In the Age of Love and Chocolate Read online

  I flat-ironed my hair, put on red lipstick and dark eyeliner, threw on black bondage-style heels that Scarlet had picked out, and went down the hall to Natty’s room.

  Natty was lying in bed with her head under the covers. “Annie,” she said, “I don’t feel well.”

  “You have to get ready. The car is going to be here in two minutes, and you’re supposed to be my date.”

  She poked her head out. “Oh, you look pretty.”

  “Thank you, but seriously, Natty, you have to hurry up. I can’t be late.”

  Natty didn’t move.

  “If you’re doing this because you’re mad at me, I think it’s incredibly childish.”

  “I’m a child. Isn’t that what you said before?” I started to pull the blanket off her, and she pulled back even harder.

  “Please, Natty. Come on.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “I want you there.”

  “You didn’t want me there before. So, what? Am I supposed to show up now? Your obedient little sister? I had nothing to do with the club so I’d like to continue to have nothing to do with it.”

  I did not have time for this. “Fine. Don’t come,” I said, and then I left.

  * * *

  At the club, the steps were already scattered with people. I could see photographers and journalists lining the red carpet, preparing for the VIP arrivals. The media blitz had worked. Now we’d have to see if actual people came. One of the journalists called me over. “Anya Balanchine! Have a minute for an interview with the New York Daily Interrogator?”

  I was in a terrible mood after my discussion with Natty, and I did not like giving interviews in the first place. But I was a grownup and that meant doing things I didn’t want to do. I shook off my bad mood, smiled, and went over to the reporter.

  “This is fantastic!” the reporter enthused. “The buzz is deafening! How does it feel to be the girl who is single-handedly giving chocolate back to New York City?”

  “Well, it’s not chocolate per se. It’s cacao. Cacao is the—”

  The reporter cut me off. “In two short years, you’ve gone from being the most infamous teenager in New York City to a club impresario with the most audacious idea this city has seen in a decade. How did it happen?”

  “Back to your other question. I wouldn’t say single-handedly—I’ve had a lot of help in making this come together. Theo Marquez and Charles Delacroix, for instance, have both been instrumental.” Theo was inside, but I could see Mr. Delacroix down the steps from where I stood. He was talking to a different group of reporters. He was much more skilled than I.

  Although the alliance had cost me my relationship with Win, Mr. Delacroix had absolutely been the right choice for my business partner. He knew everyone in the city and he knew how government worked. As I had hoped, people had believed him when he said our venture was legal.

  “Interesting,” the reporter said. “Delacroix was once your greatest enemy and now he seems to have become your greatest ally.”

  I took Mr. Delacroix’s advice and steered the conversation back to what I wanted to talk about. “Once you taste Theo Marquez’s cacao drinks, you might think he’s my greatest ally,” I said. I answered a few more questions, and then I thanked the reporter for her time.

  When I went inside, I did a quick walk-through. The doctors were in their carrels. The chandeliers were lit. The big band was warming up. The ceiling fans kept the rooms cool and carried the soft, melancholy scent of chocolate—I mean, cacao—from room to room. For once in my life, all seemed right with the world.

  I went into my office. I hadn’t slept in close to twenty-four hours, and I was contemplating a short nap when Mr. Delacroix came into the room.

  He studied me for a second. “You look very sleepy. Awaken, Anya Balanchine. Our doors open in ten minutes and there is still much for us to do and to see.”

  “Like what?”

  He offered me his hand to help me out of my chair, and I followed him to a window with a view of the eastern exterior stairs of the club.

  He parted a red velvet curtain. “Look,” he said.

  Every space on the steps was filled with a body. The line to get inside extended down the sidewalk. I could not see where it ended.

  “They haven’t even tasted it yet,” I whispered.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  He was smiling and that was a rare occurrence. When he smiled, I could see a bit of his son in him and I couldn’t help wishing that Win were here.

  He went on. “You’re giving them something they wanted, something they missed. In this small way, you’re making people whole again. I wanted to do such things myself, once upon a time.” He paused. “It’s probably not my place to say, but I’m sure your parents would be proud of you.”

  “How are you sure? Based on what evidence exactly do you conclude that my parents would have been proud?”

  He laughed at me. “Oh, you can never have a nice moment, can you? You can never let anything go. It must be exhausting in that head of yours.”

  “Please. I’d like to know. You don’t say anything without having considered your angle, so give me your rationale for my parents’ theoretical pride. Or was it only a load of politician crap? Were you offering up a few benedictory words, like a low-level government official at a ribbon-cutting ceremony?” I was cranky from lack of sleep and this might have come out more harshly than I had intended it.

  “I think I should be insulted.” He furrowed his brow. “Okay, proof of dead parents’ pride. I can come up with that. Your mother was a cop, wasn’t she?”

  I nodded.

  “Is it a stretch to suggest that she would have been proud of you for figuring out how to turn your father’s business legal?”

  “Maybe it would have irritated her that I was bending the law.”

  He continued. “And your father. At the end of his life, he was trying to push Balanchine Chocolate into the modern era, was he not? The Russians killed him for it. You’re barely out of high school and you’ve already managed to do what your father could not. And without any bloodshed.”

  “Any bloodshed so far.”

  “You’re in a cheery mood. In any case, I think I’ve presented ample evidence that both your parents would have been absolutely delighted with you, my colleague.” He offered me his hand, and I shook it.

  * * *

  Glasses were broken. Drinks were spilled. The occasional punch was thrown. Girls cried in the bathroom. Men and women left with people different from those they had arrived with. We ran out of cacao—we were going to need to increase our supply—and only half of the people who wanted to come in were able to get through the door. It was dirty and noisy and I loved it more than I had ever dared hope.

  A small miracle: I, who always worried, stopped worrying. Maybe it was toward the end of the night when Lucy beckoned me to the dance floor, where a group of women who worked at the club were dancing together. I liked these women, though they were my employees, not my friends. (Indeed, I had barely seen my best friend that night—she’d left early, kissing me on the cheek and whispering a rushed apology about Felix’s babysitter.)

  “I don’t dance,” I yelled to Lucy.

  “You’re wearing a dress that was made for dancing,” she yelled back. “You can’t wear a dress like that and not dance. That would be criminal. Come on, Anya.”

  Elizabeth, who worked in the press office, waved her arms at me and said, “If you don’t dance with us, we’ll think you’re a snob and we’ll probably talk about you behind your back.”

  Noriko was with them, too. “Anya! Silly to start dancing club and not dance.”

  These were valid points, and so I made my way to the dance floor. Noriko put her arms around me and kissed me.

  Years ago, Scarlet, who loved to dance, and I had been at Little Egypt, uptown. I had said to her, “The more I think about dancing, the more I don’t get it.”

  “Stop thinking,” she had
said. “That’s the key.”

  At the Dark Room that night, I finally understood what she meant. Dancing was a kind of surrender to feeling, to sound, to the present.

  I had been dancing for a while when a pillow-lipped, bedroom-eyed man in his twenties pushed his way into my circle.

  “You dance well,” he said.

  “No one has ever told me that before,” I said honestly.

  “I find that hard to believe. Is it okay if I dance with you?”

  “Free country,” I said.

  “Interesting place, right?”

  “Yeah.” I could tell he had no idea that I was the owner, and that was fine with me.

  “Girl, that dress is stupid-sexy,” he said.

  I blushed. I was about to tell him how it wasn’t really my taste and how someone else had picked it out for me, but then I changed my mind. As far as he knew, I was exactly what I appeared to be. I was a sexy girl in a sexy dress, who’d gone out to a club to have a good time with her friends. I put my hand on his neck, and I kissed him. He had these big dark lips that looked as if they needed to be kissed.

  “Wow,” he said. “So do I get your name?”

  “You seem nice, and you’re incredibly cute, but I’m not dating right now.”

  “Pour la liberté!” Brita said, pumping her fist.

  “Freedom! Freedom!” Lucy echoed. I hadn’t even known they’d been paying attention to me.

  “Sure,” he said. “I get that.”

  We danced for a few more songs and then he left.

  How strange it was for me to kiss a man and know he meant nothing to me, to know with certainty that I would never see him again, that what I was feeling at that precise moment I would only feel once. How different it was from kissing Win—those kisses had seemed consequential, ponderous even. But when I kissed that man, my only obligation was to the present. I had always tried to be a good girl, and until that night, it had never occurred to me that some people you kissed wouldn’t become your boyfriend and that this was, in fact, perfectly fine. Maybe even desirable.

  I was still on the dance floor when a hand grabbed mine. It was Natty. “I couldn’t miss your big night,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Pierce.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m glad you came. Come dance with me, okay?”

  She smiled, and we danced for what felt like hours. I forgot that I had a body that was capable of being tired. I wouldn’t even notice the blisters until the next day.

  The sun had started to come up by the time Natty and I finally went home. She asked if we might stop at our church, as it only sent us slightly in the wrong direction.

  At sixteen, I had still been convinced that piety could protect me and mine from the realities of living in this world and from the fact that all that lives must die. At eighteen, after everything that had happened to me, I did not much believe in anything anymore.

  Still, I did not mind if my sister believed. In fact, I found the idea comforting.

  At St. Patrick’s, we lit candles for our mother, our father, Nana, and Imogen. “They’re watching us,” Natty said.

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but I want to. And even if they aren’t, I don’t think it can hurt.”

  * * *

  I woke in the afternoon. My business ran on vampire hours, and in that first year of running the Dark Room, my whole life, perhaps appropriately, would pass in a series of dark rooms. I ambled out to the living room, where I found Theo, impossibly bright eyed, sitting on my couch. I had told him he could use Nana’s old room for as long as he stayed in New York.

  “Anya, I have been waiting hours and hours for you.” He probably had been; Theo’s work on the farm required him to rise at dawn, and it must have been difficult for him to break the habit. “Listen, we have business to discuss.”

  “I know,” I said, pulling my bathrobe around myself. “But maybe some breakfast first?”

  “It is past lunchtime,” Theo said. “Your kitchen is the saddest place I have ever seen.” He produced an orange from his pocket and held it out to me. “Here, eat this. I brought it from home.”

  I took the orange and began to peel it.

  “I have already arranged for the next month’s cacao shipments,” Theo said. “Looking through your books and seeing how last night went, I believe you underestimate demand by half.”

  “I’ll up my order. Thanks for doing that, Theo.” I arranged the orange peels into a tidy stack.

  “I am not being nice, Anya! I want to work for your club. No, I lie. I want to work with you. I see how successful the club could be and, if you want to keep it that way, you are going to need someone to supply your cacao. And in the kitchen you need an overseer with a deep understanding of cacao, too. I can be both someones.”

  “What are you saying, Theo?”

  “I am saying that I want to be your partner. I want to stay here in New York and become the director of operations for the Dark Room.”

  “Theo, won’t they miss you on the farm?”

  “We are not talking about that. Pretend you know nothing about me. Pretend we are strangers. But no, they do not miss me. I will make a bucket of money supplying our cacao to you, and Luna takes care of much on the farm since I was sick last year.” He looked at me. “Listen, Anya, you need me. And not because I am the most handsome boy you know. But I look around last night. Delacroix, he raises money for you. He talks to the press. He takes care of the law. But you do some of that and everything else, too. I am not criticizing you, but you are a young business and you need someone else to help you with the kitchen and supply aspects. I make sure everything we serve is delicious, safe, and of highest quality. It would have been certain disaster last night if not for me—”

  “You’re always so modest.”

  “I want to organize your club so that you never again experience a supply shortfall. No matter what happens—la plaga, el apocalipsis, la guerra—the Dark Room will keep serving drinks.”

  “What do you get out of it?”

  “I supply you with cacao and offer my services in exchange for 10 percent of the business. Also, I want to be a part of this. I want to build something with my own two hands. It is exciting here. My heart beats like a madman’s!” He grabbed my citrus-coated hand and held it over his heart. “Feel, Anya. Feel how it beats. Last night, I am so tired but I cannot even sleep. I have waited to be a part of something like this my whole life.”

  His proposal did not seem unreasonable. Cacao was one of our larger expenses, and Theo had been indispensable since his arrival yesterday. (Had it only been yesterday?) If I had a hesitation, it was probably that I considered very few people to truly be my friends, and Theo was one of them. “I don’t want this to spoil our friendship if the business doesn’t work out,” I said.

  “Anya, we are the same. No matter what happens, I know the risk I take and I will not blame you. Besides, we will always be friends. I could just as soon hate you as I could my sister. My sister Luna, I mean. Not Isabelle. Isabelle, I could hate. You know how she gets.”

  He held out his rough farmer’s hand, and I shook it. “I’ll have Mr. Delacroix draw up the papers,” I said.

  It was only right. Theo Marquez had taught me everything I knew about cacao, and without him, there probably wouldn’t have been a Dark Room.

  IV

  I GO FROM INFAMOUS TO FAMOUS; CONSEQUENTLY, ENEMIES BECOME FRIENDS

  THE NIGHT BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY, I had been sternly warned by Mr. Kipling not to expect the club to be a success right away—or ever. “Bars are tricky,” Mr. Kipling had said. “Nightclubs are worse. In this economy, do you know what the rate of failure for nightclubs is?”

  Hadn’t Chai Pinter said it was 99 percent? But that figure seemed high. “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “And that’s precisely what worries me, Annie,” Mr. Kipling had said. “You have no idea what you’re getting int
o. The rate of failure is 87 percent, by the way. And most people aren’t foolish enough to open a nightclub in the first place.”

  However, Mr. Kipling had been wrong about the Dark Room. For whatever reason, the idea had instantly caught fire. From the first night we opened, every table was filled, and the lines got longer every night. People I hadn’t heard from in years contacted me trying to get tables. Mrs. Cobrawick, formerly of Liberty, was turning fifty and wanted to spend her birthday at the Dark Room. She was an awful woman, but she had once done me a good turn. I gave her a table by the window and even sent her a round of Theobromas on the house. District Attorney Bertha Sinclair wanted to bring her mistress but needed to arrange to come in through the back door to avoid the press, who were always posted out front. Bertha Sinclair was not my favorite person either, but it was good to have powerful friends. I hooked her up with our most secluded table. I heard from kids I’d gone to school with, teachers (a few of whom had voted to expel me), friends of my father’s, and even the cops who had investigated me for poisoning Gable Arsley in 2082. I said yes to everyone. My father used to say, Generosity, Anya. It’s always a good investment.

  I had been written about my whole life because of who my father was, but now for the first time, I became the story. Instead of being identified as a “mafiya princess,” they called me a “nightclub darling,” a “raven-haired impresario,” and even a “cacao wunderkind.” People wanted to know what I was wearing, who cut my hair, who I was dating. (I wasn’t dating anyone, by the way.) When I walked down the street, people sometimes recognized me, waving to me and calling my name.

  During this period, the Family remained silent. I had braced myself for more disturbances like the destruction of the cacao supply, but none came.

  At the end of October, Fats contacted me. He asked if he might come to the club for a sit-down, and I agreed.

  Fats arrived at our meeting with only one other person in tow, and that person was Mouse, the girl who had been my bunk mate at Liberty. “Mouse,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Very well,” she said. “Thanks for recommending me to Fats.”