Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(31)

Oaxaca or Chiapas. It didn’t matter either way, I supposed.

“So, are you hungry or not?” Theo asked.

I shook my head. I was hungry but I was also eager to get to my destination. I told him I needed to use the bathroom, and then we could be on our way.

In the bathroom, I took a moment to consider myself in the mirror. Theo was right. I wasn’t pretty anymore, but luckily, I wasn’t all that vain either. Besides, I had a boyfriend, sort of, and I wasn’t in the mood for seducing boys anyhow. I washed my face, paying special attention to the sticky residue that the mustache adhesive had left on my upper lip, and slicked back my hair. (Readers, how I did miss that mane of mine!) I threw the necktie into the trash, rolled up the sleeves of my shirt, and went back out to join Theo.

Theo studied me. “You are less hideous already.”

“Thanks. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Come, the car’s over here.” I followed him out of the bar. “Where are your things?”

I told the same lie about them being shipped.

“No matter. My sister will lend you whatever you need.”

Theo’s “car” was a green pickup truck. On the side, GRANJA MAÑANA was painted in gold, and beneath that was a grouping of what I thought at the time were leaves in fall colors.

As it was a big step up to the truck, Theo offered me his hand. “Anya,” he said with a furrowed brow, “don’t tell my sister I said you weren’t pretty. She thinks I have no manners already. I probably don’t, but…” He smiled at me. I suspected that smile got him out of (and into) all sorts of trouble.

We drove out of the town of Puerto Escondido and onto a strip of road that had a wall of green mountains and rain forest on one side and ocean on the other. “So, you’re friends with Cousin Sophia?” asked Theo.

I nodded.

“And you’re here to study cacao farming?”

I nodded again.

“You have a lot to learn.” He was probably thinking of the apparently hugely embarrassing gaffe I had made in thinking that cacao was grown in Oaxaca.

Theo gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re from the United States. Is your family in chocolate?”

I paused. “Not really,” I lied.

“I only ask because many of Sophia’s friends are in chocolate.”

I didn’t know if Theo or the Marquezes could be trusted. Before I’d left New York, Simon Green had told me that he thought it would be best if I kept my history to myself as much as possible. Luckily, Theo did not pry any further on this point. “How old are you?” he asked. “You look like a little baby.”

It was the hair. I lied again, “I’m nineteen.” I had decided that it would be better for me not to be seventeen, and saying eighteen sounded more fake to me somehow.

“We’re the same age,” Theo informed me. “I’ll be twenty in January. I’m the baby of the family, and that’s why I’m so spoiled. Circumstance has turned me into a petted, silly lapdog.”

“Who else is there?”

“My sister Luna. She is twenty-three and very nosy. Like with me, you can say, ‘Oh, Theo, my family, they are not really in chocolate,’ and I won’t press. Your business is your business. But with her, you should have a better answer, so you know. And then there’s my brother, Castillo. He is twenty-nine. He is at home through the weekend but usually he is off studying to be a priest. He is very serious, and you won’t like him at all.”

I laughed. “I like serious people.”

“No, I am kidding. Everyone falls in love with Castillo. He is very handsome and everyone’s favorite. But you shouldn’t like him better than me, just because I am not serious.”

“I’ll probably like him better than you if he manages not to call me ugly in the first minute of my knowing him,” I told him.

“I thought we were over all of that. I explained! I apologized!”

“You did?”

“In my head, sí, sí. My English is not that good. Lo siento!”

His English seemed fine to me. I decided then and there that Theo was lovable and awful and that most of what he said was going to be nonsense. Theo turned the truck onto a different road that led uphill and away from the ocean. He continued, “I have another sister, Isabelle, who is a married lady and lives in Mexico City. And then there is Mama, Abuela, and Nana. Mama runs the business. Abuela and Nana know all the secret recipes and they do the cooking. They will think you are too skinny.”

I felt sad at the mention of the name Nana. “Abuela is your grandmother, right? So, who is your nana?”

“My bisabuela,” he replied. “Great-grandmother. She is ninety-five years old and as healthy as can be. She was born in the 1980s!”

“People live a long time in your family,” I commented.

“The women, sí. They are strong. The men, not so much. We have weak hearts.” An old woman was pushing a cart filled with a yellow fruit that looked like an overgrown apple down the side of the road. Theo pulled the truck over. “Excuse me, Anya. Her house is not far, but I know her back bothers her when it rains. I will return in less than ten minutes. Don’t drive off without me.” Theo got out of the truck and ran over to the woman. She kissed him on both cheeks, and he began pushing the cart down the road and then disappeared with the woman into an opening in the forest.