Page 21 of The Rules of Playing with Fire

“Goodnight.”

And that was it.

I brought my palm to my nose, and there he was, spicy, sexy, confident.

I had been down the relationship path before, and it hadn’t ended well. Actually, that was an understatement. It had almost destroyed me, my confidence, and my faith in myself. But a relationship wasn’t what I sought from Mihir. I wanted him for the same reason he’d been hitting on me all evening.

Once, during an inane conversation at Tara’s previous apartment, Sameer had joked about Mihir’s approach to relationships. Truth be told, his history of short-term attachments was the single most attractive thing about him right now. It would be exciting to have no-strings-attached fun again.

I trudged toward the guest room as images from my past flashed across my mind. There was no comparison, no overlap between my past relationships and tonight’s thrilling moments with Mihir.

The first man I had dated was controlling and abusive, and I’d been a naïve young college girl in awe of him. But it was my second relationship that I was most ashamed of. A self-defined feminist, I’d been on my way to getting a doctorate. I’d thought I was in a relationship of love and equality until he ended it with a bizarre excuse and a guilt-free conscience. After it was over, I’d revisited our year-long association, trying to think if there were any clues I’d missed—or if it was the unexpected 180-degree turn that had left me shattered.

It wasn’t the loss of the relationship that bothered me, though. I later realized I’d never really loved Ajay, because I hadn’t even trusted him with my past. It was the ease with which I had allowed myself to be fooled by him, the ease with which he was able to leave me humiliated. It was the hurt of the reasons he gave. I’d been so easily replaceable in his life that he had moved on swiftly. When I’d seen him unexpectedly a few months ago at a grocery store in Brooklyn, he was smiling and cooing to a light-skinned toddler perched in his shopping cart. I’d slipped away before he noticed me.

Tara’s suggestion of moving to Texas was starting to sound more and more appealing.

MIHIR

Icouldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like this.

I took great pride in my ability to organize and compartmentalize my life, a trait I’d inherited from my parents. Dad, a scholar and a thinker, owed his renown as a successful doctor to his rigorous methods. Mom was just as meticulously organized—in thought as in everyday life. She managed her writing, political activism, community service, and home with the ease of an efficient, ambitious multitasker.

There was a trick Mom had taught me when I was in middle school. I was a multipotentialite, a word I neither knew nor understood at that age. I’d only known that too many things gripped my interest, but I wasn’t adept enough to succeed at anything. One evening at the dinner table, I had lamented aloud that I was a scatterbrain.

“Why do you think that?” Mom had asked.

When I’d explained how I felt, she’d set a mother-son appointment for the following day after school. That afternoon, she’d introduced me to a technique.

“List everything you want to do,” she said, handing me a pencil and a sheet of paper.

Turned out, I was as ambitious as Mom. About twenty items turned up on that list.

“Now circle the five things you want to accomplish first,” she instructed with a smile.

It had taken me long minutes to narrow the list down to highlight my priorities. It added angst to my already damaging self-image as a scatterbrain, but Mom sat with me patiently as I circled and erased and circled again. Finally satisfied, I handed her the paper.

“Good. Now take this blank page and copy down the five things you’ve identified,” she said.

I did and showed her.

“Excellent. Now, pin this above your desk,” she’d said, handing me the shorter list. “Only focus on getting these five things done. I’m going to keep the original list with me. Once you’re satisfied you’ve met these five goals, we’ll tackle the other ones.”

That day had changed my life. Every single thing about that hour was still vivid in my memory. Mom’s bright smile, the exact shade of her lipstick, her loose cotton top with tiny pink and yellow flowers, the gentle smell of her expensive perfume—I remembered everything. She still wore the same perfume after all these years. It was her only indulgence, she’d once said.

At the top of that list was Memorize Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, which I had been struggling with for the past few weeks in my piano lessons. Symbolic, because piano still remained my greatest passion. It had taken me years, but I had become a proficient pianist.

Over the decades, I had achieved my goals, checked them off my list, and added more. I moved some around, and a few ended up at the bottom of the list. When I was younger, I’d seen Mom working on her stories, and I’d kept my sight on that goal for years, but Write a Novel had never materialized for me. It was only last year that I had finally pushed that dream to the bottom of the pile.

I was still a multipotentialite, but now, I was one with purpose. I knew what I wanted, and I knew how to arrive at it.

Perhaps that was the reason I left myself with no time for a committed relationship. Although, the boredom that came with committing to a single preoccupation was also a cause for concern. I was good at identifying, separating, and attending to my physical and emotional needs.

Now my mind was confused. I wanted Sona, but I couldn’t figure out why I wanted her. Her sweet smile, brilliant brain, and smart tongue made me desire her in ways I hadn’t considered important before. I wanted to see her smile, to share in her tears. I loved hearing her talk just as much as I imagined her in my bed. But when it was time to end it, would I be able to move on without losing a part of myself?

It was almost daybreak when my weary brain had a eureka moment: it was infatuation, plain and simple. I had needlessly spent the whole night agonizing over her when it was clear as the day slipping in that it was a harmless crush. As Tara’s friend, she was off-limits, which made her more attractive, almost like a challenge. Once I came to terms with that, I’d be able to get over her and move on. My dating routine would fall back in line, and my life would make sense again. The thought brought me peace. All I had to do was try and resist that temptation for a few days until she returned to New York. By the time I saw her again, she would be a laughable memory of a silly crush.

A crush at thirty-five. Chortling at the thought, I began to drift into sweet slumber.

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