“I’m jet-lagged,” I said.
“I could have managed myself. You didn’t have to come.”
“Natty, I would never miss this.” I rolled over and kissed my sister on her smooth, pink cheek.
Toward the end of the weekend, I turned on my slate. I thought about contacting Win, but I didn’t. It would have seemed disloyal to Yuji, though I’m not sure why I felt that way. Win had not been my boyfriend for over two years now, and I doubted he ever would be again. It would have been pleasant to see him, though.
I stopped in New York and then San Francisco on my way back to Japan. In New York, I found that Theo had moved out of the apartment. When I went into the office, he did not ask about my marriage. He was all business.
“Anya, Luna says that you require more cacao to supply the five new locations in Japan. At first I didn’t know if we could do it—Granja Mañana is only so big, you know? But then she researched the matter and found that we could buy a derelict coffee farm about fifteen miles away from Granja Mañana. I need to know if you are serious about needing that cacao.”
“I am serious,” I said.
“Bueno. We will do this then.” He smiled at me, but it was not a warm smile. It was a professional one. And then Theo left. It was as if we had never meant anything to each other.
I had wondered if he might quit or go back to Mexico. He hadn’t, and I admired him for it. He had taken an apartment across town. My fallen-woman status wasn’t enough reason for him to leave the Dark Room. He loved our business. He loved what we had built even though he hated me.
With Theo gone, Scarlet was happy to have my apartment to Felix and herself. “I suppose some year we’ll have to get our own place,” she said as we sat in the living room.
“Why?”
“To prove I’m a grownup, something like that. I mean, I can’t be thirty and living in my best friend’s apartment. And I’ve been on the Upper East Side my whole life. It might be nice to see another part of town. Also, I don’t know anyone who lives up here anymore.” She’d been doing more theater, and she reported that most of her friends lived downtown or in the boroughs.
“Do you hear from”—I lowered my voice in case Felix was listening—“Gable?”
“He sends some money, not that often, and he sent a football for Felix’s second birthday. An adult football.” She rolled her eyes.
“I guess he was thinking ahead. Felix’ll be using that in about ten years.”
“He’ll be using that never.” She scooped the toddler up from the floor where he was playing with blocks and wearing a tiny kimono I’d bought in Japan and said to him, “Mama doesn’t want a big, dumb football spoiling that handsome face.” Felix kissed her and then he kissed me.
“He kisses everyone,” Scarlet explained. “He’s very into kissing.”
“So were you.”
“Shut up,” Scarlet said, laughing. “Anyway, what’s better than kissing? I’m still into kissing.” She sighed. “God, I miss kissing.”
Felix kissed her again.
“Thank you, Fee. So, Anya my darling bestest friend, should we discuss the fact that you’re married?” Scarlet asked.
“There’s not much to report,” I said.
I had lunch with Mouse. As the new locations of the Dark Room had begun to open across the country, we’d managed to convert almost 90 percent of the Balanchines to legal employment. We toasted to our successes and talked about old times.
“I ran into Rinko,” she said. “Do you remember her?”
“Of course I remember her.”
“Well, she didn’t even recognize me. I was introduced to her as Kate Bonham, Balanchine crime boss, and she didn’t even register that I was Mouse, the girl she had tormented for three years at Liberty. I thought surely she’d connect you with me, but she didn’t.”
“Is she still in coffee?” I asked.
“She is. The coffee people are having a rough time of it.”
“Those Rimbaud laws are as stupid on coffee as they are on chocolate.”
“I know it,” Mouse said.
“Anything else we should discuss?”
“Well, the Russians have been silent a while. I don’t necessarily like it or trust it. However, I’ve heard that they’re channeling their excess supply to other families and to other countries. So maybe they’ve made peace with the fact that the Balanchines are out of the chocolate business.” She took a drink. “Maybe knowing that messing with Balanchine means messing with Ono was enough to calm everyone down. Who knows? I doubt it though. We’ll definitely hear from them again.
“Congratulations on your marriage, by the way,” Mouse said. “I was going to get you a present, but I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”
“What to buy for the mafiya daughter entering an inevitably tragic marriage of convenience.”
“It’s hard, right? She’s the girl who has everything.”
“I guess what I’d like is for no one in this Family to have to take a job dealing illegal chocolate ever again.”
“I’m trying, Anya.”
“I know you are.”
We shook hands. Neither of us were the hugging kind.
“Anya, wait. Before you go. Thank you.”
“For what, Mouse?”
“For recommending me to Fats. For trusting me with so much more than anyone ever had. For never asking me what my crime was. For everything, my whole life really. I don’t think you have any idea how much you’ve saved me.”
“Loyal friends are hard to come by, Mouse.”
The last person I saw before I left town was Mr. Delacroix. He took me out to dinner to celebrate my marriage. A restaurant had opened across the street from the Dark Room. There had not been a new restaurant on that block for a decade.
Mr. Delacroix was contemplating a run for mayor. He had gotten quite a bit more popular since helping me open the Dark Room. If he did run, I knew it would mean that he would have to leave the business.
“I’m not certain married life agrees with you,” he said. “You look very tired.”
“The travel.” I used my standard excuse.
“I suspect it is more than that.”
I gave him my haughtiest look. “We don’t speak of our personal lives, colleague,” I said.
“Fine, Anya.”
The waiter offered us dessert. I declined, but Mr. Delacroix ordered the pie. “If you were my daughter—” he said.
“I am not your daughter.”
“But let us suspend disbelief and imagine that you are. You remind me of her a bit, you know. If you were my daughter, I would tell you to let go of any guilt you might be feeling. You made a decision. Maybe it was right; maybe it was wrong. But the decision is done. There is nothing you can do now except continue moving ahead.”
“Have you made decisions you regret?”
“Anya. Look who you are talking to. I am the king of regrets. But I might very well be mayor in two years. Life is turnabouts, my dear. Look at us. Wasn’t I the worst enemy of your seventeenth year of life? And now I am your friend.”
“I wouldn’t overstate matters, Mr. Delacroix. It has already been established that we are colleagues, nothing more. I saw your son at Natty’s graduation, by the way.”
“I know.”
“You always know everything.”
“Win told me. He said, ‘I am glad you helped her open the business, Dad,’ or something to that effect. He said that—wait for it—he had been wrong. My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. One is never prepared for one’s son to say something so shocking as, ‘Dad, you were right.’”