“Depends on what you mean by ‘connection.’ If you mean sexually compatible, a strong physical attraction, yes.”
My cheeks heated, and not from embarrassment. I was a little jealous that he felt that way about Sierra. Sexually attracted to her. I wondered if they had sex, since she worked at his club, but I didn’t want to bring that up either. “Were you going to give her this ring, if you chose her?” I lifted it up and he gave it a sideways glance.
“No.”
He smoothly changed lanes and left it at that. I stared at him, hoping he would give me a little more, but it seemed like he had closed down. I sighed, turning to face the window. The world passed by in a blur. We were going too fast for me to catch up.
The quiet in the car was suddenly killing me. I leaned forward, and for the first time, fiddled with some buttons. I could tell Capo watched me from the side, underneath his glasses, but he didn’t say anything. Finally, I found the stereo. I grinned when I heard the last music he had been listening to. I kept pressing the forward arrow to see what he had on his playlist.
Bee Gees. 2Pac. Andrea Bocelli. White Snake. Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs. Staind. Seven Mary Three. Frank Sinatra. Nazareth. His fancy car displayed the artist’s names and their songs. I had no idea who most of them were, but they were all so different. His music tastes gave me no further insight into who he was.He is a man of extreme mystery, I thought sarcastically. And the rest of his list continued in this genre mishmash fashion.
“You’re laughing at me,” he said. “At my music.”
I laughed even louder, and then pinched my fingers, leaving a small gap between. “A little.”
“You have a warped sense of humor.” He shook his head. “And a wild laugh to go along with it.”
“What’s a wild laugh?”
“Some people cage it up, train it to be what they want it to be, a quiet animal. Some people fake it, hiding the fact that they have nothing to really laugh about. You do neither.”
I continued to laugh, turning on the radio instead of his old man music. He was going to be forty-years old in August, compared to my twenty-two in October. Even though there was an eighteen-year age gap, my time on the streets had aged me. I felt we were close to even on that.
Then a popular pop song came on and the gap widened some. It made me think of Keely and what she had told me about Capo and his family supplying enough creative inspiration for endless songs.
“You can’t be serious.” He glanced at the radio like it had done something offensive to him. “You’d prefer this chick to Bocelli?”
“Me? Not serious? How could this have happened?” I pretended to pass out against the door, pressing a hand to my forehead. “I’ve got the vapors! Help me,handsome sir!”
“This is what happens when your brain has been on this kind of music for too long. You. You should be the poster child for kids who listen to this.” He switched the music to Bocelli, some real romantic Italian ballad.
I switched it back, feeling lighter than I had all day. Actually, I felt lighter than I had in years. “We’ve listened to your music. Let me listen to mine for a while. And I disagree. I love her music. This is her new stuff. It’s beautiful. Especially this song. Listen.”
My laugh threatened to burst from the cage I’d pushed it into. He was seriously listening to the song, and when he became serious, his thick eyebrows drew down and his lips became severe.
“Youhavea friend,” he said when the song was close to ending.
“I do,” I said. “But did youreallylisten? First she mentions a childish kind of love, then a love that takes place while they’re growing up, and then they get married. Itisnice to have a best friend, but when your best friend is also your lover, it completes things. I would think, anyway.”
“So philosophical,” he said, and I almost laughed again.
“What? You didn’t get that?”
“All Igotis a Tim Burton movie soundtrack stuck in my head now.”
“Who’s Burton?” I asked.
“Edward Scissorhands?”
I shrugged. “Have no clue.”
“It amazes me. You have no idea who Tim Burton or Edward Scissorhands are, but you had a pretty good idea of who the Faustis were when we met.”
“It’s a sad fact of life on the streets. You try to keep ahead of the things that can kill you.” I shrugged. “The rest doesn’t really matter when you’re hungry enough to rob a small kid for his ice cream cone. I doubt Tim Burton and Edward—” I made a motion with my fingers like I was cutting paper with scissors “—would chase me down and kill me, maybe even torture me, if I saw something I wasn’t supposed to.”
I had known some about the Faustis, but more about the five families. The Faustis didn’t deal in petty shit. They were royalty in Italy and beyond. Their dealings made headlines. So did their marriages when one of them took a bride, using Capo’s archaic term. And when I asked Capo just how deep it went, he said, “Consider the Faustis a lawless land that no president or dictator can touch. They rule their own territories. And whatever they feel belongs to them does. End of story.”
He glanced at me before he turned back to the road. “You have a lot to learn about the good in life, Mariposa. It’ll be my pleasure to teach and show you.”
