In the Age of Love and Chocolate by Gabrielle Zevin Read Free Book Online Page B

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