One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  Remember that?

  You’re a proper guy, conscious always of how you present yourself. And the Arizona Inn’s a fancy place, where one speaks in a low voice and has to work to keep up with the politeness of the waitstaff. It’s elegant. Hushed. Refined. Three things my boy is not.

  And oh, that grand piano in the lounge! You can hardly blame a boy for sneaking over to play it. Dun, dun, dun, da-da-da-dada-da-dun-dun-dun. “Heart and Soul,” the beginner’s joyful duet, played alone.

  Even as he smiled the gracious smile that was part of his job description, the barkeep’s eyes were unamused. A patron or two looked over to see if we’d rein that boy in, and inside myself, I cringed.

  So smoothly you went to him, Ahmed, and slid onto the bench beside him. You had him begin again. A duet’s meant for two, after all. Henry played the Heart part of the song, and you played the more complicated Soul.

  Seeing you together like that, father and son no matter what any birth certificate said, made my father’s eyes fill with tears. He’s a keeper, Magpie, he said, clamping his hand on mine.

  I told him I already knew you were a keeper.

  Henry’s got my heart, Ahmed—but you’ve got my soul.

  One day the next week after school, Meg and Henry stopped at Whole Foods because it was their turn to bring fruit of the organic variety to soccer practice. Meg was still opposed to the organic fruit rule, both philosophically and practically.

  Henry begged for the $4.99-a-pound plums and when Meg said no, he pleaded for the $3.99-a-pound grapes, to which she also said no. “We’re getting bananas,” she said. Bananas were three times cheaper than the grapes, and still ridiculously expensive in her opinion.

  “Bradley hates bananas,” Henry said.

  “Boo-hoo for Bradley.”

  “Why can’t we ever get what I want?” he complained.

  “Henry.” She fixed her best surely-you’re-kidding look on him. “Did you forget about the very expensive iPod you just got?”

  “Doh!” Henry gave himself a dope slap on the forehead. “Oh, yeah!”

  Meg laughed. “It was not a cheap gift and I am not a rich woman,” she said. “And I’m not spending twenty bucks on fruit for a bunch of nine-year-olds. I’m just not.”

  “Can I at least get some Naked Juice?” Henry pointed to a refrigerated display. “I had it at Bradley’s and it’s really good.”

  “What’s Naked Juice?”

  “Oh my God, it’s so good. It’s got tons of fruit in it, like five or six pieces of fruit in one bottle, and it’s sooooo good. Grandpa drinks it, too. I had some at his office. Please?”

  “Bring me a bottle,” she said. “Let me see it.”

  As Henry rushed off to get it, Meg counted out the requisite number of organic bananas. She’d noticed an old lady lingering near the peaches who’d seemed to be eavesdropping on her conversation with Henry. Now the woman leaned over to Meg and held out a peach to her.

  “Smell this,” she said.

  Dutifully, Meg took the peach and raised it to her nose. Its pungency was remarkable. “This smells wonderful.”

  “I was remembering my mother,” the old lady said. “She loved peaches but hated the fuzz, so I always had to peel her peaches for her. Peaches just aren’t as fuzzy as they used to be, except for these organic ones. Only the organic ones smell like this anymore, either.” She picked up another peach and held it to her nose. Meg was sure the old lady was back sixty years ago in her childhood kitchen with her long-dead mother, and she stifled the urge to cry.

  “I used to refuse to eat apple peels,” Meg said. “My dad bought this humongous apple peeler which my mother hated, and he attached it to the kitchen counter, and he’d peel my apples so the skin would wind around like a snake and dangle in one long, curvy string. It was the neatest thing.”

  “Is your father still alive?” the woman asked.

  “He is,” Meg said.

  “Then treasure him.” The woman gingerly put the peach she was holding back onto the display. “I never did much care for peaches, myself.”

  Henry bounded back. “Here it is, Mom. Can we get it?”

  Meg wrinkled her nose as she examined the bottle. “It’s green, Henry.”

  “Grandpa says green stuff’s really healthy,” he said. “It’s superfood.”

  “And you think that just because you’re a super kid you should have superfood?”

  “Ma-om!”

  “Yes, you can get the Naked Juice. Go get one for Ahmed, too, because he’s a super soccer coach.”

  Henry headed off, and Meg tore off a plastic Baggie. She’d decided to buy a few peaches.

  “He’s a beautiful boy,” the woman said.

  “Thank you,” Meg said. “He’s got his father’s eyes.”

  Meg was astounded when she said it, despite the fact that it was absolutely true.

  Soccer practice had turned into one of Meg’s favorite ways to pass the time because it gave her ninety unobstructed minutes to ogle Ahmed. The more intimately she knew his body, the more tantalizing she found him. He was so darn ogle-worthy it wasn’t funny.

  In the car on the way home after practice, Meg smelled the distinct odor of manufactured watermelon. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Henry pop a piece of the gum Jonathan had given her into his mouth.

  “Where’d you get that?” she said.

  “From your purse.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to go in my purse without asking, Henry.”

  He grinned at her. “Can I have a piece of gum?”

  “No, you may not.”

  “You need to get better about sharing, Mom.” He blew a bubble at her, which exploded on his nose.

  “Serves you right,” she said. “Not to brag, but I’m probably the best bubble-gum blower in all of Tucson.”

  “Not for long,” Henry said.

  By the time they arrived at the apartment complex, Henry had three pieces of gum in his mouth and couldn’t even chew with his mouth closed. As they passed the manager’s office, Harley was just locking up.

  “Hey, Meg,” he said. “Perfect timing. You’ve got a delivery in the office.”

  “I do? Who’s it from?”

  “New York.”

  Jonathan. Meg could feel her breath escaping.

  “New York’s not a person,” Henry pointed out.

  “Henry, why don’t you run along and see if you can find Violet? I’ll be at the Loop Group table in just a minute.”

  Henry looked at her for a long moment and she could tell he was deciding whether to cut her a break. Her face must have been pale, or tense, or frightened, because Harley studied her with interest and then told Henry to be off.

  When Harley tried to give her the envelope, Meg recognized Jonathan’s handwriting and wouldn’t take it. “This will be the demand for visitation he swore he didn’t want.” After swearing Harley to secrecy, Meg told him about Jonathan’s visit. “I was a total pushover, all because he gave me a pack of bubble gum.”

  She asked Harley to open the envelope for her and braced herself as he slit it open and pulled out the card inside. She tried to extrapolate from his expression what sort of reaction its contents warranted, but Harley kept his face neutral as he scanned it.

  “Well?” she said. “How bad is it going to get for me?”

  Harley looked up and gave her a broad grin. “Happy birthday,” he said. “Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, all rolled into one.”

  Meg’s heart thundered. “What’re you talking about?”

  Harley roared with laughter and then read the card out loud. “‘Dear Meg, It was great seeing you. You’re as beautiful as ever. Since you didn’t like the gum—Regards, Jonathan.’”

  “I don’t get it,” Meg said.

  Harley laughed again. “He sent you a check, Meg. For a hundred thousand dollars.” He separated the check that was paper-clipped to the card and waved it at her. “You’re rich!”

&nb
sp; Feeling the room spin, Meg leaned against his desk. “Please don’t joke.”

  “It’s no joke.” Harley read from the check. “ ‘Pay to the order of . . . Meg Clark, one hundred thousand dollars.’ Here. See for yourself.”

  He thrust the check at her. Meg counted. One, two, three, four, five zeros after the one.

  She stared at Harley, then at the check, then at Harley again.

  One

  Hundred

  Thousand

  Dollars

  Signed, Jonathan Clark.

  RE: Services rendered.

  Jonathan had scrawled the note at an angle, casually, as if in a hurry. As if a hundred thousand dollars meant nothing to him.

  “This is what he owes me in back child support,” she said. “Where would a public defender get his hands on this kind of money?” As soon as she said it, Meg knew. It was from his inheritance.

  “Who cares?” Harley said. “Just deposit it before he changes his mind and puts a stop payment on it.”

  A hundred thousand dollars was crazy money. It was run-away-to-Paris money. Get-big-screen-TVs-for-every-room money. It was buy-a-house money. It was money in the bank. A safety net. Breathing room.

  Meg called Jonathan that night after Henry was asleep. She took a blanket out to the patio, wrapped herself in it and called him. His hello was sleepy.

  “Did I call too late?” Meg said. It was after midnight in New York. “You used to be such the night owl.”

  “I’d just gone to bed,” he said.

  “Is that check for real?” she asked.

  Jonathan chuckled. “It’s for real.”

  “Are you trying to buy your way back into my life?”

  “That’s not why I sent it, Meg,” he said. “I sent it because I owe you.”

  “You’re trying to cancel out in the span of a week all the years you did me wrong,” she said.

  “I’m trying to rewrite history.”

  “But you can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can,” Jonathan said. “People do it all the time.”

  She tried to imagine him at that moment, in an apartment in a big city, alone in the darkness under the covers, lying flat on his back in his bed, talking to her on the phone. He’d be naked, since he’d always slept in the nude. It’s lonely being naked alone.

  “You know what hurt the most?” Meg said. “How you never called me. Not even once. It made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything. I was carrying our baby, and you couldn’t have cared less.”

  “I thought about you nearly every hour of every day for years,” Jonathan said. “I swear it’s true.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I knew the exact minute Henry was born,” he told her. “I was in Central Park and there were these kids on a swing. They kept going higher and higher, red coats, big smiles, and they’d caught my eye, and all of a sudden, I felt this warmth in my heart. I don’t know how else to describe it. I just knew he’d been born. I called your sister later that day, and sure enough, I’d finally put some good out into this godforsaken world with the birth of our son.”

  “It doesn’t do me a bit of good to hear this now,” Meg said. “And it should have been me you called that day, not my sister.”

  “I thought your father would kill me.”

  “What am I supposed to do with a hundred thousand dollars?” she asked.

  “Pretty much anything you want.”

  “But the same holds true for you,” Meg said. “This is life-changing money.”

  “I did what I wanted with the money,” Jonathan said. “I gave it to you.”

  “As part of your feeble attempt to rewrite history?”

  “That’s right.” It was good to hear him laugh. “Although I was going for heroic.”

  “Heroic’s a stretch.” Meg smiled into the darkness beyond her patio. “But it’s a start. I’ll give you that.”

  Meg hid the card and check in her kitchen junk drawer underneath the “Mothering the Fatherless Boy” article her mother had given her. Hidden yet handy, she could examine it as often as she wanted. A hundred thousand dollars. With that kind of money, a person could right a lot of wrongs.

  Meg began with Amy. Ever since she’d blown up at her for still being in touch with Jonathan, things had been eggshelltiptoey between them. Amy had worked so hard to prepare her usual excellent Thanksgiving dinner. Meg hadn’t been very appreciative and she’d felt bad ever since. Jonathan had always been exceptionally kind to Amy—because of his urging, she’d gotten her first of eventually three poems published in The Sun.

  So Meg made reservations for the two of them at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa at the Westin La Paloma. Amy found a babysitter and met her there. Meg had offered Ahmed a multitude of sexual favors in exchange for watching Henry for a little while before and a little while after soccer practice. He assured her the favors were appreciated but not necessary.

  When Meg arrived at the Westin, Amy was already there and she threw her arms around Meg. “I don’t deserve this treat. I haven’t been a very good sister. I’m sorry for going behind your back and being in touch with Jonathan all these years.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” Meg said. “As Dad says, it’s really none of my business if you and Jonathan are still on friendly terms.”

  “It’s really none of Dad’s business,” Amy said. “But whatever.”

  “Are you ready?” Meg kept up her spirit of enthusiasm as she looked at the bright red door through which they would walk. Tall and wide, the door alone made her feel out of her league. Plus, she didn’t especially like people waiting on her, but perhaps, like dark chocolate, it was an acquired taste. “Should we go pick our pampering?” she asked.

  “This isn’t cheap,” Amy warned.

  “Maybe I came into a little money,” Meg said.

  “Well?” As Amy waited expectantly, Meg imagined in a flash what she’d experience in reality if she told Amy about the money: her heart would quicken at the sharing of her secret. You’ll never believe it, she’d say. But you can’t tell anyone. Amy’s eyes would widen. She’d squeal. Clutch her. Congratulate her. Tell her how lucky she was. Say, See, he’s not such a bad guy.

  Which perhaps was true. But even if Jonathan was no longer her bad guy, Ahmed was still her good guy, and she hadn’t as yet been able to bring herself to tell him she’d seen Jonathan. He’d been sad and worried that night she’d told him about Jonathan’s call, and while she was relieved she’d told him about it, she had to believe that her seeing Jonathan would bother Ahmed—especially being told after the fact, especially after he’d told her how important truthfulness was, especially since the secret meeting was followed up by an outrageously large check. Every hour that went by, Meg felt as if she was lying by not telling him and resolved again that she’d tell him . . . but still, the hours ticked on by and still he didn’t know. So now she was lying to herself, too.

  But Meg decided that until she told Ahmed, she wouldn’t tell anyone else.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you another time,” Meg said to Amy. “For now let’s treat ourselves well.”

  Faking bravery, she pulled open the poppy red door. As she approached the receptionist, she felt like a kid tiptoeing behind the altar at church. This was not a place where she belonged. The lobby furniture alone probably cost more than the hundred thousand dollars she’d been given.

  After they checked in, they took the menu of spa options to a red leather couch and huddled together, examining it. Abhyanga—what the heck was that? Shiatsu? Reiki? These were not words from Meg’s world. Craniosacral must have something to do with the head—a fifty-minute head massage? No, thanks. And if she wanted hot stones on her body, couldn’t she just lie down on a hiking trail somewhere in the desert?

  “Is anything jumping out at you?” she asked Amy.

  “The Signature Stress Melter Ritual’s got my name all over it,” Amy said. “But it takes almost two hours, so it wouldn’t leave time for anything else.” She m
ade a boo-hoo face.

  “You wanted a facial and a hand-toe thing, too, didn’t you?” Meg said.

  “A mani-pedi, you mean?”

  “Whatever,” Meg said. “I guess I failed spa talk one-oh-one in college.” She bit her lip as she looked around the plush lobby. “I hate it when places don’t list prices.”

  “Let’s ask,” Amy said.

  Meg shook her head, knowing the prices would start her on her usual downward spiral. For this money, she could buy every student in her class a new pair of shoes . . . or five days of college for Henry . . . or immunizations for all of Africa. No, it was better not to know.

  “For once, I want to make a decision about something that isn’t based on money,” she said. “Or my lack of it, which is more often the case. Whatever it costs, we deserve it.”

  “I think that’s a really bad idea.” Amy went to the reception desk and looked over the price list. After studying it, she said something to the receptionist and sat back down next to Meg. “You know what I’d really like? A piece of chocolate raspberry mousse cake.”

  Meg looked around for the cafe. “I didn’t realize they served food here.”

  “They don’t, you goof,” Amy said. “I’m talking about at AJ’s.”

  Ah, AJ’s Fine Foods, for fine, rich people. “I don’t think we’re going to have time to go there, too,” Meg said.

  “I mean I’d rather do that than this.” Amy put her hand on Meg’s knee. “I’m really touched you brought me here, but this isn’t me. It’s just not how I’d ever choose to relax. I’d rather take a nap. Or even better, I’d rather have coffee and dessert—with my sister and without my kids. Would you mind horribly if we did that instead?”

  Mind? Heck, no. No arm-twisting necessary. “That’s fine with me,” Meg said. “As long as you’re not saying it just because of the cost.”

  “I’m not,” Amy promised. “Every time we’re at AJ’s, I let the girls pick whatever dessert they want—anything—and I always say, Make sure you get what you really, really want, because Mommy’s not sharing. And then they pick a chocolate-chip cookie or some stupid thing, and before I’ve even taken the first bite of my chocolate raspberry mousse cake, they poke their fingers in it to lick the frosting. It drives me crazy! Can’t I have anything all to myself? Just a friggin’ piece of cake—is that asking for too much?”