table. “Come on. Do tell. This is what a first date’s for—you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”