Leo got into the car. “Can I come home for Christmas?”
“No, Leo, I don’t think so. But let’s see what happens, okay? Maybe I’ll be able to come visit you someday.”
“And Natty?”
“Sure, Natty, too,” I lied.
I watched Leo’s car drive away, then I went back into the dance. Dr. Lau wasn’t in the lobby anymore, which was just as well. I wanted to go inside and dance with my boyfriend and relax for a bit. Now that I’d finally seen Leo off, the knot that I’d been holding in my stomach for these last couple weeks had finally begun to untie itself. (It wouldn’t be completely untied until I heard from Yuji Ono.)
I found Win. He was talking to some of the boys he played music with. “Where were you for so long?”
“I ran into Dr. Lau on the way back from the bathroom,” I said. “I got into that summer program I applied to. She was talking my ear off about it.”
“Congratulations!” he said. “I’m so proud of you. How long is it again?”
“Six weeks,” I admitted.
“Well, that isn’t so bad. I sure will miss you though,” he said as he pulled me closer.
And then Win and I danced for several more songs. I had thought I didn’t like dancing, but maybe I hadn’t had the right partner up until then.
“Last song,” the bandleader called out. “Everyone on the dance floor.”
Across the dance floor, I could see Scarlet and Gable. I decided to go mend the fence with Scarlet officially. In front of Gable, I mean. “You’re my best friend,” I said to Scarlet once I’d gotten up to them, “but I don’t control your life. And if you want to go to a dance with this imbecile, that’s your business, I suppose.”
Scarlet smiled at me. “Sure, Anya. Thanks. That means a lot to me.”
“Hey!” Gable said to Scarlet. “Aren’t you going to say I’m not an imbecile?”
Scarlet shook her head. “Well sometimes you kind of are one, Gable.”
I walked back to Win. “Let’s go,” I said to him.
We left the dance arm in arm. We didn’t have a car waiting for us, but were planning to take the bus as usual.
“Nice night,” Win said. “You can tell summer’s right around the corner.”
That’s when I heard the gunshot.
I reached my hand into my purse for Daddy’s gun.
Another shot.
Win collapsed to the ground.
“Oh, God, Win!”
I took the gun out of my purse. I cocked it, aimed it, and then I shot.
The gunman was about fifteen feet away and it was dark, but I was a good shot. Daddy had made sure of that. I shot to disable, not to kill. I landed one bullet in the person’s shoulder and a second in the kneecap.
I ran over to the gunman to kick his gun out of reach, then I went back to Win. Our classmates were gathering around him. “Someone call 911. Win Delacroix’s been shot.” My voice was calm even though I was not.
I kneeled down by Win’s side. He was passed out from the pain. Or perhaps he’d hit his head when he fell. The only wound I could see was on his thigh. It was bleeding a lot, so I took off my wrap and tied it around his leg like a tourniquet.
I ran back across the courtyard to the gunman, who was also lying on the pavement. He was wearing a ski mask. I ripped it off his face: it was Jacks. “Please don’t shoot me. I wasn’t trying to kill Leo, Annie. Honestly, I swear. I was only trying to hurt him so I could bring him back to Yuri and Mickey.”
“So they could kill my brother and you’d be the big hero, huh? Well, you moron, that wasn’t even Leo. Leo’s not here. That was my boyfriend, Win.”
“Annie, I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake,” Jacks said.
“Nothing you do is honest, Jacks.” I wondered how Jacks had found out that Leo was at the school. Had he guessed? Or had Leo somehow been communicating with him? Or had a different person entirely been the informant? The only people that knew our plan were Yuji Ono and Scarlet and I highly doubted either one of them had told Jacks. I couldn’t think about this right now. And I couldn’t ask Jacks either, because if I asked him, it would be as good as admitting that we had managed to smuggle Leo out of the country tonight. “You do know who my boyfriend’s father is, don’t you?” I asked Jacks.
“The assistant DA,” Jacks said as it slowly dawned on him just whose son he had mistakenly shot.
“Good luck with that, cousin. All of our lives are about to become a living hell,” I said.
A police car showed up. “What happened here?” a cop demanded.
“This man, Jakov ‘Jacks’ Pirozhki, shot my boyfriend,” I said. The cops put Jacks in handcuffs. I saw him wince as they pulled his arm.
“So, who shot him?” The cop was pointing to Jacks.
“I did,” I said, at which point I, too, was put in handcuffs.
And then an ambulance showed up to transport Win to the hospital. I was desperate to go with him, but I was restrained by the handcuffs, of course. I screamed to Scarlet that she should ride with him instead, and she did.
And then another ambulance came to take Jacks away.
Finally, a second police car came, and this one was just for me.
XIX.
i enact a fair trade
I WAS QUESTIONED FOR FOUR HOURS at the police station, but I told them nothing about Leo. All they knew was that a low-level mobster had shot my boyfriend and that I had shot back in self-defense. The only charges they could pin on me were relatively minor: possession of a concealed weapon and possession of a weapon with an expired permit. Not to mention, I had saved Charles Delacroix’s son’s life—so what if it had been me who had put the young man in jeopardy to begin with? From the police’s point of view, I was a hero. Or, at least, an antihero.
And so I was sent home under house arrest while the powers that be tried to figure out what to do with me. They did not send me to Liberty as they were wary of sending me back there after the public relations fiasco of my last stay.
What else can I tell you? Oh yes, Leo. I had just begun my period of house arrest when word came from Yuji Ono that my brother had made it to Japan and was safely among the monks of Koya. At least it hadn’t all been for nothing, I suppose. On the phone, Yuji asked me if I needed anything further. I told him I didn’t. He had helped me enough.
And you’ll want to know about Win, of course. Charles Delacroix barred me from Win’s hospital room. Mr. Delacroix also made sure that neither calls nor things I tried to send reached his son. Win’s father was nothing if not thorough, and I suppose this was something to admire about the man.
I read in the news that the bullet had gone through Win’s hip socket and that his leg was being held together with a series of metal rods and pins. He would recover, but Scarlet, who had visited him, reported that he was in a lot of discomfort. She also told me that his father had him monitored by around-the-clock security guards. “In theory,” Scarlet said one day when she was over at the apartment, “it’s to make sure no one tries to get at Win, but the reality is Charles Delacroix wants to make sure Win doesn’t try to contact you.”
As usual, I could understand Charles Delacroix’s point of view. In less than a year, I had landed two boyfriends in the hospital. How could I be considered anything but a plague? If I had a son I loved, I would keep me away from him, too.
“But,” Scarlet said, “guess what?”
“What?”
“I have a note. He didn’t have much time to write it.”
Scarlet handed it to me. It was scribbled on a clean piece of gauze.
Dear Anya,
Don’t listen to my father.
Please come if you can.
I still love you. Of course I do.
Win
“Can I write one for you to give to him?” I asked.
Scarlet considered this. “Hmm. It’ll be harder for me to bring one back from you. The guards don’t let you take anything into his room. And if they saw I had a note from you, they might not let me
come back. Why don’t I say something to him for you?”
“Tell him …” What was there to say? I was beyond sorry. “Tell him thanks for the note.”
“Thanks for the note!” Scarlet repeated in an overly bright way. “Will do!”
Two weeks after the shooting, I was granted leave from my house arrest to face the school’s administrative board. Simon Green accompanied me. The ad board’s task was to decide whether or not I would be allowed to attend senior year at Holy Trinity.
I won’t bother you with the details, but they voted eleven to one to expel me from Holy Trinity. (The only dissenting vote had come from good old Dr. Lau.) Despite my numerous other offenses (fighting, insubordination, excessive absenteeism), it pretty much came down to the weapon that I had used to shoot Jacks. Apparently, they didn’t want someone who was packing on the Holy Trinity campus. I would be allowed to finish my junior year classwork at home, but after that, I needed to find myself another school. I added this to my list of things to do.
The school’s decision? I cannot honestly say I disagreed with it.
On the way back from Holy Trinity, I asked Simon Green if we could stop at the hospital.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Simon Green asked me. “Charles Delacroix has made his feelings toward you perfectly clear.”
“Please,” I begged. (Daddy always said the only thing worth begging for was your life, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe sometimes your love is a little bit worth begging for, too.) “Please.” Tears were running down my face and snot was coming from my nose. I was behaving like an infant. I was loathsome and wretched and Simon Green, who was softhearted and as green as his surname, took pity on me.
“All right, Anya. We can try,” Simon Green said.
We rode the elevator to the juvenile ward. How absurd that tall, grown-up Win was still considered a juvenile. By chance, it was lunch hour, so there were no guards posted outside Win’s room. We knocked on the door, which was orange with a cutout of a beach umbrella pasted to it. I suppose the cutout was meant to indicate that summer was nearly here even if it didn’t feel that way when you were stuck in a hospital bed.
“Come in,” a female voice called. I pushed the door open. The bed was empty. Win’s mother was seated in a chair by the window. When she saw me, I thought she was going to yell at me to get out, but she didn’t. “Win’s having an X-ray. Please come in, Anya,” she said.
Simon Green and I did not have to be asked twice. I knew that this was a gift Win’s mother was giving me, so I did my best to make small talk. “How are your oranges?” I asked.
“Very well, thanks.” Mrs. Delacroix laughed. “I want you to know I think that Charlie’s behaving like an absolute barbarian,” Mrs. Delacroix continued. “What happened isn’t your fault. If anything, your quick thinking saved Win’s life.”
“It’s not as if I didn’t have something to do with putting him in that situation in the first place,” I felt compelled to add.
“Well, yes … Nobody’s perfect, I suppose. Sit down a moment. Win will be back soon and I know he wants to see you. This, by the way, is a severe understatement.”
There were no other chairs so Simon Green and I sat on the bed.
Simon Green and Mrs. Delacroix did most of the talking, as I found I was too anxious to speak.
Finally, an orderly wheeled Win back into the room. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that had one leg cut off to allow room for all the black pins and other hardware holding the hip and leg in place.
My beautiful Win. I wanted to kiss him on every last broken place, but his mother and my lawyer were there. So, instead I started to cry.
I had done this to Win.
Or if not done this, I had certainly been the reason this had happened to him.
Win’s injuries were not nearly as bad as what had happened to Gable, but I felt Win’s so much more. I suppose the difference was that I loved Win.
“Let’s give the kids a moment alone,” Mrs. Delacroix said. “The guards will be back after lunch.” Simon Green and Mrs. Delacroix went out into the hallway.
At first, I could barely look at him. He looked fragile. No wonder his father had wanted to lock him away from everyone.
“Say something,” Win said gently. “You can’t just stand there not speaking and not looking at me. I’ll think you don’t like me anymore.”
“I was so scared,” I said finally. “And worried for you. And then they wouldn’t let me see you. Or call you or anything. And now I’m here and you’re all broken and hurt. Are you in much pain?”
“Only when I try to stand or sit or turn over or breathe,” he joked. “Here, help me back into bed, lass.” He leaned on me to stand, then he pushed himself into bed. He winced.
“Oh,” I said. “Did I hurt you?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not, silly girl. You make things better.” I bent down, and I kissed his leg on one of the places where the pins went in. Then I crawled into his bed and lay down next to him for a bit.
We must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, guards were running into the room and pulling me out of Win’s bed. I fell hard on the floor and landed on my knee. It would leave a terrible bruise, but in that moment, I barely felt it.
“Leave her alone,” Win said. “She’s fine! She’s not doing anything.”
“Your father’s orders,” the guard replied with an apology in his voice.
“He didn’t say you should throw a sixteen-year-old girl on the floor,” Win yelled.
“Come on,” Simon Green said. “We should go before this gets worse.”
“I love you, Anya,” Win called out.
I wanted to reply but they’d already shut Win’s door. As Simon Green was dragging me to the elevator, he muttered, “Mr. Kipling’s going to kill me for taking you here.”
Simon Green dropped me back at the apartment. After my return was noted by the policeman meant to monitor my actions and protect me from the rest of my family, I went straight to my room. On my way down the hall, I was accosted by Imogen.
“What happened to your knee?” she cried. The day had been warm enough that I was wearing my school skirt and no tights.
“Nothing,” I said. In point of fact, my kneecap was starting to throb. I felt silly complaining when I compared it with Win’s injuries.
“It doesn’t look like nothing, Annie.” She escorted me into my bedroom. “Lie down,” she ordered, which was the only thing I’d wanted to do anyway. I was cried out—the well never ran very deep with me—and what I wanted to do was hibernate like a bear. The good thing about house arrest, about being isolated from most everything and everyone, was that I could sleep in the middle of the day and no one cared.
Imogen returned with the ubiquitous bag of frozen peas. “Here.”
“It’s fine, Imogen. I just want to sleep.”
“You’ll thank me later,” she said.
I flipped onto my back. She felt around my kneecap. Ugly bruise, but nothing was broken and she assured me that I’d live. Then she set the peas in their place.
“Why is it always peas?” I asked, thinking about the numerous times I’d rested a bag of peas on Leo’s head or the night we went to Little Egypt when I gave the bag to Win. Had this been the very same bag? I could not say for sure. “Don’t we ever have frozen carrots or corn?”
Imogen shook her head. “The corn gets eaten the quickest. And none of you like carrots so they’re never bought.”
“That seems logical,” I said. Then I told her that I wanted to sleep and so she left me alone.
Late that night (Natty had already gone to bed), I awoke to a knock at my bedroom door. It was Imogen. “You have a visitor,” she said. “It’s your boyfriend’s father. Would you rather see him in here or in the living room?”
“Living room,” I said. My knee had tightened up something awful, but I did not want to encounter Charles Delacroix in a horizontal (i.e., weak) position. I pulled mysel
f out of bed. I smoothed down my school skirt and shirt, ran my fingers through my hair, and limped out to the living room.
“I’m sorry about that,” Mr. Delacroix said, indicating my knee, which ten hours later had become black, blue, puffy, and all-around spectacular. He was seated in the crimson velvet chair, and I couldn’t help but think of the times I’d seen his son seated in the same place.
“I’m also sorry about the late hour. Work has forced me to keep exceptionally long hours and also, well, I did not want to make my visit to you cause for a photo opportunity.”
I nodded. “Maybe you also didn’t want to see me with my lawyer present,” I suggested.
“Yes, Anya, you’re right. I wanted to have a discussion that was only between you and me. The situation we find ourselves in is personal but it is also business. That’s what makes this matter unusually complex for me.”
“Business is always personal if it’s your business,” I said.
Charles Delacroix laughed. “Yes, of course. I like you very much!”
I gave him a look.
“Oh, don’t be so surprised. You’re terribly likable, just not for my son.”
At least he was honest.
“All right, so I’m here to give you the lay of the land, if you don’t mind. We tested the bullets that you used to shoot your cousin. They came from the same gun that your brother used to shoot Yuri Balanchine. So, what are we to infer from this, Anya?”
I would not help him. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Smart girl,” Mr. Delacroix said. “That you saw your brother and somehow got him to a safe location at which point he gave you the gun.”
I took a deep breath. I would never tell where Leo was.
“Honestly, Anya, I don’t care what happened to your brother. He shot a mobster who no one much liked, even his own men. So, if you got Leo, Junior, out of the country without getting him killed, good for you. You take care of your own, I understand that. And so you’ll also understand why I have to do the same. The only thing I care about is the fact that you got my son shot.”