Bertha Sinclair turned to me and gave me a hug. “Good luck to you, Anya Balanchine. Good luck to you, my friend.” She squeezed my shoulder with a hand that felt like a claw.
XII
I AM CONFINED; REFLECT ON THE CURIOUS NATURE OF THE HUMAN HEART
THE MORNING OF MY RELEASE coincided with Imogen’s funeral. We drove straight from the pier to Riverside Church, where Mr. Kipling and I were to meet Simon Green and Natty. Immediately after the funeral, I was to begin my month of house arrest. I was wearing a black dress of Nana’s that Mr. Kipling had sent to Liberty for me. The dress was uncomfortably tight across my shoulders. All that machete wielding had bulked me up, I guess.
Riverside Church was about a mile north of the Pool, which was where the New York branch of the Balanchine Crime Family conducted its business. As we drove past the Pool, I gripped the car door handle and wondered if the people in there—my relatives—were the ones responsible for Imogen’s and Leo’s deaths.
The church was next to the river (hence the name Riverside), and the late January wind was sharp and brutal. When we got there, a cadre of press stood shivering on the steps.
“Anya, where have you been all these months?” a photographer yelled at me.
“Here and there,” I replied. I would never implicate my friends in Mexico.
“Who do you think killed Imogen Goodfellow?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” I said.
“Please, folks,” Mr. Kipling said. “This is a very sad day, and Anya and I just want to go inside to pay our respects to a beloved colleague and friend.”
Inside, there were only about fifty people, even though the venue probably seated fifteen hundred or more. Natty and Simon Green were in the back. I wedged myself between them, and Natty squeezed my hand. Natty had a coat draped over her shoulders. The coat wasn’t hers but I knew that coat all the same. I knew what it felt like to have my face pressed up against it. I knew what it smelled like—smoke and pine trees—and what it looked like when it hung on the shoulders of the boy I loved.
I looked down the row. On the other side of Natty sat Scarlet, with a slightly rounded belly and rosy cheeks. “Scarlet!” I whispered. Scarlet waved to me. I reached over Natty to set my hand on Scarlet’s abdomen. “Oh, Scarlet,” I said. “You’re…”
“I know. I’m enormous,” Scarlet replied.
“No, you’re lovely.”
“Well, I feel enormous.”
“You’re lovely,” I repeated.
Scarlet’s blue eyes grew glassy as a lake. “I’m so glad you’re home and safe.” She stood up and kissed me on the mouth. “My dear and best friend.”
Scarlet leaned her head back so that I could see the person on the other side of her: Win. Natty hadn’t just borrowed the coat.
I had known I would have to see him again, but I hadn’t known it would be so soon. I hadn’t had time to steel myself against him. My cheeks burned and I couldn’t think. I leaned over Natty and Scarlet and found myself stupidly holding out my hand to Win.
“You want me to shake your hand?” Win whispered.
“Yes.” I wanted to start the business of touching him. I wanted to touch his hand, then other things, too. But I figured we’d start with hands. “I … Thank you for coming.”
He grabbed my hand and we shook. When he tried to let go, I didn’t want to release him but I did.
During our separation, I had wondered if I even still liked him. This now seemed like little more than a pathetic coping mechanism. Of course I still liked Win. I more than liked him. The question was, could he possibly still like me? After all these things I’d done, I mean.
It was deeply wrong to have such concerns at a funeral, I know.
Win looked at me—his gaze was steady, if not overly warm—and he nodded formally. “Natty wanted us here,” he whispered.
My heart started to pound in my chest. The thrum was so hard and loud that I wondered if Natty and Scarlet could hear it.
At that moment, the funeral began, and we had to rise, and I reminded myself that Imogen, my friend, was dead, and that she had died saving my sister.
After the service, we went to the front of the church to pay our respects. “I’m so sorry,” I said to Imogen’s mother and sister. “Natty and I are both so sorry. Imogen took such good care of my grandmother and my sister. We’ll miss her more than we can even say.”
“I will always remember her books and how funny she was,” Natty piped up in a soft but strong voice. “I loved her and I’ll miss her so much.”
Imogen’s mother began to weep. Her sister pointed a finger straight at Natty and said, “You shouldn’t be here, girly. You got Imogen killed.”
At that point, Natty started to cry, too.
“You people!” Imogen’s sister spat the words at us. “You people are criminals! I told Imogen about you people, but she would never listen. ‘This family is a plague,’ I said. ‘It isn’t safe. There are other jobs.’ And look how she ended up!” the sister continued. “You people are the lowest, the worst.”
“Hey, that’s not called for,” Win defended us.
The sister turned to Win. “You’d be wise to run, young man. Run as fast as your legs will take you. Or you’ll end up just like Imogen.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said, in order to draw the focus away from Natty and Win.
The sister turned toward me. “There’s a circus out there, thanks to you! Go now, and take your filthy circus with you.”
I hustled Natty out of the church. Win put his arm around her. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You were very brave to come here. No matter what that woman said. It was the right thing to do.”
* * *
The apartment was not altered in any material respect from how it had been the morning I had left it, and yet it wore its difference like a widow wears a veil. Imogen was gone, and Leo would never return. As for me, I felt years older, though not particularly wiser.
“Remember, Annie, you can’t leave the apartment until February twenty-eighth without clearing it with me,” Mr. Kipling said.
As if I could forget. A tracker had been injected into my lower calf just north of my tattoo that morning, and the area was swollen and pink, like overly kissed lips. Still, there was a relief to being confined. I had time to contemplate my next move.
Simon Green told me that security had been hired to stand guard outside the apartment (just in case anyone tried to finish off Natty and me) and then both he and Mr. Kipling left. Scarlet and Win had gone straight home after the funeral.
“Isn’t it weird how quiet it is?” Natty asked.
I nodded. But it was also rather peaceful.
* * *
Early Sunday morning, before we even would have been up to dress for Mass had I not been confined, the doorbell rang.
Still drowsy, I stumbled down the hallway. I looked through the peephole. It was Win’s mother of all people, and behind her, Win. I was about to open the door when I stopped. Maybe this will seem strange to you, but I wanted to watch him without him knowing I was watching him. I hadn’t had the chance to really look at him at the funeral. He was still so handsome. His hair had grown out from the summer and he was wearing hats again—a red plaid wool hunting cap with furry earflaps! His coat was the same one from the funeral and from Fall Formal 2082. I loved that coat. I loved him in that coat. I wanted to unbutton it and crawl under the flap and button myself in and forget everything that had happened.
They rang the bell again, and I jumped back at the sound.
Natty came into the hallway. “Annie, what are you doing? Open the door!” She pushed past me and did just that.
Win and his mother were both carrying sacks. “Anya, hello!” Jane Delacroix said. “I hope you’ll forgive me but I’ve brought you and Natty some groceries and other things. I know it’s a difficult time for your family. And, in my small way, I wanted to help.”
“Please,” I said, “
come in.” I looked at the plump bags. “And thank you for this.”
“It isn’t much,” Win’s mother said. “The least I could do.”
Natty took Win’s bag, then she led Win’s mother into our kitchen.
Win hung back, as if he didn’t want to get too close to me. Maybe I was being paranoid though, maybe he was allowing me a respectful space. “I’m so sorry about your brother, and Imogen, too,” he said.
I nodded. I kept my gaze directed at his shoulder. Now that I wasn’t safely behind the door, I was almost scared to look into his eyes.
“My mother, she really did insist,” Win said. “I wasn’t planning to come until the afternoon.”
“I…” I felt sure I was about to say something really incisive, but nothing came. I giggled—yes, giggled—and I put my other hand over my chest in an attempt to muffle the sound of my stupid, dogged heart. “Win,” I said, “your father lost the election.”
He smiled, and I could see his pretty, pretty teeth. “I know.”
“Well, tell him when you see him that I’m not—” I giggled again; this giggling was getting embarrassing; I can only account for it by saying I was still not quite awake. “Say that Anya Balanchine isn’t at all sorry!”
Win laughed, and his eyes softened a bit around the corners. He took the hand that was over my heart and he pulled me in close to him until my face was up against that wool coat I knew so well. “I’ve missed you so long, Annie. You barely seem real to me. I’m worried I’ll turn around and you’ll disappear.”
“I’m not going anywhere for a while,” I told him. “House arrest.”
“Good. I’ll like knowing where you are. I like this new DA already.”
There were so many things to be sad and worried about, but at that moment, I couldn’t be sad and worried. I felt brave and sturdy and better around Win. It would be so easy for me to love him again. Abruptly, I pushed him away.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Win … What Imogen’s sister said at the funeral is true. The people around me do tend to get hurt. You know that.” I touched his hip with my fingertips. “We don’t have to start this whole thing up again. Just because you met a girl you liked in high school doesn’t mean you have to stay with her forever. I mean, no one does that. No one with any good sense at least. I”—I had been about to say something about how I considered myself to be a person with ample good sense but then I said something else—“I love you.” I did; I was certain. “I love you but I don’t want—”
Win interrupted me. “Stop,” he said. “I love you, too.” He paused. “You underestimate me, Annie. I’m not blind to your faults. You keep too many secrets, for one. You lie sometimes. You have trouble saying the things in your heart. You have an awful temper. You hold a grudge. And I’m not saying this next one is your fault, but people who know you have a disturbing tendency to end up with bullets in them. You don’t have faith in anyone, including me. You think I’m an idiot sometimes. Don’t deny it—I can tell. And maybe I was an idiot a year ago, but a lot has happened since then. I’m different, Anya. You used to say I didn’t know what love was. But I think I learned what it is. I learned it when I thought I had lost you over the summer. And I learned it when my leg ached something awful. And I learned it when you were gone and I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. And I learned it every night when I’d pray that you were safe even if I never got to see you again. I don’t want to marry you. I’m just happy to be near you for a while, and for as long as you’ll let me be. Because there’s never been anyone else for me but you. There will never be anyone else for me but you. I know this. I do. Annie, my Annie, don’t cry…”
(Was I crying? Yes, I suppose I was. But I was still so awfully tired. You can’t possibly hold this against me.)
“I know that loving you is going to be hard, Annie. But I love you, come what may.”
I looked him in his eyes, and he looked me in mine. His eyes were not the blindly adoring ones that had looked on me a year ago. They were clear. So were mine except for the fact that tears were starting to make everything blurry.
“So, do you like anything about me?” I asked.
He considered my question. “Your hair,” he said finally. “And you were a semi-decent lab partner last year. When you were around, that is.”
“I had to cut most of my hair off. It’s only half grown back.”
“I know, Anya. It’s a great loss.”
“Hair’s not much to build a relationship on anyway,” I said.
I rose up onto my tiptoes and I kissed him on the mouth. The first kiss was soft, but then I kissed him again. The second was so hard, my teeth cut into my lip and I could feel myself start to bleed. I lapped up the blood with my tongue and laughed. Win moved in to kiss me again. “Stop, Win!” I said. “I’m bleeding.”
“I didn’t think there’d be bloodshed this soon,” he commented.
I admitted that I’d hoped to avoid it.
“Maybe we should take it slow,” he said, as he pulled me to him again. “Make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Let’s do that,” I said. And then I took off his hat. He’d been wearing that silly hat this whole time. And I touched his hair, which was springy and silky and clean.
The heart is so very peculiar. How light and how heavy it can feel at the same time.
How light.
* * *
Re: the remaining twenty-nine days of house arrest. I couldn’t go out, which meant I couldn’t begin to address all the problems in my life. Win came over every day, and Scarlet came over most days, and the month passed quickly enough.
We played Scrabble, and Natty and I cried some, and I basically ignored everyone who tried to contact me. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to anyone yet.
About three weeks in, there was a snowstorm, the kind that makes everything stop in the city. Win somehow made it uptown and he stayed for three days.
I had been having trouble sleeping at night, thinking of Leo and of Theo and of Imogen and even sometimes thinking of the man I’d likely killed in the grove, and I was glad for Win’s company.
“Unburden yourself,” Win insisted. “Confess.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ll die if you keep it all in, and I want to know these things.”
I looked at Win. I could not visit a priest and I was tired of keeping secrets. And so I told him everything. I told him about growing cacao. I told him about the marriage proposal. I even told him about slicing off someone’s hand with a machete. What it had felt like to slice through human bone. What the hand had looked like there, lying in the grass. What the man’s blood had smelled like. I now knew that not everyone’s blood was the same.
“Do you think Yuji Ono was behind the killings?” Win asked.
“He said he wasn’t. And I think I believe him.”
“So was it Mickey? Or Fats? Or someone else entirely?”
“I think it was Mickey,” I said after a bit. “I haven’t heard from him since I got back to New York. And I imagine once I lost favor with Yuji Ono, Mickey might have thought he was avenging his father’s shooting by killing Leo.”
“You think the other shootings were just meant to scare, not kill?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Nothing has happened since then,” Win said. “Maybe all of this is over.”
But it wasn’t over. If Leo was dead, I had to make someone pay. I furrowed my brow, and Win ironed it out with his fingers.
“I can read your mind right now, Annie. If you go after whoever you think killed Leo, they’ll come after you or Natty. It won’t ever end.”
“Win, if I don’t go after them, they’ll think I’m weak. Why shouldn’t they just come back at me and Natty to finish the job? I’ll be holding my breath forever. I don’t want to seem like a person who can be trifled with.”
“What if you said you had no interest in the chocolate business? What if you said you were going back to school and then to co
llege to become a crime scene investigator and good luck to everyone else?”
“I wish I could…”
“Why? Why can’t you? I don’t understand.”
“Because … I’m a convict, Win. I have a record. I’ve missed tons of school. And no high school, let alone college, will want me. I’m stuck.”
“There’s one somewhere. We’ll find one. I can help you, Annie.”
I shook my head.
“Okay, what if we just go somewhere where no one knows us? We take Natty and leave. We could change our names, dye our hair.”
I shook my head again. I had tried running and I didn’t want that kind of life for Win, for Natty, or for me.
“It’s more than that, Win. When I was in Mexico, something changed for me. I realized that I will never escape chocolate. And so there was no point in running away from it or even hating it anymore.”
“Dad’s always saying that it should never have become illegal in the first place.”
“Really? Charles Delacroix says that?”
“All the time. Usually just before mentioning that it would be terribly convenient for him if I never saw you again.”
I laughed. “How is my old friend?” I asked.
“Dad? He’s awful. He’s completely depressed. He’s grown a beard. But who cares about him? Let’s talk about me. I’ve never been happier in my whole life that Dad lost an election.” Win paused to look at me. “You really sliced off that hit man’s hand with a machete?”
“I did.” I wondered if it had been a mistake to tell him that, if he would love me less, knowing how violent I could be. “I don’t regret it, Win. I don’t regret shooting my cousin when he shot you either.”
“My girl,” he said, just before he took me in his arms.
I offered to show him my machete, and he said he’d like to see it, so I led him into my bedroom. After Mr. Kipling had returned it to me, I’d hidden the machete between my mattress and the box spring.
Because It Is My Blood Page 17