One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  Mrs. Anderson shook her head. “I can’t imagine she does.”

  “Will Marita be in school today?” Meg’s voice came out fearful, tentative, pleading. “She’ll stay at Foundation, won’t she?”

  “She’ll stay at Foundation,” Mrs. Anderson confirmed. “But they’re keeping her in her new home for a few days to get settled.”

  After Mrs. Anderson left, Meg crossed the room to the CD player and put on Mozart’s Symphony No. 40. She kept it low and sat in a small-person chair next to the table it rested on. Tears welled behind her closed eyelids as she listened to the music, its beauty so incongruous with what she expected Marita’s home life must have been like, incongruous as well with what she imagined her life was like at this exact moment—a little girl in a new place. Who knew what this aunt was like? Maybe she was great, but why hadn’t she stepped forward earlier? Why was it Meg who’d reported her suspicions and not this aunt?

  Meg knew now why Marita always put herself on the sidelines. To be the child of a drug addict meant your world didn’t rotate in the same imperceptible trajectory as everyone else’s. It lurched, and you were always in danger of falling off without notice. It made perfect sense now why Marita had always tucked herself into Meg. She was holding on for dear life.

  As a teacher, Meg heard plenty of sad stories. To be a teacher was to have your heart ripped out regularly—it was part of the job description. Always, there was a child who suffered. This year, it was her very special Marita, the girl who’d sat and watched while her classmates danced to Mozart.

  Despite the addition of Ahmed to their lives, Meg still reserved Friday nights for Henry. It was their time to reconnect and cuddle in bed, watching their movie and eating their ice cream.

  Meg began that particular Friday night by having a margarita with Harley and Kat. Opera Bob, in his apartment watching the news, had yet to serenade the complex. In answer to Meg’s questions, Kat informed them about the Pima County Jail, where Marita’s mother was awaiting her next hearing. She told several gruesome stories of people whose lives were ruined by crack. Meg would have thought her mood couldn’t get any worse, but Kat’s stories achieved that.

  And then Clarabelle arrived. It took Meg a moment to process the sight of her, because for the first time in years, she wore a decidedly undrab outfit—a kelly green shirt worn with winter cream pants. From a distance, she looked like a whole other version of herself.

  “Mom—hi!” Meg called. “I love your outfit!”

  “Hello!” Clarabelle called back. She visited first with Henry and Violet, who were reading books in lounge chairs across the pool from the grown-ups. A few days earlier, Harley had offered to give them a dollar for each age-appropriate book they read, which was keeping them both industrious and out of his hair.

  Meg met her mother halfway. Ever since her conversation with her father, she’d felt horribly guilty about what she knew that perhaps her mother did not—namely, that Phillip was, in fact, serious about leaving her. Meg wasn’t sure how she was supposed to handle it, if she was, which she sort of doubted. It was their marriage and it looked as if it couldn’t be saved. Her job was to be there for her parents, in whatever way they needed her.

  “How are you enjoying your new job?” she asked.

  “It’s fun!” Clarabelle said. “The girls I work with are quite pleasurable. Some of the customers, though—how hard is it to hang up the clothes you don’t want? I’m not saying you need to hang them back on the rack. Just don’t leave them on the floor! You never do that, do you? I mean, who does?” She held out a little Ann Taylor bag, one of two she carried. “Here. I bought you some earrings.”

  “Thank you! That was very thoughtful.” Meg peeked at them. They were big hoops and cute, in a cheap-metal sort of way.

  “I bought the same pair for your sister,” Clarabelle said. “Remember how the two of you used to dress alike all the time? Whatever I bought for you, I had to buy one size smaller for her.”

  Clarabelle smiled brightly and then sniffed. Meg, who didn’t remember ever dressing like her sister, tilted her head and studied her mother. Because Clarabelle had on dark sunglasses, Meg couldn’t see her eyes. “Mom?”

  “I’m fine, Meg!”

  “I didn’t ask if you were fine,” Meg said. “Do you need to talk? Should we go to my apartment?”

  “No, no. You’re busy with your friends.” Clarabelle looked wistfully over at the Loop Group table. The hint was clear.

  “You want to join us for a drink?” Meg said.

  “Oh! Well, why not?” Clarabelle said. “It is Friday night, after all.”

  Meg hid a snort. On Sunday mornings, Clarabelle would say why not to a Bloody Mary, and on Wednesdays at noon she’d say why not to wine with lunch. And, indeed, why not? That wasn’t Meg’s point. Her point was it seemed disingenuous of her mother to suggest there actually might be a time when she wouldn’t have a drink.

  Meg led Clarabelle to the table. Harley stood and pulled out a chair for her. “Hello, Meg’s mom,” he said. “What’s your poison, beer or a margarita?”

  “One of each, please.” She gave him a big smile. “Just kidding. A margarita would be lovely.”

  While he poured her drink from the pitcher of margaritas, Clarabelle put her other bag on the table and pulled out a foil-wrapped bundle. “I brought tamales.”

  A giving mood, her mother was in. Meg had the distinct impression that her mother was attempting to turn over a new leaf.

  “Tamales! I’d kill for a good tamale,” Kat said. “It’s hard to get really good ones in this town.”

  “These are gourmet, and they’re delicious,” Clarabelle said. “I had a sample when I picked them up. Spinach and wild mushroom. It was so good I can’t stop thinking about it!”

  “Where’d you get them?” Kat said.

  “From the new place near here. The Tucson Tamale Company. It just opened,” Clarabelle said. “And the owner’s got these incredible blue eyes and thick, thick eyelashes that are simply wasted on a man.”

  “I hate blue eyes,” Meg said, thinking of Jonathan.

  “You have blue eyes,” Harley reminded her. “And so does Henry.”

  “I mean on men,” Meg said. “They get me all weirded out.”

  “Meg’s right.” Clarabelle unwrapped the foil and set the dozen tamales in the center of the table. Kat grabbed two. “You can never trust a man with blue eyes.”

  Meg’s father had blue eyes.

  While they gorged themselves, Opera Bob stepped out of his apartment, turned, locked his door and gave a nod to the Loop Group. Three steps into his stroll, his rich baritone permeated the crisp desert air, beguiling them all. Well, all except Clarabelle. She wrinkled her nose and pointed at Opera Bob with her white plastic fork. “Is that him?”

  “Yes, it is.” Meg said it with an edge. Ever the optimist, she hoped her mother would recognize her tone and back off.

  “He really does this every day?” Clarabelle said. “What on earth is he thinking?”

  Meg’s mood was souring fast. Her mom had started off admirably nonjudgmental, but she simply couldn’t sustain it. “It’s not noise pollution, Mom. We all appreciate it.”

  “I can’t completely unwind from work until I get my opera fix,” Kat said. “His singing reminds me there’s always been tragedy in the world. Wars, murders, lost loves. And there always will be.”

  “As long as there are men in the world, there will be tragedy,” Clarabelle said, then smiled sweetly at Harley. “No offense.”

  When he was finished singing, Opera Bob silently unlatched the gate and slipped into the sole empty seat at the table, which happened to be next to Clarabelle.

  “Bob?” Meg said. “Margarita?”

  He nodded, and she poured him one. “Here you go.”

  “This must be the opera singer,” Clarabelle said. “I’m curious, Bob. Why do you sing like that every day? Your voice is lovely, don’t get me wrong. It’s just a little unusual.”


  “Leave him alone, Mom,” Meg said.

  “I’m just making small talk. Is this the fulfillment of some sort of dream of yours?” Beet red, Bob said nothing. “Bob?”

  “Bob doesn’t like to talk about his singing, Mom.” Bob didn’t like to talk about anything. He was the king of one-word answers. Yes. No. Maybe. Sure. Mmmm. Hmmm. Well. Clarabelle wasn’t going to get much more out of him.

  “Oh, but I’m not really talking about the singing. I’m talking about dreams. Men and their dreams.” She turned to Harley. “Do you have middle-aged man dreams? Like, I don’t know, becoming a painter in Paris, or hiking the Himalayas?”

  Ah. So that was what this was about. “Mom,” Meg cautioned, “don’t get carried away.”

  “I’m just curious,” Clarabelle said. “What do men dream about, besides sex? And is it really true that men think about sex an average of once every seven seconds? Bob? Is that true?”

  Bob froze in place like a startled iguana.

  “MOTHER! Jesus. Leave him alone.” Henry’s head popped up over the back of his lounge chair to see what Meg was yelling about.

  “I’m just making an effort to get to know your friends.” Clarabelle enunciated her words. “That’s what the girls at work suggested I do. Get to know your friends. Learn to treat you like one. But I can see I’m not welcome here.”

  With that, she burst into tears.

  Jaw dropped, Meg scanned her circle of friends. They looked back with varying degrees of shock and concern.

  Meg put her hand on her mother’s arm. “Mom?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” Clarabelle said.

  Meg scanned her friends again. “Should we go up to my apartment?”

  “Your father said some things to me today that were very hurtful,” Clarabelle said. “He blew up at me, said I was the biggest nag he’d ever met and he was quote ‘sick and tired of me crushing his spirit.’ ”

  Crushing his spirit? Her father should have known better than to use words like that with Clarabelle. They were too . . . froufrou. Meg laughed. She couldn’t help it.

  “It’s not funny,” Clarabelle said. “He took a suitcase with him when he left.”

  Ah, Meg thought. That answered the question as to when he planned to leave. “Do you know where he went?”

  “Probably to his horrible girlfriend’s house!” Clarabelle burst into fresh tears. “And don’t tell me he’s not having an affair, because he is! I know it! Talking all the time about quote ‘second acts’ and ‘pursuing one’s passions.’ Those aren’t your father’s words. He doesn’t have passions! Someone’s brain-washing him.”

  Meg sighed. Her mother as a woman scorned was going to be ugly. “Mom, I’m sure he’s—”

  Henry stuck his head around his lounge chair. “Yo! Mama! Can we watch our movie now?”

  “Not the best timing, bud,” Meg called.

  Henry came over and tugged on her arm. “Movie time.”

  “Go ahead. Don’t mind me.” Clarabelle waved them off, but more tears spilled from behind her sunglasses.

  “Grandma?” Henry took a worried step toward her.

  Clarabelle covered her mouth to hold back her emotions. Meg took a big breath and asked a question she very much did not want to ask. “Do you want to stay and watch Harry Potter Five with me and Henry?”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t.” Clarabelle knew what a ritual their movie night was, and she’d never been invited before. But then she took off her sunglasses and looked at Meg with her raw red eyes. “Could I?”

  “Yes,” Meg said. “Tonight, you can.”

  “Awesome!” Henry said. “Three spoons for the ice cream!”

  It happened just as Meg had imagined in the past, with all three of them crawling into her bed, Henry in the middle. They dimmed the lights, dug into the ice cream, and it wasn’t so bad.

  Halfway through the movie, Clarabelle fell asleep.

  When Meg woke the next morning, she was gone. Meg couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for Clarabelle to arrive at an empty house and couldn’t help but think her mother wouldn’t like it much at all.

  There was a cloudy sky and a November chill in the Old Pueblo that Saturday morning and Meg was glad she’d gotten a cup of coffee from LuLu’s to warm her insides during Henry’s soccer game. It was Ahmed’s first game as coach and Henry was sure they were going to win. Meg was less so. They’d practiced twice that week and certainly had improved, but an actual win would be remarkable.

  When they arrived, Meg waved to Ahmed and took a spot on the sidelines, stomping her feet to keep warm. Henry, his cheeks wholesomely flushed, trotted over to Ahmed, who put his hand on Henry’s shoulder and drew him into the team warm-up. Ahmed was undeniably sexy in his cuddle-with-me blue flannel shirt, and Meg imagined the three of them cozied up around a fire later that day, sipping hot chocolate at Ahmed’s house. Henry would not get the middle spot.

  After setting the boys up with a drill, Ahmed called the parents to gather around him. “We need some ground rules for today’s game,” he said. “We’ve worked very hard this week at practice to get the boys to stay in their positions. We can’t have them running around all bunched up like they have been, and part of the reason they do this is they’re hopelessly confused.”

  He scanned the circle of parents, his expression serious. “You can clap,” he continued. “And you can cheer if they score, but I don’t want you to yell anything while they’re playing. Not good job or get it or throw to so-and-so. They need to listen to me, to do what I tell them. Beyond that, they need to figure out how to play on their own. If they’d just stay in their positions, we might actually win once in a while. Can everyone agree to this?”

  All the parents nodded. “Good idea, Coach,” Catherine said.

  Meg upped her one. “Great idea, Coach.”

  Ten minutes into the game, the boys were playing their positions admirably. They hadn’t scored yet, but neither had the other team. It had been a hell of a week for Meg and she actually found it pleasant to be relieved of the burden of cheering. She sipped her coffee and spaced out a bit until someone spoke into her ear, startling her.

  “Who’s winning?” It was Clarabelle.

  “Hey—hi!” Meg said.

  “Henry invited me,” Clarabelle said.

  “Good,” Meg said. “I’m glad.” She wasn’t, of course. She’d been delaying the moment her mother and Ahmed met, since Clarabelle so rarely had kind words to say about anyone. “How are you today? Heard from Dad?”

  “Pfff,” Clarabelle said. “If I never hear from him again, it’ll be too soon.” She eyed Ahmed. “Is that him? Your man friend? You never said he was so handsome.”

  Meg looked at her mother in surprise. “Thank you. He’s exactly my type.”

  “Exactly your new type,” Clarabelle clarified.

  “Right,” Meg said.

  “He looks almost Mexican.”

  “Well, he’s not.” Meg sipped her coffee and shifted her attention back to the game in hopes of preserving the fragile peace between them.

  “Oh! Did you see that?” Clarabelle said. “Henry almost got it in! GO, HENRY!”

  “Shhh,” Meg said. “We aren’t supposed to cheer.”

  “Not cheer? That’s ridiculous!” Clarabelle raised her voice to a yell. “Over there, Henry! To that big kid over there—number twelve!”

  Ahmed’s head snapped around. He looked from Meg to Clarabelle, who smiled broadly. “I don’t think he’ll reprimand me, do you?” Clarabelle said this out of the corner of her mouth as she waved to him. Meg shrugged at Ahmed apologetically. He gave her a wink and turned his attention back to the game.

  When her cell phone rang, Meg was glad for the interruption. She fished her phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Meg, it’s Jonathan.”

  Meg gasped. Had she really just been glad for the interruption? I take it back, she thought desperately. I take it back and then s
ome. Helpless, she watched as Henry made a great shot, scored a goal and ran straight to Ahmed for a high-five slap. For the first time that season, their team was in the lead.

  “Meg?”

  Stop saying my name. Meg walked away from her mother and tossed her coffee cup at the garbage can, missing it. “How did you get this number?” If a voice could be icy and shaky at the same time, hers was.

  “I have my ways.” Jonathan’s tone was supposed to be teasing. “How are you today?”

  She’d been a hell of a lot better a minute ago. How was she supposed to answer that—instantly soul-withered by the sound of your voice?

  “What do you keep calling me for?” she asked. “And why now?”

  “We have some unfinished business,” he said.

  “We had unfinished business ten years ago,” Meg said. “Now there’s nothing between us.”

  “Except our son.”

  Meg gasped. “How dare you even refer to him as your son?”

  “We need to meet.”

  Meg’s blood ran cold as her eyes seized upon Henry, whose hair curled at the ends just like Jonathan’s, whose long fingers and blue eyes were his, his, his. That was what Jonathan was after: the boy whose name he dared not speak. All of a sudden, Meg was sure of it.

  “No,” she said.

  “Come on, Meg,” he said. “Please.”

  “Funny, your use of the word please,” she said. “It never worked when I used it on you.” She’d begged him that last weekend. Please, just tell me what I did wrong. Please, let’s try to work this out. Please, don’t make me raise this baby by myself.

  “I’ll never let you near my son,” she said.

  “Who do you think gave me this number, Meg?” Jonathan asked.

  “I have no goddamned clue.” Her heart pounded in terror. There’d been an implication in his question that she didn’t like one bit.

  “Henry called me last weekend,” Jonathan said. “He’s the one who asked me to get in touch with you.”

  “He wouldn’t.” Meg felt light-headed. Dizzy. In danger of floating away. “He doesn’t care a thing about you and he knows you’re not worth our time.”