forthree months in Indiana. An Egyptian boyfriend would be exotic forever. Hans taught me how to keep with the flow of bike traffic in Amsterdam and buy hard cheeses. Emad would teach me to ride a camel and buy spices from men in robes with monkeys on their shoulders. Iâd come home for the holidays with dusty suitcases full of magic lanterns and beads and dried mice. âThey eat them like peanuts over there,â Iâd explain. Thanks to Disneyâs version of
Aladdin
, I knew exactly what my future held.
Best of all, Iâd finally have a compelling reason to go to work besides free cookies: to see my boyfriend.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
Heading out the door for our date, I was excited because Emad had never seen me in anything except my hotel uniform and I was looking goooood. It was a rare moment where my chin wasnât broken out, my hair was taking the curl, and my skirt and shirt were the same shade of black. The gods must be pleased with the coming together of Emad and me.
My phone rang. It was Emad calling to ask if I could bring a friend for his best friend, Mikhas. âListen, Lauren, itâs Saturday night and Mikhas really needs to go out. I have to bring him.â Mikhas is Emadâs boss.
It was flattering that someone from upper management wanted to tag along, but a double date was not really what Iâd been hoping for, and it was a little last-minute.
None of my expat, artsy girlfriends were the âHey, put on your stockings, his friend wants a gal too, Madge!â sort. They were far too busy creating dance pieces about the AIDS epidemic as dreamt by Rumi. For a second, I thought about calling my single friend Rachel, an English painter who had just finished painting a series of âlonely flowers,â but sheâd just broken off a relationship because shedidnât like the guyâs hands. âHeâs got funny knuckles,â sheâd said. I couldnât remember what Mikhasâs hands looked like, so I didnât call, a decision I would deeply regret later that night when Mikhas was behind me in that sexual position made popular by sheep herders and the morbidly obese, and Emad was under me whispering, âI like you, I really like you. I mean, besides all of this.â
Emad is giggly on the phone as he says good-bye. Heâs nervous about our date, I thought. Or very high.
We met at Rum Runners. Nothing says romance in Amsterdam like Jimmy Buffett blasting in a Caribbean tourist bar. Also nothing says romance like bringing your manager from work with you. On the barstool next to Emad was Mikhas.
Emad continued to refer to the night as âour dateâ while the three of us sat and did round after round of Laser Beam shotsâa neon-green concoction that gives you that âlaser beam melting your organsâ feeling that the kids love.
Before the Laser Beams liquefied my insides, Emad told me he used to be an agricultural engineer back in Egypt. He lived in Libya for a while, married and divorced a white African woman, and moved to Holland.
I like him.
Mikhas and Emad kept excusing themselves to use the bathroom every few minutes. Any time one was gone the other would scoot his barstool over and whisper, âI like you, Lauren. I really like you. Oh! Here he comes!â It was hard enough for me to think of dealing with one guy falling in love with me, but two! Best friends and on the same night! Iâd read about this sort of thing in
Seventeen
magazine, but I never thought it would happen to me!
âTutti frutti, man!â Mikhas yelled as he ran out of the bar bathroom with a handful of flavored condoms. Mikhas and Emad high-fived each other.
Oh, wait a minute. Do these guys think . . . ?
By the time we got to my flat I was feeling woozy. All Iâd eaten that day was a stack of sugar cookies called
Jodenkoek
, which in Dutch means âJew cookies.â I hate to blame the Jews for