I wanted to say, She will not. Of course she will not. But I didn’t say anything.
“Last time, you said I couldn’t be serious because I didn’t bring a ring. This time, I came prepared,” Gable continued.
Scarlet exhaled loudly. “Gable, go away. This isn’t funny or romantic. It’s just”—she paused—“sad. I can’t love you ever again.”
“But why can’t you?” he whined.
“Because you really are awful. I thought you had changed but I was wrong. People like you can’t change. You were awful before the poisoning and you’re still awful. You sold pictures of my best friend—”
“But that wasn’t you!” Gable insisted. “That was her! I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
Scarlet shook her head. “Annie is me. Don’t you know that? Please, Gable, just go. It’s nearly eleven and I don’t want to be out past city curfew.”
Gable moved to take Scarlet’s hand, but Daisy Gogol wedged herself between them. “You heard the lady,” Daisy said, and then she growled at him like a bear.
On the bus, Scarlet and I were sharing a two-person row, and Daisy and Natty sat a couple of rows behind us. I had thought that Scarlet was sleeping as she had her head leaned against the window and hadn’t said anything the entire trip. Three stops from my apartment, I heard a series of sniffles.
“Scarlet, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Hormones maybe. Ignore me.” I had a handkerchief in my bag so I gave it to her. She blew her nose for half a city block. She paused and then she did it again. “I am so gross,” she said. I told her she wasn’t but I could tell she wasn’t listening to me. “Oh Annie, what am I going to do?”
“About what?” I asked.
“I haven’t wanted to bother you with any of it, because obviously, you have problems of your own. But everything is a complete disaster!”
The disaster of my best friend’s life broke down in the following way:
1. Her parents were Catholic so there had been no question about her keeping the baby, but Scarlet wasn’t even sure she wanted a baby.
2. Her parents were saying they didn’t want to pay for college (“And certainly not drama school!”) now that Scarlet had tarnished herself so.
3. Her mother really wanted her to marry Arsley and was threatening to throw her out of the house if she didn’t.
4. Drama club wasn’t going to let her be in the photo. (“After everything I’ve done for them!” she said indignantly.)
5. If Scarlet didn’t give birth before graduation, Holy Trinity was saying they weren’t going to let her walk at commencement.
6. Arsley was harassing her constantly about getting back with him and she feared that he was wearing her down.
Here, Scarlet sighed.
I was trying not to be selfish, to think of things from Scarlet’s point of view. I suggested that maybe she should get back with Arsley, if she still liked him.
“Annie, I loathe him! I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.” She paused. “I’m starting to believe that I really am the stupidest girl in the world.”
“Scarlet, don’t say that!”
“It’s true. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I’m so puffy and disgusting I have to turn away. I think, ‘Scarlet Barber, you have done nothing but make horrible mistakes for the past year.’”
I told her that I had had the same thought about myself not that long ago.
“But I’m a million times worse than you! Because you had all of this thrust upon you. And I did this to myself.” She paused. “I do hate Gable, but the thing is … The sad, awful, ridiculous truth is, I’m lonely. I’m so alone, Annie. And Gable sometimes feels like the only person in the world who is even a little pleased to see me.”
I put my arm around her. “For the record, I’m always happy to see you,” I said. “And if the worst happens with your parents, you can always come stay with Natty and me. You and the baby.”
Scarlet planted a kiss on my cheek. “Really, Annie? Do you mean it?”
“Of course. That’s the best part of having no parents or even a guardian. I make the decisions now. You do run the risk of being an innocent bystander in a violent crime. But we have more than enough bedrooms.”
“I hate it when you’re morbid,” Scarlet said. “And I suppose I’m just surprised to hear you say that. You’ve always been so private. Even from me.”
I had recently come to the realization that that wasn’t the best method for living. “Nana used to say that ‘family takes care of family.’ And you are my family, Scarlet. Much more so than that band of criminals I’m blood-related to. We have been best friends since the day we were made to sit alphabetized in Miss Pritchett’s class—”
“Balanchine, Anya. Barber, Scarlet.”
“Natty and I love you. Leo loved you, too—”
Scarlet put her hand over my mouth. “Oh, please, please, please stop! I don’t want to cry any more tonight. I’ve existed in a permanent state of tears for the last two years.”
The bus arrived at Scarlet’s stop. Between the combined volume of her skirt and belly and the height of her heels, Scarlet was having trouble getting up out of the seat. I stood and offered her my hand.
Late that night, after the party, Win came over to the apartment. We’d just seen each other but I suspect his main reason in coming over was because he could—he was now officially over eighteen, which meant that city curfew didn’t apply to him. We went into my room, so that we wouldn’t wake Natty, who had already gone to bed. We were both hungry but there wasn’t much to eat in the house. Win noticed the mongrel bar of chocolate on my dresser. “What’s this?”
I told him I had bought it in the park. “You can have it if you want but it might be terrible.”
I went into the kitchen to get water. For a second, the tap wouldn’t start running and an awful breathy banging sound came from the pipes. I wondered if this would be the day the water ran out. But, finally, the water started.
When I got back to my room, I found Win studying the chocolate. He had taken off the jacket, and he was holding out the gold foil–wrapped bar. “Look, it’s not Balanchine,” he said. “The paper looks like it is, but underneath it’s something else.”
“Yeah, I thought that might happen,” I said. “I bought it in front of Little Egypt. The jacket was off, so I thought it would probably be some generic brand underneath.”
“It’s not generic.” Win held out the foil-wrapped bar so I could read it: BITTER SCHOKOLADE, HERGESTELLT FÜR BITTER SCHOKOLADEN GMBH, MÜNCHEN.
“At the funeral, someone was saying that they were the perennial fourth-place chocolate family in Germany,” I said quietly. “Mickey’s wife’s family actually. You remember Sophia…” Sophia Bitter Balanchine. Sophia M. Bitter Balanchine. Sophia Marquez Bitter Balanchine. The former Sophia Marquez Bitter, who Theo’s oldest sister hadn’t liked. Sophia Marquez Bitter, who had once been engaged to Yuji Ono …
Everywhere I had been, she had been first.
Bitter Chocolate under a Balanchine wrapper.
Who would have had the ability to orchestrate supply-wide poisoning?
Who would have had the ability to execute a three-country hit?
Who would Yuji Ono have protected over me?
I dropped the bar on the floor. Because it was thin and stale and cheap, it broke into several pieces.
It was obvious. I had been so stupid.
Again.
I had to sit down.
“Annie, are you all right?” Win asked.
I was about to lie: to tell him I wasn’t feeling well and that I’d see him tomorrow; walk him to the elevator; then, I’d go back into my room, close the door, and puzzle this out alone. But the truth was I hadn’t done that well with this method—that is to say, solitude. Win knew plenty of appalling things about me, and he was still here.