Because It Is My Blood (8 page)

“I could come see you, then. Where are you staying?”

“I will try to come to you,” Yuji said coolly. It annoyed me that he didn’t trust me enough to tell me where he was staying when I had trusted him with my whole life.

“Give the child a break, Yuji,” Sophia teased him.

I didn’t like being referred to as a child. “Come or don’t come,” I said. I turned to Mickey. “How is your father?”

“Any day now,” Mickey said glumly. Sophia took his small hand in her large one.

I thanked the three of them for coming and then I went to talk to Simon Green, who had not managed to integrate himself into the rest of the party.

“You look utterly miserable,” I said to him.

Simon Green laughed. “Parties aren’t really my thing.”

“Mine neither,” I said. “What’s your reason?”

Simon Green took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. “I’m afraid I had a very lonely childhood. Never got used to being with people.”

“The opposite for me. Everything was too crowded. Middle-child syndrome I think they call it.”

Simon Green nodded toward the corner of the room. “Is that Yuji Ono?”

“Yes.” I didn’t want to talk about him.

“And who’s that?” He was pointing at Alison Wheeler, who was dancing with a girl from my history class.

“Ah, that would be my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. We’re friends. It’s all very grown-up and civilized.”

“Her?” Simon Green’s tone was one of utter incredulity. “We’re talking about the redheaded girl with the pixie cut?”

“Yes, her.” I paused. “Why not her?”

“Just not what I expected.” I tried to convince him to elaborate, but Simon Green would go no further.

I continued my rounds. Before I knew it, it was 11:20, and the only ones left were Scarlet and Gable. Scarlet told me to go home, but I stayed. I knew Gable wouldn’t be much help cleaning up.

“It wasn’t awful, was it?” Scarlet asked me. “You weren’t hating me the whole night?”

“Of course not, you silly duck.” I kissed Scarlet on the cheek. “No one has ever been a better and more loyal friend to me than you have.”

“How completely touching,” Gable said sarcastically. “Can we please go home now?”

I asked Scarlet if she wanted to ride the bus back with me. She informed me that she was planning to spend the night at Gable’s.

“Scarlet!” The Catholic schoolgirl in me was scandalized.

“No, it’s fine,” she insisted. “Gable doesn’t like me traveling uptown at night and his parents don’t mind if I use the spare room.”

As it was late—ten minutes until city curfew—my cousin Fats insisted that he see me back to the Upper East Side.

We were waiting for the bus when a black car pulled up to the stop. The door opened. For a second, I wondered if I was about to be shot, if this was how it was all going to end.
(But we are only on page seventy-one of the second volume of my life, so surely this could not be the end.)

Fats reached into his pocket. Just in case he had to shoot, I suppose.

Yuji Ono leaned out of the car. “A ride, Anya?” I nodded to Fats to let him know I was fine and then I got in the car.

I had had several cups of coffee that night to aid in the illusion that I was in possession of a sparkly party personality. As soon as I sat down, I started feeling the effects of the caffeine in my body. My heart beat like a hummingbird’s. I was flushed, too bold, too sharp. More like Scarlet than myself. “I thought you were mad at me,” I said to him.

“I am,” he said. “Outraged.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious.

“How is my brother?” I asked.

“Very well,” Yuji promised me. “I have a present for you, but only after you tell me why you’ve been neglecting Mickey Balanchine.”

Daddy used to say that the only people who made excuses were failures. “It was harder coming back from Liberty than I thought it was going to be.”

“You mean finding a secondary school?” Yuji Ono made a face. “Why do you even need a high school diploma?”

“You would rather me be uneducated? A fool?”

“That is not what I am saying. But the things you need to learn, you cannot learn in school.”

“Every time I see you, you lecture me,” I complained.

“That is because I am counting on you, Anya. I think you will agree that I have gone to great lengths for you.”

“Of course, Yuji.”

“You are my investment.”

“I don’t belong to you though.”

The car was just passing the southeastern edge of the park. Yuji reached into his pocket. He took my hand and pried it open. On my palm, he placed a small wooden lion.

“Did Leo make this?” I asked quietly.

“Yes, he has taken up carving.”

I looked at the lion, my miniature miracle. Leo had touched this. Leo was safe. I smiled at Yuji and tried not to cry. “He’s good at this.”

I turned to thank him. I was about to kiss him on the cheek when the car passed over a pothole and I ended up kissing him on the mouth. It was not romantic in the least. His teeth knocked against mine. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was aiming for your cheek. Potholes, you know. This city!”

Yuji blushed. “I know, Anya.” He turned his dark eyes on me. “You would never try to kiss an old man like me on the lips.”

“Yuji, you’re not old,” I protested.

“Compared to you, I am.” He turned to look out the window. “Besides, I have heard that you are secretly with your old boyfriend. The politician’s son.”

I twisted in the seat. “What? That absolutely isn’t true! Who said that?”

“Mickey and Sophia suspect it.”

“They barely know me! They should keep their mouths shut.”

“You are back at your old school, are you not?” Yuji asked me.

“Only because nowhere else would have me. Yuji, it is impossible for me to be with Win. And you should know that even the suspicion of that could be disastrous for me.”

Yuji shrugged. He might have been the most infuriating person I had ever known.

“Was Sophia Bitter your girlfriend?” I asked.

Yuji smiled at me. “Is tonight the night for archaeology?”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Mainly she was my school friend,” Yuji said after a rather long pause. “She was my best school friend.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that when we were at the wedding?” I asked.

“It wasn’t relevant.”

“Neither is my personal life then.”

We traveled up Madison Avenue in silence.

I closed my hand around the lion, letting its edges and imperfections etch themselves into my flesh. Yuji put his hand around my fist. “So you see. Our lives are interconnected.”

His hand was ice around mine, but the sensation was not entirely unpleasant.

The car stopped on East Ninetieth Street, where I lived, and I opened the car door.

“I am sorry that we argued,” he said. “I … The truth is, I see you as … part of myself. I should not, though.”

I got out of the car and went upstairs. I went into Natty’s room. She had already fallen asleep, but I woke her up anyway.

“Natty,” I whispered.

“What?” she asked drowsily.

I held out my palm so that she could see the wooden lion.

“Leo? It’s Leo, isn’t it?” Her eyes were bright and alert.

I nodded.

She took the wooden lion and kissed it on its head. “Will we ever see him again?”

I told her that I hoped so and then I went to bed myself.

*   *   *

I had barely slept at all when I awoke to a banging on the apartment door. “Police!”

The clock read 5:12 a.m. I pulled on my bathrobe and went to the door. I looked through the peephole. Indeed, two uniformed police officers stood there. I opened the door, but left the security chain on. “What do you want?”

“We’re here for Anya Balanchine,” one of the police officers said.

“Yes. That’s me.”

“We need you to open the door, ma’am. We’re here to take you back to Liberty,” the officer continued.

I ordered myself to stay calm. I could hear Natty and Imogen stirring in the hallway behind me. “Annie, what’s happening?” Natty asked.

I ignored her. I had to stay focused. “On what grounds?” I asked the officer.

“Violations of the terms of your release.”

“What violations?” I demanded.

The officer said that he didn’t have that information—just instructions to bring me back to Liberty. “Please, ma’am, we need you to come with us.”

I told him I would come out, but that I needed a moment to change.

“Five minutes,” the officer said.

I closed the door and walked down the hallway. I tried to consider my options. I couldn’t run; there was no other way out of the apartment, except suicide. Besides, I didn’t want to run. For all I knew, this could have been some sort of clerical error. I decided to go with the police officers and figure out the rest later. Imogen and Natty stood at the end of the hallway. Both seemed to be awaiting my instruction. “Imogen, I need you to call Mr. Kipling and Simon Green.”

Imogen nodded.

“What should I do?” Natty asked.

I kissed her on the head. “Try not to worry.”

“I’ll say a prayer for you,” Natty said.

“Thank you, sweet.”

I ran to my bedroom. I took off my necklace and changed into my school uniform. I went into the bathroom, where I took a second to brush my teeth and wash my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. You are strong, I told myself. God doesn’t give you anything that you can’t bear.

I heard more banging on the door.
“It’s time!”
the officer called.

I returned to the foyer, where Natty and Imogen looked at me with shell-shocked faces. “I’ll see you soon,” I said to them.

I walked to the door, unchained it, and pushed it wide open. “I’m ready,” I said.

The officer was holding a pair of handcuffs. I knew how this went. I held out my wrists.

*   *   *

At Liberty, I wasn’t brought to the intake room as I had been the previous two times I’d been there. They didn’t even have me change into the Liberty jumpsuit. Instead, I was delivered to a Liberty guard, one I didn’t recognize, then led down a hallway.

A hallway that led to several flights of stairs.

I knew this route, and it could mean only one thing.

The Cellar.

I had been there once before and it had nearly killed me, or at least driven me crazy.

I could already smell the excrement and the mold. Fear crept into my heart. I stopped short. “No,” I said. “No, no. I need to talk to my attorney.”

“I have my orders,” the guard said without emotion.

“I swear on the graves of my dead mother and father, I haven’t done anything wrong.”

The guard pushed me and I fell to my knees. I could feel them scrape against the concrete. It was already so dark and the stench was terrible. I decided that if I didn’t stand up, then they couldn’t make me go down there.

“Girl,” the guard said, “if you don’t stand up, I will knock you out and carry you myself.”

I clasped my hands. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” I was begging now. “I can’t.” I grasped the guard’s leg. I was past having dignity.

“Assistance!”
the guard called.
“Prisoner is noncompliant!”

A second later, I felt a syringe go into the side of my neck. I did not pass out, but my mind went blank, and it felt as if my troubles were behind me. The guard tossed me over her shoulder like I weighed nothing and carried me down the three flights of stairs. I barely felt it when she placed me in the kennel. The cage door had only just closed when I finally did lose consciousness.

When I awoke, every part of me hurt, and my school uniform was ominously damp.

Outside my tiny cage, I could see a pair of crossed legs in expensive wool pants attached to a pair of feet in recently shined shoes. I wondered if I was hallucinating—I had never known there to be any lights in the Cellar. A flashlight beam moved toward me. “Anya Balanchine,” Charles Delacroix greeted me. “I’ve been waiting near ten minutes for you to wake up. I’m a very busy man, you know. Dismal place here. I’ll have to remember to have it shut down.”

My throat was dry, probably from whatever drug they’d given me. “What time is it?” I rasped. “What day is it?”

He pushed a thermos through the bars, and I drank greedily.

“Two a.m.,” he told me. “Sunday.”

I had been asleep almost twenty hours.

“Are you the reason I’m here?” I asked.

“You give me too much credit. How about my son? Or you yourself? Or the stars? Or your precious Jesus Christ? You’re a Catholic, are you not?”

I did not reply.

Charles Delacroix yawned.

“Long hours?” I asked.

“Very.”

“Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule,” I said sarcastically.

“All right, Anya, you and I have always been able to be candid with each other, so here it is,” Charles Delacroix began. He took a slate out of his pocket and turned it on. He turned it toward me. The photograph was of Win and me in the Trinity cafeteria. Win was holding my hand across the table. It had been taken Friday. How long had he held my hand? Less than two seconds before I had pulled away.

“It isn’t what it looks like,” I said. “Win was shaking my hand. We’re trying to be … friends, I guess. It wasn’t even a moment.”

“I do believe you, but unfortunately for both of us, this indiscretion was long enough for someone to get a picture,” Charles Delacroix said. “On Monday, a news story will run with this picture and the headline ‘Charles Delacroix’s Mob Connections: Who He Knows and What That Means to Voters.’ Needless to say, this is not ideal for me. Or for you.”

Yes, I could see that.

“That generous, anonymous donation to Trinity—”

“I had nothing to do with it!”

“Anya, I already know that. Haven’t you ever suspected who did make that donation, though?”

I shook my head. My neck was sore where they had injected me. “The truth is, Mr. Delacroix, I didn’t care. I just wanted to go back to school. I tried to find another school, but none would have me with the weapons charges.”

Charles Delacroix clucked sympathetically. “Our system does make it challenging for parolees to follow the straight and narrow.”