“Congratulations.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I made a lot of lasting friendships in the last nine days,” Scarlet said. “You’ve got a ton of competition now.”
I thanked Scarlet for taking Natty to and from school. And then I thanked her for telling Win to go to his father.
“Win? I had nothing to do with that. Win went to his father on his own,” Scarlet said.
“But you must have had something to do with it,” I insisted.
“We talked about you, of course,” Scarlet said. “But he didn’t tell me he was going to his father and I didn’t ask him to. I thought about it—oh, don’t look so surprised, Annie! Your silly best friend does think things through on occasion. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it because I wasn’t sure if it would potentially make things worse for you.”
“So why did Win do it then? We barely know him.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you can come up with a reason.”
This was annoying to me. I didn’t like owing Win anything. I especially didn’t like owing Win after the conversation I’d had with his father.
“Enough with the furrowed brow! It’s not some great mystery. He likes you, Annie. The only thing he wants is his lab partner back. And maybe a thank-you. And maybe a date to Fall Formal.”
I sighed.
“Oh, poor Annie, the really cute new boy likes her,” Scarlet teased me. “Her life is so, so tragic.” She flopped dramatically on the bed.
“I was in a reformatory, you know,” I reminded her.
“I know,” she whispered. “I was only teasing you.” Her big blue eyes filled with tears. It was easy to make Scarlet cry. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you. It’s really terrible. I can’t even imagine. I was just trying to make you laugh.”
I did laugh. Her expression was sweet and apologetic.
“When I came in the room, I couldn’t believe how weak you looked. Natty had warned me, but … Was it horrible?” Scarlet asked.
I shrugged. I had no interest in rehashing my time at Liberty for Scarlet or anyone else. “I got a tattoo.” I pushed down my sock and showed her the bar code on my ankle.
“That is very hard-core,” Scarlet replied.
I pulled my sock back up. “How’s Gable doing?”
“He’ll live, I guess,” Scarlet said. “Chai Pinter heard that he had to have skin grafts on his face. The Fretoxin made parts of his skin fall off or something.”
“Oh, God.”
“Well, Chai isn’t always the most reliable source. I don’t even know where she’s getting her information half the time. I think she makes most of this stuff up. What Headmaster is saying is that Gable won’t be back to school until next term at the earliest. He’s in a rehab facility somewhere upstate,” Scarlet said. “He really did almost die, Annie.”
“Do you think I should send a card?” I asked. “Or go visit?”
Scarlet shrugged. “Gable was horrible. He was horrible to you. And sick Gable is probably even more horrible.” She shrugged again. “But if you must, I suppose I could come with you. You shouldn’t go alone.”
“Well, I didn’t mean tomorrow. Maybe in November?” I had a ton of schoolwork to catch up on and I had plenty of my own problems right here.
Leo came in. “Hi, Scarlet! Natty said you were here.” Leo gave Scarlet a hug. “You look pretty!”
Scarlet was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, which was very dressed down for her. Her blond hair was loose and tangled. She didn’t have on any makeup either. Maybe that was what Leo found pretty? Scarlet had an excellent complexion, but it was usually covered up. “Why thank you, Leo!” Scarlet said. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t feeling very pretty, but after your compliment, now I do.”
Leo blushed. “You always look pretty, Scarlet. I think you’re maybe the prettiest girl in the world.”
“Hey!” I said.
“You’re sister-pretty,” Leo said to me. “Scarlet is prettyyyyyy …”
Scarlet and I both laughed, causing Leo to blush even more.
“Imogen says you should leave now, Scarlet,” Leo relayed. “Annie needs to sleep.”
“All I’ve been doing is sleeping!” I protested.
“She said you would say that,” Leo continued. “She said to ignore you.”
Scarlet stood up and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll come for you on Monday morning so we can go to school together.” On the way out of my bedroom, she kissed Leo on the cheek, too. “Thanks for the compliment, Leonyd.”
Sunday afternoon, my uncle and Nana’s stepson, Yuri Balanchine (aka the head of the family), stopped by the apartment. Uncle Yuri was only about ten years younger than Nana and had a limp that I think Daddy had said was from a war injury. The limp must have gotten worse since the last time I’d seen him, as now he was confined to a wheelchair.
Uncle Yuri visited Nana occasionally, but on that day, he wasn’t there to see her. He was there for me.
Uncle Yuri always smelled of cigars and his voice was scratchy from years of smoking. He was flanked by several bodyguards; Jacks, his son by the prostitute; and Mikhail Balanchine, his “real” son and heir. Uncle Yuri instructed them to wait in the hallway. Mikhail piped up. “Dad, can I stay?”
“No, Mickey, you leave, too,” Uncle Yuri said. “I have a private matter to discuss with my niece.”
I sat on the sofa.
“Little Anya,” Uncle Yuri said, “you’ve gotten to be quite the beauty. Come closer. Let me look at you, my darling.” I leaned forward, and he stroked my cheek with his hand. “I can remember the day you were born. How proud your papa was!”
I nodded.
“Leonyd—God rest his soul—thought you were the most beautiful baby alive. I didn’t see it myself, but now it’s clear he knew what he was talking about.” Uncle Yuri sighed. “I’m sorry I don’t come to see you and Galina more often. This apartment has many sad memories for me.”
“For all of us,” I reminded him.
“Yes, of course,” Uncle Yuri said. “How thoughtless of me. For you even more than me. But today, I come about another matter. I wanted to discuss the incident with the young man.”
“Gable Arsley, you mean?”
“Yes,” Uncle Yuri said. “I wanted to apologize for not intervening last week. The connection to Balanchine Chocolate made most of our contacts in law enforcement run cold. Had I intervened, I worried that you might become a pawn to the DA’s office. The man in charge there is new, and we do not yet know if he is a friend to us.”
He was talking about Win’s father. “It worked out in the end,” I said.
“I want to assure you that you were never far from my thoughts. You are the daughter of Leonyd Balanchine, and you would not have been left to rot in prison.”
I nodded, but said nothing. These were nice words, but only that.
“I can tell exactly what you are thinking. Nice words from the old man, but what good do they do me now?” Uncle Yuri leaned in closer. “I can tell you are a bright girl. You have sharp eyes like your father.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You keep everything inside like him. You don’t give away too much. I admire that,” Uncle Yuri said. “I admire that restraint in someone so young.”
I wondered if he would still be saying that if he’d seen me with the lasagna on the first day of school.
“I am ashamed,” Uncle Yuri continued. “I feel that this family has failed you. I feel that I personally have failed you.” Uncle Yuri lowered his head and then he lowered his voice. “I want you to know that there are larger forces at play here. Dark things beyond my control. I must get to the bottom of this matter with the chocolate, and then I can work on making amends with you. Your siblings as well.”
He held out his hand for me to shake, which I did. “I like you, Anya Balanchine. It’s a shame you are not a boy.”
“So I could be dead at forty-five like my father, you mean?” I asked in a low voice.
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Uncle Yuri didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure if he had even heard me. “Would you mind wheeling me down the hall to Galina’s room? I’d like to visit with my stepmother before I depart.”
On the trip down the hall, he asked me how Nana was faring.
“Depends on the day,” I replied. “Uncle Yuri, there was talk of my brother coming to work at the Pool.”
“Yes, I had heard something about that,” Uncle Yuri said.
“I’d rather he didn’t.”
“You’re worried that we will corrupt him?” Uncle Yuri asked. “You have my word that the only thing that will happen to your brother is the receipt of a nice paycheck for an easy day’s work. We will take care of him. He will never be asked to do anything dangerous or be put in harm’s way. I had heard he had lost his job. Giving him a temporary one is the least we can do, yes?”
Uncle Yuri certainly made me feel better about the whole matter than Jacks had. And considering how delicate Nana’s condition seemed and how potentially delicate my legal situation was, it would definitely be better for Leo to at least have the appearance of being gainfully employed. Not to mention, I had no idea when the situation at the animal clinic would resolve itself, especially now that Mr. Kipling wasn’t able to work on it. (How was he anyway?) Uncle Yuri and I had reached Nana’s room. I opened the door and called out, “Nana, are you sleeping?”
“No, Christina, come on in,” she said.
“It’s not Christina,” I said. “It’s Annie. And guess who I’ve got with me? Your stepson, Yuri!”
I wheeled Yuri into the room. “Ugh,” Nana said to him. “Yuri, why have you gotten so old? And so fat?”
I happily slipped out the door.
Mickey Balanchine was standing in the hallway outside Nana’s room. “You probably don’t remember me but I’m your cousin,” he introduced himself.
“Who isn’t?” I joked.
“It’s true. Every time I meet a girl I like, I have to check and see if she’s related to me first,” Mickey said. Mickey Balanchine was on the short side, only an inch or two taller than me. His hair was so blond it was almost white and his skin was equally fair except for the freckles across his nose and checks. In contrast to his skin and hair, he was dressed entirely in black. His suit was very well tailored and even looked new. Though I can’t say for sure, his boots may have had little heels on them to make him look taller.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time,” Mickey said. “Now that you’re all grown up, I mean. When I was a teenager, I used to run errands for your father. I’ve been in this apartment on many occasions. I’ve even seen you naked, little Anya.” He pointed down the hallway to the bathroom. “Right in that room. Your mother was giving you a bath. I accidentally walked in.”
That was too much information.
“So,” Mickey continued, “what did you and the old man talk about?”
Nothing, I thought, but that was none of Mickey’s business. “I suppose if it concerned you to know, he would have told you himself,” I said.
At that moment, Jacks came down the hallway. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Just having a conversation with my cousin,” Mickey replied.
“She’s my cousin, too,” Jacks said.
“Maybe,” Mickey said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jacks asked. “What are you trying to say, Mikhail? That I’m a bastard?” His eyes were blazing and I swear I could smell the testosterone coming off him. He lunged at Mickey, but Mickey stood firm. It became obvious to all of us that Jacks didn’t have the yaytsos.
“Oh, Jackie, relax!” Mickey said. “You’re embarrassing yourself in front of my cousin.”
“Annie, could I have a word with you?” Jacks asked.
“Speak,” I said.
“Alone,” Jacks specified.
“It seems no one wants to talk in front of Mikhail today,” Mickey commented.
I ignored him. I have never responded to that sort of childishness. Besides, I had things I wanted to say to Jacks, too. “Let’s go out on the balcony,” I said.
The balcony was just off the dining room. You could see Central Park and even part of Little Egypt. It must have been a nice view once.
My cousin got right into it. “Look, Anya, I’m sorry about the chocolate. I had no idea it had been laced. I honestly thought I was doing Galina a favor by bringing it over.”
“I appreciate you saying that,” I told him. “Because here’s how it looks to me: you brought that chocolate over extra early to ensure that my whole family died from eating it.”
“No!” Jacks said. “I have no interest in poisoning any of you! What could that possibly gain me?”
“I have no idea, Jacks. But it’s how it looks to me.”
Jacks ran his fingers through his hair. “You probably know this without my having to say, but I’m low in the organization. No one tells me about anything. I had no more warning than you that that chocolate was poisoned. You have to believe me!”
“Why do you care if I believe you?” I asked.
He lowered his voice. “Because things are changing in the Family. The chocolate scare was just the beginning. The perception—and I’m not saying I agree—but the perception is that Yuri is weak. I think the poisoning was the move of a rival family.”
“Like who?”
Jacks shrugged. “I’m only speculating here but it could be the Mexicans or the Brazilians. Even the French or the Japanese. Any of the big players in the black market chocolate biz. There’s not enough information to narrow it down. My point is, you could bring heat on me, Anya. You haven’t, I don’t know why, but I appreciate it. And I wanted you to know that I would never do anything to hurt you or your siblings.”
“Thanks,” I said. The truth was, I believed that Jacks hadn’t been trying to poison us, but only because he was too weak to organize (or even be informed of) such a large operation. The second truth was, I wanted to move on from all of this and the less I heard from my relatives the better.
“So we’re friends?” Jacks said, offering me his hand. I shook it only because it would have been more awkward not to. Jacks was not my friend. It had certainly not escaped my notice how scarce he had made himself during my legal troubles. Such behavior didn’t exactly seem friendly to me.
After my relatives had left, I spent the rest of the day doing homework and before I knew it, Sunday was over. Around nine o’clock, I heard the phone ring. Natty knocked on the door. “It’s Win,” she said.
“Tell him I’m asleep.”
“But you aren’t!” Natty said. “And he called yesterday, too.”
I stood up from my desk and flipped off my light. “I am sleeping, Natty. See.”
“I love you, Annie, but I don’t approve of you right now,” she said. I heard her return to the kitchen. I could barely make out the sound of my little sister lying for me.
I lay down in my bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin. The night air felt like fall.
I knew that nothing Charles Delacroix had said to me really mattered.
And yet, I also knew that it did.
Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only ever a fool’s option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn’t raised a fool.
XI.
i define tragedy for scarlet
AT SCHOOL, I WAS HANDLED WITH KID GLOVES. As I’d been cleared of any involvement with Gable Arsley’s poisoning, the administration feared that they had bungled my situation—for starters, by allowing the cops to question me on campus without calling Nana or Mr. Kipling first—and I think they were worried that I would either sue them or, even worse, start telling tales that would be damaging to their heretofore spotless reputation as the best private school in Manhattan. My teachers were emphatic that I should take as much time as I needed and, overall, my return to academic life was easier than I had anticipated.
Win was already in FS I
I when I got there. He didn’t mention that he’d called me twice or that I’d met his dad, if indeed Charles Delacroix had deigned to speak to him about me. He didn’t mention anything about my absence, except to say, “I had to present on our teeth without you.”
“How’d that go?” I asked.
“Good,” he said. “We got an A minus.”
Coming from Dr. Lau, that really was a good grade. She was tough. “Not bad,” I said.
“Anya,” Win started to say, but then Dr. Lau began class. I wasn’t in the mood for more pointless small talk with Win anyway.
I was granted a one-month excuse from Advanced Fencing, which I appreciated. I lacked the stamina for even pretend bouts. The administration granted Scarlet a one-month excuse so that she could keep me company. Further proof of how contrite the school was.
Scarlet used the extra time to prepare for her upcoming Macbeth audition. “You’re reading all the lines with me. Why don’t you try out, too?” Scarlet asked. “You could be Lady Macduff or Hecate or …”
The truth was, I didn’t really have a good reason not to except that I was tired and I didn’t exactly feel like putting myself out there after my picture had been plastered all over the news for a week.
“You can’t just stop everything because of what happened,” Scarlet said. “You have to keep moving forward. And you still have to apply to college next year one way or the other. Your extracurricular activities are definitely somewhat lackluster, Annie.”
“What? Being the daughter of a celebrated criminal doesn’t count as an extracurricular activity?”
“No,” Scarlet said. “A case could be made for poisoning your ex-boyfriend however.”
But she was right. Of course she was right. If he’d been alive, Daddy would have said the same thing. Not the extracurricular part. I mean, the part about moving forward.
“Have it your way,” I said.
Scarlet tossed me an ancient paper-book copy of Macbeth.
We read lines until the period was over and then we went to lunch, where Win was waiting for us at our usual table.