ZAID AND MARYAM ~ Their Story

14 - Walks in the Garden

--- MARYAM SHEIKH ---

In the Khalid Mansion, they had around fifty servants running around the place, attending to the kids, dusting, bringing in fresh flowers and refilling the jars of hot Qahwa in the living room (Apparently, everyone here likes the Arabic coffee so much, but which I very much despise).  I even heard there was a personal maid for Noor and Eman.

So there was not much to do here other than listen to Amr's jokes which were way too cheesy or hear Baba questioning on Aziz's future plans.

By which he meant marriage of course.

I had met Baba earlier today,since I couldn't see him yesterday. He was the usual, cold, arrogant but somewhere I could still see the old witty and loving Baba in the twinkle in his eyes.

His main concern however was about Aziz's marriage and whether he plan to waste his life on his job until he was sixty years old and plans to live in with a younger girlfriend. Aziz found that very insulting.

"He's getting worse as he ages," muttered Aziz. "A girlfriend? In my SIXTIES? Is that how he thinks of his son?"

He brows knitted together with anger. We were taking a walk down the huge garden around the mansion and found a lot of interesting things.

"I think what he meant was," I offered, hoping to comfort him. "That you work too hard for the company anyways, and he's afraid you'll overwork yourself."

My family owned a publishing house which was inherited from my mom's family. The day Aziz turned eighteen years old, the company was handed over to him, thus blowing over his dream plans of college.

"Will you stop trying to describe Baba as this lovey dovey person?" Aziz demanded. "Because he sure is not!"

I stayed silent for a bit and gazed at the gardener who was watering a sort of grass. Conversations about Baba never ended well between me and Aziz. I know how wrong Baba is and how he manages to sabotage every plan of ours with his own well thought one. But sometimes, I can't help thinking if somehow, any how, the real person inside him, my real Baba would come.

I decided to change the topic quickly.

"But the real question is," I turned to Aziz who was throwing pebbles to the fountain in the garden. "The real question is, do you have a girlfriend?"

Aziz turned to me as if I was crazy.

"I mean someone in your mind perhaps, someone you cannot forget so easily?" I questioned, while playing with my fingers.

Aziz kept on throwing the stones and turned to me. "Actually there was but it was a long, long time ago."

I gasped and shrieked causing the gardener to look at us sternly. I quickly controlled myself. This is how our conversation went during the next few minutes,

"You had a girlfriend?"

"Well, kind of."

"And you never told me?"

"You were a child!"

"You mean to tell me-," I started.

"Wait, I can explain-," Aziz said nervously.

"-that you had a girlfriend and never bothered to TELL ME ALL THIS TIME?"

I was basically freaking out at this point that Aziz had to cover up  my mouth with my neck between his elbow and walk towards the duck pond.

Yes, there was a duck pond here too.

"Look its no big deal, we were just friends, " he declared, finally letting go of me. "But if Baba finds out,-"