In the Age of Love and Chocolate

“I am. Thanks for making me. I needed to get out of the city.”

“I know you, Anya,” he said. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

We walked a bit farther, stopping every now and then to tend the cacao. When we came to the end of the field, Theo stopped.

“We should turn around,” I said.

“I cannot,” he said. “I must speak.” But then he did not speak.

“What is it, Theo? Out with it already. I’m getting cold.” In December, the weather in Mexico abruptly turned from pleasant to frigid. He grabbed me by the leather belt that strapped my new machete sheath to my waist. He undid the buckle.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He took my machete out of the sheath. “Get your hands off my machete,” I said, giving him a playful smack on the wrist.

“Hold out your hand,” he said.

He turned the sheath over and a small ring—a silver band with a white pearl—fell out of the case and into the palm of my hand. “You did not look close enough,” he said.

I stood there, dumbfounded. I sincerely hoped it was not what it looked like. “Theo, what is this?”

He grabbed my hand and forced the band over my knuckle. “I love you, Anya.”

“No, you don’t! You think I’m ugly. We fight all the time. You don’t love me.”

“I tease, I tease. You know this is my way. I do love you. I have never met a person I love as much as you.”

I began to back away from him.

“I think we should be married. We are the same, and Bisabuela is right. It is wrong for us to spend our lives together, as we have been for the past year, and not be married.”

“Theo, we can’t get married just because we’ve offended your great-grandmother.”

“That is not the only reason, and you know it. I love you. My family loves you. And no one will ever have more in common with you than me.”

“But Theo, I don’t love you, and I never claimed that I did.”

“What does that matter? You lie to yourself about love. I know you, Anya. You are afraid of being hurt or of being controlled, so you tell yourself you are not in love. You are afraid of happiness, so you destroy and vex her whenever she arrives.” He took my hand. “Have we not been happy this year?”

“Yes, but…”

“And is there anyone you prefer to me?”

“No, Theo, there’s no one I prefer.”

“Of course there is not. So marry me, Anya. Give yourself over to the happiness.” He put his arms around me.

“Theo,” I said, “I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone. Look at my parents. Look at Win’s parents.”

“We won’t be like them. I can see you as a little old woman and me as a little old man. We cook and we tease each other all day long. And we are happy, Anya. I promise you that we are happy.”

I could tell he wasn’t listening to me. I didn’t know how to make him understand. I felt trapped, tricked, and fooled by him. But I also didn’t want to lose the little traitor either. I looked at him. What was wrong with me anyway that this handsome, funny boy was not enough? “Theo, let’s give it time,” I said.

“Do you mean an engagement before the wedding?”

“I’m still very young. I need time to think.”

“You are not young,” he said. “You have never been young. You were born old and you have known your own mind as long as I have known you.”

“Theo,” I said, “even if I did love you, I don’t believe love is enough of a reason to get married.”

Theo laughed at me. “What is enough of a reason then? Tell me.”

I tried to think of one. “I don’t know.” The ring, with its too-tight band, had started to hurt my finger. When I pulled it off, it flew from my hand, landing somewhere in the dirt. I got on my hands and knees and began combing through the soil, looking for it. “Theo, forgive me. I think I lost your ring!”

“Calm down,” he said. “I see it.” He had sharp eyes from years of tending cacao. In a second, he had located the ring. “Not hard to find a pearl in the dirt,” he said.

He tried to hand it back to me, but I would not accept it this time. I kept my fists closed. “Theo, please,” I said. “I’m begging you. Ask me some other time.”

“Admit that you love me. I know that you love me.”

“Theo, I don’t love you.”

“Then what have we been doing for the past year?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a terrible mistake. I like you so much. I like kissing you, and I couldn’t be more grateful to you. But I know I don’t love you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I … I have been in love. And it is not what I feel for you.”

“Do you mean with Win? Why are you not still with him if you love him so much?”

“I wanted other things, Theo. Maybe love is enough for some girls, but it isn’t enough for me.”

“You leave Win, the boy you claim to love, because you say that love is not enough. You have friendship and work and fun with me, but that is not enough for you either. You don’t want love, but then you do. Has it occurred to you that nothing will ever satisfy you?”

“Theo, I’m only nineteen. I don’t have to know what I want.”

Theo set the ring on the palm of his hand and contemplated it for a moment. “Maybe we break up? Is that what you want?”

“No. I’m saying … What I’m saying is I can’t marry you right now. That’s all I’m saying.” It was selfish and weak, but I didn’t want to lose him. “Let’s forget this ever happened. Let’s go back to New York and back to the way we were.”

Theo stared at me and then he nodded and put the ring in his pocket. “Someday, Anya, you will be old, old like your nana and my bisabuela. You will be sick and you will need to rely on someone other than yourself. And you may find yourself sorry that you sent everyone who tried to love you away.” He offered me his hand, helped me up off the ground. I brushed the dirt from my dress, but because the ground was damp, most of it would not come off.

XI I ALMOST FOLLOW IN MY FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS

WHEN I WAS TWELVE, I had discussed with Scarlet what would happen if a boy (perhaps a prince) proposed marriage and you were put in the awkward position of having to reject him. “He’ll probably disappear the next day,” Scarlet had said. In any case, the discussion had given me the false idea that a no might convey the power of magical banishment. And wouldn’t that be for the best? Because how could a boy be expected to stick around after he’d offered you his heart and you’d said, Thanks for your heart, but I’d prefer a different heart. Actually, I’d rather not have a heart at all.

When we returned to New York, I half expected Theo, who I had always known to be proud, to move out or even leave the country. Of course, that was impractical—he lived in my apartment, and we ran a business together. Instead, we both went on as if nothing had changed, and that was awful. He did not bring up the proposal, though I felt it hanging in the air above us like a rain cloud in August. Maybe he was being patient. Maybe he thought I would change my mind. I wanted to say to him, Please, my friend. Go and be free. I release you. I owe you so much and I don’t want to cause you unhappiness. You deserve more love than I can give you. But I was too cowardly, I guess.

Occasionally, his insults felt less playful and more pointed than they had in the past. Once, when we’d been arguing over the minimum amount of cacao a certain drink required, he told me that I had “an ugly heart to match