He offered Scarlet his hand. “We have not met. I am Theo.”
“Scarlet,” she said. “And he’s Felix.”
“Ah, the best friend. I am Anya’s boyfriend.”
Scarlet looked at me. “What? Since when do you have a boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said.
“My English is not perfect,” Theo said. “I only mean I am a boy and I am her friend.”
“I don’t understand,” Scarlet said. “Is he your boyfriend or isn’t he?”
I sighed. “Who needs such labels? We should leave if you want to do this tonight.” I turned to Theo. “Also, Scarlet’s going to be your new waitress.”
“Wait? What?” Theo said. “You are not bad to look at, but do you have any experience?”
“I’m a fast learner,” she said with a smile.
Scarlet unlocked the door to Gable’s parents’ apartment. “Maybe they won’t be home,” she said.
We went inside and no one was there. Scarlet told me to pack up the bedroom while she packed up the nursery. I threw her clothes into a suitcase and her makeup and jewelry into a box. I was nearly finished when I heard the door to the apartment open.
“Scarlet?” a woman called. I recognized the voice as Gable’s mother.
“In the nursery,” Scarlet replied.
I set the suitcase and the box by the front door and went to wait just outside the nursery door. I thought there could be trouble so I wanted to keep close.
“You can’t take our grandchild away!” Gable’s mother yelled.
“I’m not taking him away. I would never do that. But we can’t live here anymore. It isn’t good for anybody. And it doesn’t make sense now that Gable is gone.”
“Gable will come back,” his mother said. “He’s upset.”
“No,” Scarlet said, “he’s not coming back. He told me he wasn’t, and I believe him.”
“Gable is a good boy,” his mother insisted. “He wouldn’t leave the mother of his child.”
“He did,” Scarlet said. “It’s been a month.”
I was mildly shocked that Scarlet had waited an entire month before she’d told me about Gable leaving.
“Well, you can’t take my grandson,” Gable’s mother repeated. “I won’t let you. I’ll call the police.”
I went into the nursery. “Actually, she has every right to take your grandson.”
“What is she doing here?” Gable’s mother was no great fan of mine.
“Scarlet is the mother, and the city doesn’t automatically recognize grandparents’ rights,” I said.
“Why should I believe you?” Gable’s mother asked. “You’re no lawyer. You’re some trashy girl who owns a club.”
“The reason you should believe me is because trashy girls like me have hard lives.” I got right in Gable’s mother’s piggish face. “I’ve bounced around family and juvenile courts since I was a kid, and I know everything about everything when it comes to who gets custody of whom.”
“It’s all your fault!” Gable’s mother yelled at me. “If you hadn’t poisoned him—”
“I didn’t poison him. He ate bad chocolate. And your son was a terrible boyfriend, so it comes as no surprise that he’s a terrible father and fiancé. Come on, Scarlet. We’re leaving.” Gable’s mother was blocking the door so I moved her out of the way.
It took forever to get a cab and almost as long to cram Scarlet’s possessions into the trunk and backseat. We rode uptown in silence. “Thank you,” she said, as the cab rounded the park. “I really appreciate you coming with me.”
“I’m glad you called, though I can’t believe you waited a month to tell me Gable had left.”
“Truthfully, I’ve been kind of mad at you,” she said.
“Why?”
“I guess it’s not entirely your fault, but we haven’t seen each other that much, and I’d read about your club in the paper and how well everything was going for you, and I’d feel pretty bitter. Like, I’d always tried to be a good person and a good friend and look how my life has turned out.”
“You can’t think that way.”
“Most of the time I don’t, but sometimes. And then I’d get mad because I felt like you’d moved on without me. And I felt like you had amazing new friends and you didn’t want me around.”
“Scarlet, I’ve been busy, that’s all, and I know it’s difficult for you to make plans with the baby. If you had needed me, I would have been there.”
Scarlet sighed. “I know, but that’s why it’s hard to be friends with you, I guess. Sometimes I would like to know that I’m needed, too. I mean, have you even missed me? We’ve spoken like three times this whole year.”
I put my arm around her. “Scarlet, I’m sorry I’m not more … I’m sorry I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve.”
“No, you definitely don’t. At one point, I actually made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t call you again until you called me. Do you know how long that went on?”
I didn’t want to.
“Four months.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a bad friend.”
“You’re not. You’re the best friend. You’re my best friend. But you do have your faults.”
“I know.”
“Oh, don’t have hurt feelings. What I actually wanted to say is I realize that I was being silly before. We may not see each other as much as we used to, but there is no one else I would have wanted to be with me tonight. And isn’t it funny? You can lose a boy—God knows we’ve both lost a few of those. But even if I wanted to, I know I could never lose you.”
IX
I EXPAND; RECONSIDER MY BROTHER; LISTEN TO THEO EXPOUND ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH … CACAO
FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS of 2085, Mr. Delacroix courted new investors, and Theo and I traveled across the United States in pursuit of perfect locations for the Dark Room. When we were on the road, Noriko and Leo managed the New York club. Though I’d traveled abroad, I had never been anywhere in America except Manhattan and seventy-five square miles around Manhattan, and it interested me to see how people lived in other places. In an error particular to youth, I had the impression that everyone lived as I did: they dwelled in apartments, rode buses, and traded at the market on Saturday. In fact, this was not the case. In Illinois, there were still grocery stores. In California, fruit and flowers grew everywhere. (My nana would have loved it.) In Texas, everything smelled like fire. In Pennsylvania, Theo and I visited a ghost town with the motto “the sweetest place on earth.” Hershey, Pennsylvania, once had a chocolate factory and a chocolate-themed amusement park, too. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen firsthand the ancient statue of an anthropomorphized milk chocolate bar. He was googly-eyed, grinned maniacally, and wore white gloves and saddle shoes. I suppose he was meant to appeal to children, but I found him terrifying. Still, a chocolate amusement park! Reader, can you imagine?
By July, Mr. Delacroix and I had raised enough money for the club to expand to five more locations: San Francisco, Seattle, Brooklyn, Chicago, and Philadelphia. “Congratulations, Anya,” Mr. Delacroix said after the last set of contracts had been executed. “You are officially a chain, coming soon to five locations across this great country of ours. Is it everything you hoped? Are you an entirely new woman?”
“I’m the same,” I said. “I wish it was ten locations, though.”
“You would say that. I wonder what makes Anya Balanchine keep running so hard?” he asked.