In the Age of Love and Chocolate

by Gabrielle Zevin

  I put my hand over my heart. “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. But there has been an incident. Several incidents, I should say. Everyone on staff has decided that it’s best if she comes home early. The purpose of my call is to ensure you’ll be there when she arrives.”

  “What kind of incidents?” I asked.

  All the Things Natty Had Done

  1. Failed to participate in science and math labs

  2. Generally disrespected staff and other campers

  3. Was caught with chocolate on the campus

  4. Was caught in a boy’s room after hours

  5. Snuck out of camp, stole the camp’s van, and drove it into a ditch

  The last and latest incident had marked the official end of genius camp’s patience.

  “Is she hurt?” I asked.

  “Bumps and bruises. The van made out less well. I love your sister, and she had such a success here last summer that everyone, myself included, tried to ignore it when she started having trouble. I probably should have called you sooner.”

  I wanted to yell at Miss Bellevoir for not watching Natty closely enough, but I knew this wasn’t rational. I bit my lip, which was chapped and began to bleed.

  * * *

  Natty arrived at the apartment at six the next night, which was a Sunday. My sister was pretty banged up. She had bruises on her cheek and forehead and a deep cut on her chin. “Oh, Natty,” I said.

  She opened her arms as if to hug me, but then her face morphed into a snarl. “For God’s sake, Annie, don’t look at me that way. You’re not my mother.” She stalked to her bedroom and slammed the door.

  I gave her ten minutes before I knocked.

  “Go away!”

  I turned the knob, which was locked. “Natty, we need to talk about what happened.”

  “Since when do you want to talk? Aren’t you Miss Stiff Upper Lip? Miss Keep Everything Inside?”

  I picked the lock on Natty’s door with the nail we kept over Leo’s (now Noriko’s) room.

  “Go away! Can’t you please leave me alone?”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  She pulled the blanket over her head.

  “What happened this summer?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I had not gone into her room for a while. It was like two people lived there: a child and a young woman. There were bras and dolls, perfume and crayons. One of Win’s hats, a gray fedora, hung from a hook on the wall. She had always liked his hats. Next to the mirror was a periodic table, and I noticed that she had circled some of the elements.

  “What do the circles mean?” I asked.

  “They’re my favorite ones.”

  “How do you choose?”

  She emerged from under the covers. “Hydrogen and oxygen are pretty obvious. They make water, which is the source of life, if you care about that kind of thing. I like Na, sodium, and Ba, barium, because those are my initials.” She pointed to Ar, which wasn’t circled. “Argon is totally inert. Nothing affects it, and it has a hard time forming chemical compounds, i.e., having relationships. It’s a loner. It doesn’t ask for anything from anybody. It reminds me of you.”

  “Natty, that isn’t true. Things affect me. I’m upset right now.”

  “Are you? It’s hard to tell, Argon,” Natty said.

  “Maybe the point is, it doesn’t matter what happened to you at camp. Summer is summer. Summer is never real life anyway.”

  “It isn’t?”

  I shook my head. “You had a bad summer. That’s all. School starts in a couple weeks. It’s your junior year, and I think it’s going to be a great one for you.”

  “Okay,” she said after a while.

  “I’ve got to go to the club, but I’ll be back later,” I said.

  “Can I come?”

  “Some other time,” I said. “I think you should rest up tonight. You look terrible, by the way.”

  “I think I look tough.”

  “Troubled maybe.”

  “Criminal. A real Balanchine.”

  I kissed Natty on the forehead. I had never been good with words. On the path from my heart to my brain to my mouth, phrases became twisted and hopelessly convoluted. The intent—what I meant to say—never quite made it out. My heart thought, I love you. My brain warned, How embarrassing. How foolish. How dangerous. My mouth said, Please go away, or worse, it made some senseless joke. I knew I needed to do better for Natty in this moment. “No, you’re nothing like that,” I said. “You’re the smartest, best girl in the world.”

  * * *

  Instead of taking the bus, I walked to the club. It was after dark and a bit late to be walking alone, but even Argon the Seemingly Unaffected sometimes needed to clear her head. I was halfway there, almost to Columbus Circle, when it began to rain. My hair frizzed, but I didn’t care. I loved New York City in the rain. The rotten smells faded, and the sidewalks looked almost clean. Colorful umbrellas sprouted like upside-down tulips, and the windows of the empty skyscrapers shone, if only for the night. In the rain, it did not seem possible that we might run out of water, or that anyone you loved could truly be gone forever. I believed in the rain.

  As I walked, I thought of Natty and whether I had said and done the right things this evening. I had been miserable at that age. My parents were dead, and Nana’s condition had been getting worse every day. At school, my only friend was Scarlet. I had been obsessed with the idea that everyone was insulting me, and maybe some of them were. I got in and picked fights constantly. (In retrospect, it is amazing I was not tossed out of Holy Trinity years earlier.) At fourteen, I was not at the height of physical attractiveness either—I was a big head of hair and a too-round face and breasts that were still in the process of figuring out how to be breasts. By the time I was fifteen, I had improved looks-wise, and that was the year I started dating Gable Arsley, who had been my first real boyfriend and the first boy to say I was pretty. See, the rain was so clever it could even trick me into having a nice memory about Gable.

  I was walking up the steps that led to the club when a man emerged from the darkness and grabbed my hand. “Anya, where is Sophia?” He pulled me roughly behind one of the headless-lion statues that guarded the entrance.

  It was Mickey Balanchine, my cousin and Sophia Bitter’s husband. He had lost weight and even in the dark, his skin seemed jaundiced. I hadn’t seen him since he and Sophia had abruptly left the city months ago. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to wrest my hand from his, but he pulled me closer. I could smell his breath, which was sickly sweet and strangely repellent. It reminded me of wet leather.

  “We were in Switzerland opening a new Bitter factory,” he said. “We were staying in a hotel, and one morning she went down to breakfast with her bodyguard, but she didn’t come back. I know you think she tried to kill you—”

  I interrupted. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “But she’s still my wife and I need to find her.”

  “Listen, Mickey, you’re not making any sense. I haven’t seen you or her in months, and I have no idea where she is.”

  “I think you kidnapped her in retaliation.”

  “Kidnapped her? I wouldn’t kidnap her. I’m opening a business. I don’t have time to kidnap anyone. Believe it or not, I haven’t thought about her in months. I’m sure a woman like that has enemies other than me.”

  Mickey pulled out a gun and poked it into my ribs near my heart. “You have every reason to wish Sophia ill, but the only way we can help each other is if you tell me where she is.”

  “Mickey, please. I honestly have no idea. I honestly—” I started reaching for the machete that I kept in my backpack during the summer months. Without a coat, I couldn’t strap the weapon to my belt—too obvious. I had never gotten around to acquiring a sheath.

  Another voice said, “Mickey Balanchine, welcome home. There’s a gun pointed at the back of your head so I suggest you drop your weapon.” Mr. Del
acroix was pushing an object into Mickey’s skull, but even in the darkness, it didn’t look like a gun to me. It was a bottle of something. Wine? “Unless there’s somebody else with you, I suggest you drop the gun. You’re one against two, and I know Ms. Balanchine is probably itching to pull out that machete she thinks no one knows about.”

  “I’m alone,” Mickey said as he slowly lowered his weapon.

  “Good man,” Mr. Delacroix said.

  “I don’t want to hurt her,” Mickey said. He coughed and the sound was deep and rattling. “I only want information.” Mickey set the gun on the ground, and I picked it up. Despite how this scene may appear, I was not particularly happy to have Mr. Delacroix’s intervention at that moment. I did not believe my cousin would shoot me nor did I want Mr. Delacroix involved with the Family in any way. Frankly, his hero act annoyed me. I saw through it. As I had known when I asked him to work for me, Mr. Delacroix was self-interested above all else, and it felt false for him to pretend otherwise. Besides, I did not require heroism—I had been the hero of my life for some time.

  “If that’s true, come inside and discuss the matter like a civilized person,” Mr. Delacroix said to my cousin. “We’re all getting soaked, and you look as if you might get pneumonia if we stay out here much longer.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Once the three of us were inside, I went to the guard’s station to tell Jones, who ran security for the club, that I needed him to stay with Mickey.

  Our party now expanded by one, we went up the stairs and past the club space to my office. I unlocked the door and told Jones and Mickey to wait inside. I then went back out to the hallway to dismiss Mr. Delacroix for the evening. He handed me a thin towel that must have come from the club’s kitchen.

  “You need personal security,” he said. “I’m not going to be around to rescue you—”

  I interrupted him. “I’m glad you bring that up, Mr. Delacroix. I wanted to remind you that you were not hired for heroics.”

  “Heroics?” he asked. “Hired?”

  “Hired,” I said. “You are my employee.”

  “Your partner. I assume I understand the contracts I vetted.”

  “My share in this business is far greater than yours and I don’t need your permission to do anything.”

  He looked at me with an even expression. “Fine, Anya. What does madame require?”

  “Legal counsel,” I said. “Nothing more.”

  “So I understand my responsibilities … If I see you at night—let’s say it’s dark and stormy—and you are being attacked by a man I recognize as the mafiya cousin who may or may not have tried to murder you and your family, protocol dictates that I should”—he shrugged—“look the other way and let you die?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Now he interrupted me. “Good. I’m glad that’s cleared up.”

  “I wouldn’t have died. I haven’t died yet. I even survived being poisoned, if you can believe that.”

  “Be that as it may, as your legal adviser and only in that capacity—I wouldn’t want to overstep here—I think it would be useful for you to have security.”

  “You’re taking this the wrong way. I’m saying we need boundaries. Our roles need to be defined. I appreciate your need to know everything, but didn’t we both agree that it was better for the club and for you if there were some matters, and particularly ones involving the Family, that I kept from you?”

  He considered my question for a moment. “As you wish. What happened to that giant woman who used to follow you around?”

  “I let Daisy go.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Since I’m trying to do everything legally, I didn’t think it made the best impression to have a bodyguard with me. And I still believe this. I won’t walk around the city with a bodyguard like a two-bit gangster. You know perfectly well that appearances matter.”

  “You seem to have made up your mind,” he said. “I don’t agree, but I understand the rationale.”

  “Good night, Mr. Delacroix.”

  I went into my office. Mickey and Jones were crammed together on my love seat. I dried my hair with the towel Mr. Delacroix had given me, and then I handed the towel to Mickey so that he could use it, too.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” Mickey nodded toward the hallway.

  “Boyfriend? Are you kidding me? That’s Charles Delacroix. You must remember him from when he ran for district attorney back in ’83.”

  “Right, him.”

  “He lost and now he’s legal counsel for my club.”

  “Fancy,” Mickey said.

  “Boyfriend!” I was unnerved by the notion that anyone could think Charles Delacroix was my boyfriend. “That’s disgusting, Mickey. He’s probably twice my age, maybe more. He’s old enough to be my father. He’s Win’s father. Remember my ex-boyfriend Win?”

  “Hey, I don’t judge how people live their lives.” His eyes were glazed and unfocused. I felt like he was on the verge of passing out, and I needed to get information before he did.

  “Did you know about the plot to kill Natty, Leo, and me?” I asked.

  “No, I was in the dark as much as you. By the time I found out Sophia was involved, it had already happened. She convinced me that we had to run or the Family would kill me. She said that you were the most famous and the most beloved Balanchine and that the Family would surely take your side and happily tie up the loose end that I represented. She insisted that everyone would think I had orchestrated the plot because I had the most to gain from getting rid of Leonyd Balanchine’s children. So I went with her. Maybe it was dumb, but I didn’t have time to think and she is still my wife. But less than a month later, an old friend told me that you had let Fats Medovukha take over the Family, and then I knew that Sophia must have lied.”

  “Who else was involved?”

  “Yuji Ono, obviously.” Mickey coughed so hard I worried he might choke. I thought I saw drops of blood on the towel I had given him. “They were in love, you know.”

  There had been rumors, but all I knew for certain was that Yuji and Sophia had been schoolmates. “Anyone else?”

  “No. Not that I know of. No one important.”

  “Simon Green?”

  “The lawyer?”

  My father’s bastard, I wanted to say.

  “So many lawyers,” Mickey said. “Simon’s not the worst.” He coughed yet again and it sounded like his lungs were filled with marbles.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  “I think I caught something when I was overseas.”

  “Something contagious?” Jones asked. My head of security rarely felt the need to add commentary.

  “I don’t know,” Mickey said.

  Jones scooted as far away from Mickey as the love seat would allow.

  “Why are you looking for Sophia? If someone kidnapped her, you should leave well enough alone. Let her be gone,” I said.

  “I have unfinished business with her. I need to see her.”

  “Care to say what that business is?”

  “If she hasn’t been kidnapped, I think she set me up. She got me out of New York City so that Fats could take over. Maybe she thought you would take over, I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it.” Despite the fact that rain had cooled the late-summer night, Mickey was covered in sweat. “She—” He coughed again, but this time he expectorated an enormous clot of bloody sputum that bounced across my desk like a rubber ball.

  “Mickey, you’re not well,” I said, though that was more than evident. “Would you like a drink of water?”

  Mickey did not, or I should say could not, reply. His eyes rolled toward the back of his head, and his body convulsed.

  Jones looked at me without emotion. “Take him to the hospital, Ms. Balanchine?”

  “I don’t see what choice we have.” I had no particular love for my cousin, but I did not want him to die in my office either.

  * * *

  Three days l
ater, Mickey Balanchine was dead. He had outlived his father by less than a year. The official cause of death was an incredibly rare strain of malaria, but official causes of death are wrong all the time.

  (NB: For many reasons, I suspect poison.)

  III

  I ENLIST THE HELP OF AN OLD FRIEND; INDULGE IN A MOMENT OF DOUBT; GRAPPLE WITH THE CONCEPT OF DANCING; KISS A HANDSOME STRANGER

  “THE DOCTORS’ CREDO IS DO NO HARM,” Dr. Param said. “Well, a bit of chocolate never hurt a soul, and I’ll sign my name to that on as many prescriptions as you want.” He was sixty-two years old and losing his eyesight, which left him unable to perform surgery and thus willing to accept a position at the Dark Room. The seven other doctors I had hired had their reasons for working at my club, too—the most important reason and the one that they collectively shared was that they needed the money. Cacao could be used to treat everything from fatigue to headaches, from anxiety to dull skin. However, the unofficial policy of our club was to give prescriptions to everyone who was over eighteen and wanted one. For this service, we paid our doctors well and expected them not to scruple very much. I told Dr. Param he was hired. “This is a baffling world we live in, Miss Balanchine.” He shook his head. “I remember when chocolate became illegal—”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Param. I’d be superinterested in discussing this with you some other time.” The club was opening tomorrow and I had so much to do before then. I stood and shook his hand. “Please give your uniform size to Noriko.”

  I went down to the newly constructed bar and then passed through it to the immaculate kitchen. I had never seen such a resplendent kitchen anywhere in Manhattan. It was like a place out of an early twenty-first-century advertisement. Lucy, the mixologist, and Brita, the Parisian chocolatier I had hired, were frowning over a bubbling pot. “Anya, taste this,” Lucy said.

  I licked her spoon. “Still too bitter,” I said.

  Lucy swore and emptied the contents of the pot into the double sink. They were working on our signature drink. We had mostly finished the menu, but I felt we should have a house beverage. I hoped it would be as distinctive as the drinks I’d had in Mexico. “Keep trying. You’re getting closer, I think.”