Page 99 of Star Crossed
“He talked really young. He started reading before he was two.”
“Reading?” Jules repeated in surprise.
“Yeah, and he understood the stuff he read. It was the weirdest shit you’ve ever seen,” Romeo said with a laugh and then gripped his ribs again. “And he has a memory that’s insane. You couldn’t say something in front of him without being prepared for him to just repeat the whole conversation at a later date like a little recorder, usually when it was really inconvenient. My ma would say something bad about the butcher, and two months later Nova’d remind her she thought he was crazy as bat shit right in front of him.”
Jules laughed. “Thatisinconvenient.”
Romeo smiled, thinking of the strange envy he’d always had for Nova. It was all so crystal clear in his mind, nothing faded. It was like the past lived on forever with him.
“He rememberseverything, Juliet. Everything he hears, everything he sees. It’s all right there, like a hard drive that he can access whenever he wants. He can tell you what we ate for dinner January third, ninety-eight. He could tell you what his homework was. He could recite every problem he did, and then he could tell you what Tino’s homework was because he’d looked over his shoulder while he was working on it. He could tell you what our ma was wearing.”
“That’s amazing. How rare is that? You just don’t hear ’bout people like that.” Jules turned to look at Romeo with wide eyes. “And he doesn’t come across like a genius. No offense, but he just seems like a regular ol’ bully with a chip on his shoulder.”
“It was by design. My ma was afraid Frankie’d take him away from her if he found out. We started teaching him to hide it, and we had Tino to help him, ’cause Tino was the most stereotypical little Italian kid you ever met. It gave Nova a guidepost: this is how normal kids act. I was too old, but Tino was perfect and Nova was a fast learner. By second grade none of his teachers knew there was anything special about him. He did good in school but not amazing. They didn’t know he was helping me with my algebra when he got home.”
“That seems like such a waste.” Jules frowned. “Think of what he could have done with a mind like that.”
“I do think about it,” Romeo assured her. “I can’tstopthinking about it. Ma and I used to argue all the time ’cause I hated that we were dumbing Nova down to the public just ’cause of Frankie. Turns out she was right.”
“How so?”
Romeo rubbed a hand against his forehead; the exhaustion and headache made his vision blur, and he closed his eyes against it. “When my ma got sick, money got tighter. She couldn’t work, and I was trying to make up for it working part-time after school. We were on public assistance. She eventually got disability, but it still wasn’t enough. Then Nova started showing up with money, and we needed it so badly we didn’t ask where he got it. We were scared to know.”
“Did Frankie give it to him?”
Romeo snorted. “Fuck, no. He was gambling.”
“How old was he?” Jules asked in disbelief.
“Young, but people knew he was Frankie’s bastard kid. He was a novelty. We’d kept to ourselves before that, but Nova started muscling in on some of the underground poker games out of desperation. I dunno why he thought that was the only place to get cash, but it was easy money and it was untraceable so we wouldn’t lose our benefits. Can you imagine? Some eleven-year-old kid showing up wanting to play poker with a buncha old guys—and winning.”
“That’s seems immoral, letting a kid that young—”
“They’re mafia,” Romeo reminded her. “They aren’t moral.”
“What happened then?”
“Word got around, and Frankie started showing up at our place.” Romeo sighed heavily. “By then my ma was dying. She wasn’t all there anymore, stoned outta her friggin’ mind on pain meds. I tried to stop him from moving in, but Ma thought she wanted it, and the kids were curious about him. I lost the fight.”
“Did he find out about Nova?”
“On his own turf it was harder for Nova to curb himself. Frankie started noticing things. Not to mention the small fortune he made gambling. They all knew he was rigging the game in his favor. I think they started setting up those games just to watch him and figure out how he was doing it.”
“And figure out how to capitalize on it.”
“Exactly. Not that it helped them. He was counting cards, and who the fuck can do that?”
“What happened when your mother died?”
“The state gave me custody of Nova and Tino,” Romeo said, still surprised by the small stroke of luck. “I was working a legit job at the time. We were still on benefits, but we were making ends meet. The kids wanted to be with me, and Frankie’s wife sure as shit didn’t want them. At first Frankie was fine with letting me have them as long as I let himspend timewith them.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Fuck no,” Romeo spat bitterly. “The last thing I wanted was them mixed up with Frankie’s bullshit. Ma was gone. The only one I answered to was myself. I forbid them from seeing him, and neither of them was too torn up about it. He’s an asshole. They were young, but they figured that out real fast.”
“Even now they don’t like him?” Jules asked.
Romeo snorted, thinking of Nova stealing Frankie’s job. “Especially now. There’s no love lost between the three of them. Nova tolerates him for business reasons, but they don’t get along.”
