One True Theory of Love (28 page)

“This is so cool! You’re the best!” He pulled out the silver iPod, gawked at it, then ran around the desk and almost knocked Meg over with the force of his hug. Then he ran into Phillip’s inner office. “Mom got me an iPod and it’s not even for my birthday!”

Phillip came to his doorway and eyed her. “Your mom’s day must have gone well.”

“His mom’s day went great.” Meg couldn’t say more, not with Henry around. “His mom is feeling like the world is hers for the taking. And the first thing I’m going to take is my son to dinner at his favorite restaurant.”

Henry’s mouth dropped open. “Chuck E. Cheese!”

Meg cringed. “I was thinking Macaroni Grill.”

“Yes!” Henry said. “I love Macaroni Grill!”

“Then that’s where I’m taking you.”

First, she’d take Henry to dinner and later, after he’d fallen asleep, maybe she’d call Ahmed and invite him over. Sneak him in. Take him, too.

The boy wore his best dress clothes and his high-top sneakers and sat at the table like a big kid. All of a sudden, he
was
a big kid—a player, just like us, a player in the game of life. When the grown-ups had tea after lunch, he did, too, sipping in rhythm with you, Ahmed sticking his pinky out, like you, setting his fragile porcelain teacup in its saucer with the softest of clinks. Like you, like you, like you.

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.

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.

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!”

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.”