One True Theory of Love (13 page)

“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 grinned 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.”

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

A
s 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.”

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.”

“Fair enough,” Ahmed said. “I’m thinking of my last girlfriend, Caroline. We dated for probably two years when she got a transfer to the Bay Area—this was last fall; she was in marketing—and it just made no sense for me to go, professionally.”

“Don’t you think if she was the one, you would have taken the hit professionally to be with her personally?”

“I do,” Ahmed said. “Absolutely. And she wasn’t the one
.
But if that transfer opportunity hadn’t come up, I’m sure we’d still be together. We got along really well and we had momentum in our favor. Nothing was wrong with the relationship.”

“That sounds horrible,” Meg said.

Ahmed laughed. “It wasn’t horrible. It was just . . .”

“Cordial,” Meg said.

Ahmed laughed again. “It was very cordial. But it wasn’t . . .” He gestured back and forth in the space between them. “It wasn’t like this.”

Meg felt herself redden. “What
is
this? If you have any idea, I’d sure like to hear it, because I’ll admit I’m confused.”

“I’m not sure what this is, either.” Ahmed took a long moment to find his words. “I know that you somehow draw me out,” he said. “I consistently find myself wanting to . . . I don’t know . . . let you see who I really am. You always say what’s on your mind and you don’t hide your feelings, good or bad, and you’re just . . . healthy. I don’t know. I almost never share personal information about myself. Part of that’s being Persian, I think. Culturally, we’re guarded. But I find myself wanting to let you get to know me. You’re . . . you give people what they need to feel safe.”

Meg was flattered by his words, impressed by his openness and scared by the depth of his feelings. Her heart beat insanely fast. “So it’s more than cordial?”

“It’s more than cordial.” Ahmed’s smile was serious. “And, Meg, I don’t cheat in any aspect of my life. I’d never cheat on you.”

Meg leaned forward to study his eyes. They had the calm confidence of a lake at sunrise, and Meg
loved
lakes at sunrise.

She loved diving into them and causing ripples, but she especially loved it once the ripples faded and the lake turned placid again and she, having dived in, became part of the calmness, part of the confidence, part of the whole. She realized as she looked in his eyes that she wanted to be part of the whole. That she was ready, finally.

“Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me cordially and with passion, too.”

He leaned forward and obliged, and as they kissed, Meg thought how she’d been right. Kissing him
was
like having an interesting conversation—a gentle, searching, questioning-and-answering kind of conversation.

It was the kind of conversation she wished could go on forever.