Because It Is My Blood

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Simon Green looked at Mr. Kipling. “The other thing we could do is send Natty to a boarding school out of state or country. This might be simpler in the short term. Forgive me, Stuart, but you have a bad heart and the timing of the application itself might raise eyebrows.”

  A nurse came into the room. “Ms. Balanchine needs to rest now.”

  Mr. Kipling kissed me on the cheek. “I am very sorry I did not advise you better.”

  “You tried, Mr. Kipling. You told me not to go back to Trinity. You told me to avoid Win. I didn’t want to listen. I always think I’m being so smart, but then later, it turns out I’ve made so many mistakes.”

  Mr. Kipling took me by the handcuffed hand. “This isn’t completely your fault, Anya. Nowhere near it.”

  “When will I stop being so wrong all the time?”

  “You have a good heart. And a good brain, too. But you are young and a human being, after all, and so allowances must be made.”

  V

  I TAKE MY LEAVE

  I SPENT THE NEXT FIVE DAYS handcuffed to a bed while I planned my escape from Liberty. In the hospital, my visitors weren’t really restricted and this came in incredibly handy. Someday, I would have to thank whoever had poisoned me. Perhaps someday, I would. (Yes, readers, I had been poisoned and, had I had the time to reflect on the matter at all, the source would have been completely obvious.)

  My time was spent in the following manner: Tuesday morning, the first person who came to visit was Yuji Ono. “How is your heart?” he asked by way of greeting.

  “Still beating,” I told him. “I thought you were meant to be gone on Monday.”

  “I found reason to extend my stay.” He bowed, then genuflected by the side of my bed so that his lips landed by my ear. He whispered, “Simon Green tells me that you wish to leave New York. This is good. I think you should go somewhere you can learn the business.”

  “I can’t go to Japan,” I said.

  “I know that, though for my own reasons, I wish it were otherwise. I think I have an alternative for you. Sophia Bitter’s family has a cacao farm on the west coast of Mexico. You will be able to take a boat there and the connection to Balanchine Chocolate is not so obvious that anyone will think to look for you.”

  “Mexico,” I said. “I’m a city girl, Yuji.” A Mexican farm sounded so far from everything and everyone I had ever known.

  “Don’t you think your father would have wanted you to see where cacao is grown?” Yuji asked.

  I had no idea what Daddy would have wanted and I wasn’t even sure that I cared.

  “Would you yourself not like to know what the source of all this misery is?” Yuji waved his gloved hand around the gray hospital room.

  I told him I had never thought much about it.

  “Do you trust me, Anya?” He took my handcuffed hand. “Do you believe that I, of all people, want what is best for you?”

  I thought about this. Yes, I decided, I did trust him as much as I trusted anyone.

  “I trust you,” I said.

  “Then know I do not say this lightly when I tell you that this is where I want you to go. You will be better able to run Balanchine Chocolate someday if you know a bit about how cacao is grown. And this will make you a superior partner for me. A superior business partner, I mean.” He dropped my hand and moved in even closer to me. “Don’t be frightened, Anya.”

  “I’m not.” I looked him in the eye. “Nothing frightens me anymore, Yuji.”

  “The warmth and sunshine will be good for you, and you will not be lonely, as Sophia’s family is very kind. If it matters to you, it will be easy for me to invent reasons to come and see you.”

  What difference did it make where I went, really? I was leaving the only home I had ever known. “I don’t speak Spanish,” I said with a sigh. I had taken Mandarin and Latin in school.

  “Many people will speak English there,” Yuji said.

  And so it was decided. I would take my leave in the predawn hours of Sunday morning.

  Tuesday afternoon brought Scarlet and she was crying again. I told her that if she wept every time she saw me, I wouldn’t want her to come anymore. She sniffled and declared dramatically, “I’ve had to end things with Gable!”

  “Scarlet, I’m sorry,” I said. “What happened?”

  She held up her slate. On the screen was the picture of Win and me in the dining hall underneath the headline Charles Delacroix had shown me two days earlier: “Charles Delacroix’s Mob Connections.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry, Annie. Gable took this picture, and worse, he sold it!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He got a long-lens camera phone for his eighteenth birthday,” Scarlet began. (NB: You may recall that minors weren’t allowed to have camera phones.) “And when I saw the picture yesterday morning, I knew someone from our school had taken it. And I doubted it was one of the teachers, so that only left the kids over eighteen. I turned to Gable. ‘Who would do such a thing to Annie?’ I asked. ‘Who would be so low? Doesn’t she have it hard enough?’ And he wouldn’t really answer me. And I knew, I just knew! And then I pushed him as hard as I could. So hard he lost his balance and fell to the ground. And I stood over him, screaming, ‘Why?’ And he’s saying, ‘I love you, Scarlet. Don’t do this!’ And I’m like, ‘Answer the question, Gable. Just tell me why.’ And finally, he sighs, and he says it wasn’t anything against you or Win. He’d done it for the money. Someone had approached him weeks ago, saying they would pay big bucks if he could deliver a picture of Anya Balanchine and Win Delacroix in a compromising situation. And then Gable tried to justify his actions by saying that you owed him this money because of how much he’d lost because of you, like his foot and his good looks and such. And then he said someone else would have taken that picture anyway, if not him.”

  At this point, Scarlet started to cry again. “I feel like such an incredible fool, Annie!”

  I told her that it wasn’t her fault. “I wonder how much money he got.”

  “I don’t know. But I hate him. I hate him so much!” She was by the door, bent over and sobbing. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t have much mobility on account of the handcuffs.

  “Scarlet, come over here.”

  “I can’t. I disgust myself. I let that snake back into your life. You warned me about him. I just never thought you would be the one to get hurt.”

  “The truth is, Scarlet, I shouldn’t have let myself get into that situation with Win.”

  “What situation? You were eating lunch.” Scarlet always took my side in everything.

  “Win shouldn’t have taken my hand, and I shouldn’t have let him. I should probably never have gone back to Trinity either. And Gable is right about one thing. Someone else would have taken that picture, trust me. It was coming with or without Gable Arsley’s involvement. Someday, I’ll be able to explain all of it better.”

  Scarlet approached my bedside. “You have to know I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Scarlet, I wouldn’t even think that!”

  She lowered her voice. “I never told him about what we did for Leo.”

  “I didn’t think you would have.”

  Scarlet smiled weakly. Suddenly, she ran across the little hospital room to the bathroom, where she threw up. I heard the toilet flush and the water come on. “I think I’m getting the flu,” she reported once she’d returned.

  “You should go home,” I told her.

  “I’ll come see you as soon as I’m feeling better. I love you, Annie. I’d kiss you but I don’t want to get you sick.”

  “I don’t care. Kiss me anyway,” I said. In case she didn’t make it back to Liberty before Sunday, I wanted to know that we had said a proper goodbye.

  “Okay, Annie. As you like it.”

  She kissed me, and I grabbed her hand. “Don’t blame yourself for any of this, Scarlet. I am only sorry that the tragedies that dog me have caused you grief,
too. What I said after the party … You really have been the most loyal and true friend anyone could ever ask for. When I think about these last couple of years, I can’t even imagine how bleak things might have gotten for me without you.”

  Scarlet flushed the color of her name. She nodded, and then she was gone.

  The rest of the week passed quickly, with visits from just about everyone and with plans for my escape.

  By Thursday, Simon Green and I had settled the arrangements. I was to be released from the hospital on Sunday morning. On Saturday night / early Sunday morning, well after the last nurse had checked on me, I was to get out of my bed and improvise a way out of the hospital, then past the fence that encircled Liberty Island. At that point, a rowboat would transfer me to Ellis Island. On Ellis Island, I was to be met by another boat that would take me to Newark Bay, where I would take a shipping vessel to the west coast of Mexico. In the morning, when the nurses came to transfer me back to the dormitory at Liberty, I would be long gone.

  Simon had left me with a copy of the handcuff key, which I stuffed into the side of the mattress under the sheet. The only thing we hadn’t figured out was how I was to get past the guards at the end of the hallway. “Do you have anyone here who can provide a distraction of some sort?” Simon Green asked. Reluctantly, I thought of Mouse and her assertion to me that she could do “hard things.” Even though I needed her help, I didn’t want her to get into more trouble on my account, and yet I lacked other options.

  I got a message to her to come see me, and that afternoon, she did. She had a black eye. I asked her what had happened.

  She shrugged. Then wrote, Elbow to the face. Rinko.

  I told her what I needed. She nodded. Then she nodded some more before putting pencil to pad. I’ll come up with something. I am honored that u came to me, A.

  “Once I’m gone, they’ll probably figure out you helped me. You understand that means you won’t get out in November, right?”

  I do. Don’t care. Nowhere to go. Better to have friends in a year or 2 than b friendless, homeless, & penniless in Nov.

  “I feel selfish asking you to help me,” I said. “Asking you to stay here longer when I’m trying to avoid the same thing.”

  Mouse shrugged again. Our situations are diff. I am a criminal. U are a name. Besides, they are stupid here & they might not figure it out & then u will owe me anyway. I will bet on u, if u will bet on me. Around 2 a.m., right?

  “Yes. Go see my lawyer Simon Green when you’re free. He will help you with whatever you need.”

  She made an “okay” sign.

  “Thank you, Kate,” I said.

  She bowed, then slipped out of the room. No one had seen her come in, and no one had seen her leave. I wondered if I could count on a girl so quiet to make enough of a distraction.

  Saturday morning, Natty and Imogen came to see me. They knew nothing of my plans, and so I tried to keep the mood light. I did hug Natty extra tight. Who knew when I’d be able to see her again.

  Simon Green and I had decided that I shouldn’t have any visitors in the afternoon. I needed to rest for the long night ahead.

  Still, I couldn’t sleep. I was anxious and I couldn’t even walk around to calm myself. I was starting to wish we hadn’t told everyone not to come.

  I looked at the clock. It was 5:00. Visitors weren’t allowed after 6:00 anyway.

  I closed my eyes.

  I had fallen into a sort of half sleep when someone came into the room.

  I rolled over. A tall boy with longish blond dreadlocks and thick black glasses. I didn’t recognize him until he spoke. “Annie,” Win said.

  “You look ridiculous,” I told him, but I couldn’t help smiling. “Where’s your cane?”

  He walked over to me, and I struggled to sit up in bed and tugged at his ropy wig.

  “I didn’t want anyone to figure out who I was.”

  “You didn’t want to make things worse for your father.”

  “I didn’t want to make things worse for you!” He lowered his voice. “Dad said you were being transferred from the hospital tomorrow. That if I insisted on seeing you, today would be the best day. And that if I needed to behave so foolishly, I should at least wear a disguise. Thus, the wig.”

  I shook my head and wondered how many of my plans Charles Delacroix had guessed. “Why would he do that?”

  “My father is a mystery.”

  He pulled a stool over to the bed. He rubbed at his hip.

  “Arsley was the one who took the picture,” I told him.

  “I know,” Win said, bowing his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. Taken your hand, I mean. Not in such a public place.” As he said this, he stroked my fingertips with his own.

  “You couldn’t have known how it would all turn out.”

  “I did know, Annie. I did. I had been warned. By my father. By my father’s campaign manager. By Alison Wheeler. By you, even. I didn’t care.”

  “What do you mean, ‘by Alison Wheeler’?”

  Win looked at me. “Anya, haven’t you guessed?”

  I shook my head.

  “I was the one who asked Alison to go to you in the library.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Well, she didn’t want to but she knew I wanted to be near you. And I convinced her that lunch would be safe enough since Arsley and Scarlet and Alison would be there, too.”

  I was still confused. “Why would your girlfriend do that?”

  “Anya! Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect!”

  “Suspect what?”

  “Alison is my friend but she also works for my father’s campaign. They asked her if she would pretend to be my girlfriend during the campaign season so it would appear that I had put my relationship with Anya Balanchine—you—behind me. It was July—we weren’t together—and, despite everything, I wanted to help my father. How could I say no? He is my father, Anya. I love him. As I love you.”

  Had Anya Balanchine—me—not been handcuffed to the bed, she would have run out of the room. I felt like my brain was exploding and my heart, too. He reached over the bed rail and wiped my cheek with his sleeve. I suppose I was crying.

  “You really didn’t suspect?”

  I shook my head. My throat was thick and useless. “I thought you had tired of me,” I said in a voice about as intelligible as my uncle Yuri’s.

  “Annie,” he said. “Annie, that could never happen.”

  “We won’t see each other for a really long time,” I whispered.

  “I know,” Win whispered back. “Dad told me that might be the case.”

  “It could be years.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to,” I told him.

  “There’s never been anyone else for me but you.” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching us. He leaned over the bed and put his hand on the back of my head. “I love your hair,” he said.

  “I’m cutting it all off.” Simon Green and I had thought I would be less recognizable when I was traveling without my mane. Shears would be waiting for me on Ellis Island.

  “That’s a shame. I’m glad I don’t have to see that.” He pulled my head closer to him and then he kissed me, and even though it was probably pressing my luck, I kissed him again.

  “How can I stay in touch with you?” he asked.

  I thought about this. E-mail wasn’t safe. I couldn’t give him the address of the cacao farm, even if I knew it. Maybe Yuji Ono could deliver a letter to me. “In a month or two, go to Simon Green. He’ll know how to get to me. Don’t go through Mr. Kipling.”

  Win nodded. “Will you write me?”

  “I’ll try,” I told him.

  He reached over the bed rail and set his hand on my heart. “The news said this almost stopped.”

  “Sometimes I wish it would. What good is it, you know?”

  Win shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

  “Of all the boyfriends in the world,
you are the least suitable one I could have picked.”

  “Same to you. Only girlfriend, I mean.”

  He rested his head on my chest and we were quiet until the time for visiting was over.

  As Win walked to the door, he adjusted his absurd wig.

  “If you meet someone, I’ll understand,” I told him. We were seventeen years old, for God’s sake, and our future was uncertain. “We shouldn’t make any promises that are too hard to keep.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I’m trying to,” I said.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

  I thought about this. “Maybe check in on Natty every now and again. She adores you and I know she’ll be lonely without me.”

  “I can do that.”

  And then he was gone.

  All I had left to do was wait.

  * * *

  Around 1:55 a.m., I heard nurses and guards running down the hallway. I called out to one of the nurses. “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “There’s been a fight in the girls’ dormitory,” she told me. “They’re bringing over a half dozen badly injured girls. I have to go!”

  I nodded. Thank you, Mouse. I prayed she wasn’t too hurt.

  It was time. I slipped the key out of the mattress and unlocked the handcuff. My wrist was sore, but there was no time for that. Shoeless and still dressed in an open-backed hospital gown, I walked down the hallway and slipped through the door marked Fire Stairs. I ran down the stairs with legs stiff from the prior week’s inactivity. On the ground floor, I poked my head out into the hallway. A guard was directing gurneys down the corridor. It was now or never but I didn’t know how to get past the exit without being observed by the guards or the girls on the gurneys. From one of the gurneys, Mouse poked her head up. She had two black eyes, a gash on her forehead, and her nose looked like it might be broken. With her less swollen eye, she looked at me. I waved. She nodded and mouthed something that looked like “Now.” A second later, she screamed. I had never even heard Mouse’s voice before and here she was screaming for me. Mouse’s body began to writhe and convulse. Her arms flailed in a seemingly random pattern, but from my vantage point I could see her design. Mouse was managing to strike the other girls and anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity.