“Theo, we can’t get married just because we’ve offended your great-grandmother.”
“That is not the only reason, and you know it. I love you. My family loves you. And no one will ever have more in common with you than me.”
“But Theo, I don’t love you, and I never claimed that I did.”
“What does that matter? You lie to yourself about love. I know you, Anya. You are afraid of being hurt or of being controlled, so you tell yourself you are not in love. You are afraid of happiness, so you destroy and vex her whenever she arrives.” He took my hand. “Have we not been happy this year?”
“Yes, but…”
“And is there anyone you prefer to me?”
“No, Theo, there’s no one I prefer.”
“Of course there is not. So marry me, Anya. Give yourself over to the happiness.” He put his arms around me.
“Theo,” I said, “I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone. Look at my parents. Look at Win’s parents.”
“We won’t be like them. I can see you as a little old woman and me as a little old man. We cook and we tease each other all day long. And we are happy, Anya. I promise you that we are happy.”
I could tell he wasn’t listening to me. I didn’t know how to make him understand. I felt trapped, tricked, and fooled by him. But I also didn’t want to lose the little traitor either. I looked at him. What was wrong with me anyway that this handsome, funny boy was not enough? “Theo, let’s give it time,” I said.
“Do you mean an engagement before the wedding?”
“I’m still very young. I need time to think.”
“You are not young,” he said. “You have never been young. You were born old and you have known your own mind as long as I have known you.”
“Theo,” I said, “even if I did love you, I don’t believe love is enough of a reason to get married.”
Theo laughed at me. “What is enough of a reason then? Tell me.”
I tried to think of one. “I don’t know.” The ring, with its too-tight band, had started to hurt my finger. When I pulled it off, it flew from my hand, landing somewhere in the dirt. I got on my hands and knees and began combing through the soil, looking for it. “Theo, forgive me. I think I lost your ring!”
“Calm down,” he said. “I see it.” He had sharp eyes from years of tending cacao. In a second, he had located the ring. “Not hard to find a pearl in the dirt,” he said.
He tried to hand it back to me, but I would not accept it this time. I kept my fists closed. “Theo, please,” I said. “I’m begging you. Ask me some other time.”
“Admit that you love me. I know that you love me.”
“Theo, I don’t love you.”
“Then what have we been doing for the past year?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a terrible mistake. I like you so much. I like kissing you, and I couldn’t be more grateful to you. But I know I don’t love you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I … I have been in love. And it is not what I feel for you.”
“Do you mean with Win? Why are you not still with him if you love him so much?”
“I wanted other things, Theo. Maybe love is enough for some girls, but it isn’t enough for me.”
“You leave Win, the boy you claim to love, because you say that love is not enough. You have friendship and work and fun with me, but that is not enough for you either. You don’t want love, but then you do. Has it occurred to you that nothing will ever satisfy you?”
“Theo, I’m only nineteen. I don’t have to know what I want.”
Theo set the ring on the palm of his hand and contemplated it for a moment. “Maybe we break up? Is that what you want?”
“No. I’m saying … What I’m saying is I can’t marry you right now. That’s all I’m saying.” It was selfish and weak, but I didn’t want to lose him. “Let’s forget this ever happened. Let’s go back to New York and back to the way we were.”
Theo stared at me and then he nodded and put the ring in his pocket. “Someday, Anya, you will be old, old like your nana and my bisabuela. You will be sick and you will need to rely on someone other than yourself. And you may find yourself sorry that you sent everyone who tried to love you away.” He offered me his hand, helped me up off the ground. I brushed the dirt from my dress, but because the ground was damp, most of it would not come off.
XI
I ALMOST FOLLOW IN MY FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS
WHEN I WAS TWELVE, I had discussed with Scarlet what would happen if a boy (perhaps a prince) proposed marriage and you were put in the awkward position of having to reject him. “He’ll probably disappear the next day,” Scarlet had said. In any case, the discussion had given me the false idea that a no might convey the power of magical banishment. And wouldn’t that be for the best? Because how could a boy be expected to stick around after he’d offered you his heart and you’d said, Thanks for your heart, but I’d prefer a different heart. Actually, I’d rather not have a heart at all.
When we returned to New York, I half expected Theo, who I had always known to be proud, to move out or even leave the country. Of course, that was impractical—he lived in my apartment, and we ran a business together. Instead, we both went on as if nothing had changed, and that was awful. He did not bring up the proposal, though I felt it hanging in the air above us like a rain cloud in August. Maybe he was being patient. Maybe he thought I would change my mind. I wanted to say to him, Please, my friend. Go and be free. I release you. I owe you so much and I don’t want to cause you unhappiness. You deserve more love than I can give you. But I was too cowardly, I guess.
Occasionally, his insults felt less playful and more pointed than they had in the past. Once, when we’d been arguing over the minimum amount of cacao a certain drink required, he told me that I had “an ugly heart to match my hair.” In moments like this, I felt we were on the verge of having the argument that would lead to the final act.
By March, the first of the new wave of Dark Rooms was ready to open. The location was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and it had been quite easy for us to get the place going once we had the money—the laws and many of the logistics were the same as those for the Manhattan club, and travel by the L train, though it only ran once every other hour, was not difficult. The new club was in a building that had once been a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Though my cousin Fats had run a speakeasy out of a church for years, this was my first “holy” location. Perhaps I should have paid greater consideration to the spiritual issues, but I didn’t—it was not my faith, and as I have already mentioned, I had more or less given up on organized religion during that period of my life. In its favor, the site was central and picturesque, with yellow brick walls and copper-helmeted domes in the Russian style. In truth, the Russian part gave me pause more than the cathedral part, as I still did not wish to associate the club with my Russian crime family. But the Dark Room was so popular in Manhattan that I thought the potential association wouldn’t be much of a hit. Plus, the price was right.
I was getting dressed for the opening of the new club when my cell phone rang. It was Jones. “Ms. Balanchine, there’s a body outside the Manhattan club. The police have already been called, but I think you should come down, too.”
The police were slow in those days, so I was not surprised to find that the body had not been attended to by the time I arrived. An overweight man lay facedown on the steps. I could not see any obvious trauma to the body. Even from behind, he looked familiar. I knew you weren’t supposed to touch a body at a crime scene, but I couldn’t help myself. I bent down and I lifted the big onion-shaped pate, which reminded me of the domes of the Brooklyn club. The head was still unnaturally warm in my hands.