Misdated

Chapter 1: The Casting Call

First Love

I was forty the first time I fell in love. Until then, maybe I believed I'd been in love before but didn't know what it was. Or maybe I just wanted to believe. When it happened to me, there was no doubt in my mind that this was love. It wasn't infatuation, like my therapist told me it was. It wasn't a dopamine hit that I was desperately seeking, as a Stella trying to get her groove back. 

Love is real. When it happens to you, it's obvious. I knew it was love when I realized that I'd never felt like this for anyone in all my forty years. I never felt someone's pain like a dagger in my heart every time they suffered even in the slightest. I never lost my breath at the fear of not being able to see them again. I never prayed in the early hours of the morning for someone's success. 

As a woman, I'd learned many things about love. I'd been told to put others first and to put my needs last. I'd been told that sacrifice pays off and that sacrifice is love. But most importantly, I'd been told that love does not conquer all except in fairy tales and Bollywood movies. 

I still believe that. But here's my story. 

The Farewell

I wasn't always rich. Quite the contrary, actually. My parents immigrated to Canada three years before I was born from an obscure country that nobody had heard of at the time.  That was before Osama Bin Laden put Pakistan on the map when he was found hiding out in my parents' hometown. 

But of course he was found in my parents' back yard. Because weird things always happen to me. It's like the universe is messing with me and I'm always waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a tree and tell me I've just been Punk'd.

But I digress. I was telling you about my parents. They immigrated over forty years ago  with a little less than a hundred dollars to their name. 

A lot can change in a generation, especially if you work hard enough. 

Tonight, the CN Tower shimmered in the Toronto skyline, behind the Mercedes Benz I was a passenger of, the tower becoming smaller and smaller as the Benz fled down the freeway to Pearson International Airport.

I tore my gaze away from Toronto's crystal night skyline and looked at my daughter, Zara, tucked in to a car-seat next to me in the Benz. 

Sammy Khan, the driver of the Benz, had to borrow a car seat from his sister that night. The leather seats of his Uber were usually child-seat free. He simply wasn't the kind of guy you'd ever imagine with a child seat in his car. Almost forty, I called him the eternal bachelor. 

 Even though Sammy and I were the same age, we were on completely different paths in life. Tonight, even our appearance and demeanor were quite different. I was as conventional as Sammy was flashy. I looked at my dumpy brown, loose long-sleeved crew neck t-shirt; a sharp contrast to Sammy's Raptors t-shirt and ripped jeans. I always felt like such a prude around Sam. He had a way of making me feel like an old hag. 

Lately, ride sharing had become a challenge. Many Uber drivers didn't have infant seats and refused to take passengers with kids, often leaving me and Zara stranded when they'd notice I had a child. But Sammy wasn't my Uber driver that muggy Toronto night. He was my cousin who insisted on driving me to the airport. We were close like that. We grew up like twins but if you put us next to one and other, you'd never even know we were related.