He blew out his breath. “I know.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“Sometimes things get under your skin. You watch two parents die. You see your uncle locked up…” he trailed off, looking troubled.
“Moses?”
“Yeah?”
Alix swallowed, unsure of how to ask the question. “What were your parents like?”
“You really want to know?”
She slipped her hand into his and squeezed tightly. “I just want to know whatever you feel like telling me.”
As she said it, she was surprised how true it felt. She just liked being with him. She liked the way it felt to have Moses holding her hand, and she liked the easy way he gave her room to stand aside when a jogger zipped past them. Everything she did with him felt right. She didn’t even have to think about it.
When she’d dated Brad Summers in her sophomore year, she’d always felt self-conscious, trying to figure out even the simple mechanics of holding hands, let alone kissing. Let alone anything more. It had all been something she had to think about. She worried what Brad would think when she held his hand, or when she didn’t. When they kissed, she worried about what he was thinking when she let her tongue slip into his mouth…. It had all been so much work. Watching herself from the outside, and trying to do everything right.
With Moses, Alix didn’t think about any of that. She just was. She walked beside him because she liked it, held his hand because she wanted to, kissed him how she liked, and liked what he did to her in turn.
Alix caught him looking at her. “What?”
“Beats me. You were the one smiling.”
Alix felt herself blush. She looked away. Okay. Maybe still a little self-conscious.
Out on the river, a man was sculling downstream. Strong strokes, silent and smooth. They stepped off the trail to watch.
“Watch out for the poison ivy,” Alix warned.
“Which one’s that?”
“Seriously? There’s something you don’t know?” Alix asked. “I thought you knew everything.” She pointed out the shiny leaves. “Those ones. Three-leaf clusters.”
Moses frowned, staring at the plants for a serious moment, seeming to lock it into his mind. “Never needed to learn about plants. I’m a city boy.”
“And what city was that?”
“Chicago. Then Vegas. After I started living with my uncle.”
“Chicago?” she prompted.
“You’re the inquisition today, aren’t you?”
Alix felt a little annoyed at the implication. “You know, you stalked me for like eight months and did background checks on all my friends and family, I’m still catching up here. Help me out, will you?”
Moses laughed. “All right. I hear you. I’m not used to talking about this stuff. My uncle always said it was smarter not to tell too much real stuff. It’s better to separate… different parts of your life.”
“Like targets and friends.”
Moses blew out his breath. “Yeah. So, with my family… I don’t know. It was a long time ago. My dad worked for the city. He was an engineer. Built overpasses and stuff. My mom was an actress before they got married. She was in plays, little parts, though. Nothing big. Later on, she was an office manager for a company.” He shrugged again. “Middle-class life, all that.”
“Were they nice?”
“I know I liked being with them. I liked my dad when he came home from work, and we’d do these puzzles together when I was real little…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t really get a chance to screw me up much. My uncle did all that.”
“They sound nice.” Alix tried to remember what she’d been like when she was that age. Wondering what her life would feel like if it were suddenly snapped into pieces the way Moses’s had been. She mostly remembered Zoe Van Nuys and Kala Whitmore starting a rumor that she stuffed her bra.
Alix cast her mind back, trying to pin down more details from that time. Birthday parties, sure. Her ninth, she remembered because it had been a German chocolate cake with five layers, and Dad kept saying that the slice he was giving her was as big as her head…. She remembered Mom and Dad’s anniversary—their twentieth?—the two of them going out dressed in black while Alix and annoying baby Jonah were stuck at home with a sitter Alix nicknamed Milkface. That was before they’d moved to Connecticut and gotten the bigger house. Before Seitz. Right around the time Dad had started Banks Strategy Partners. Alix was disturbed to find that her memories were so fragmented.
The rower passed out of sight, and they started walking again, arm in arm. “My mom and dad took me to Disney World,” Moses said. “I remember that. My dad let me go on whatever ride I wanted. I went to SeaWorld, too. Saw Shamu. My dad got me a stuffed Shamu, even though Mom said it was expensive. He got me one that was so big…” Moses stretched out his arms.
Alix was struck by how soft Moses’s expression became when he let down his guard. “I remember carrying this big orca around, and it was about as long as I was. Shamu’s tail kept dragging on the ground.” He was smiling at the memory, and his words were coming faster. “And I remember there was a hot dog stand outside Dad’s office building. Sometimes, if I was off school, he’d take me to work. I had to stay in his cubicle and stay quiet and color or read, but at lunch, we’d go out and have hot dogs…” he trailed off. The softness left his face and his expression closed up again. “It’s all stupid stuff. I don’t know why I remember the things I remember.”
Alix swallowed and looked away, trying not to show him how much it affected her, but the sadness she felt was almost overwhelming. Listening to him hunt for memories of something good, and knowing how much he’d been robbed of.
“It sounds nice,” she said, and was glad her voice sounded almost unaffected. “They sound nice.”
Moses shrugged. “I can’t remember their faces unless I look at a photo, you know? It’s weird. But I remember my dad had calluses on his hands because he’d lift weights in the basement. Sometimes I try to remember more, but mostly I remember finding Dad in the bathroom on the floor. Him trying to get up and not being able to. And then Mom—” He broke off.
“And you ended up in Las Vegas.”
“Yeah.” Moses’s voice hardened. “Uncle Ty. Tyrone Cruz. He always said Ty was short for Typhoon. Man was in the Army and got kicked out. That man…” He shook his head. “My Uncle Ty knew how to smile. That man could smile himself out of anything. Smile himself into anything, too.” Abruptly, Moses deepened his voice, mimicking, becoming someone else entirely. “ ‘We don’t do the nine-to-five, Mo. We too good for that ant work. We be grasshoppers. Smaaaart grasshoppers. Let the ants do all the work.’ ” He shrugged. “I didn’t figure out until a lot later that there was a name for his racket.”
“He was a con man, wasn’t he?”
“Taught me everything I know. Taught me the long con and short con. Taught me to pick the marks and rope them. Taught me how to talk just the way you knew the mark wanted to hear. Taught me body language. How to read people. How to keep my fingers fast. Taught me how to fool the eye. Taught me how to slip a watch off a man’s wrist and chase after him and get a reward. Simple shit like that, but he taught me to fool the person behind the eye, too. Taught me how wearing a uniform will make someone trust you. Put on hotel livery, you ain’t just some stranger anymore. Wear a suit with a conference badge on it and people think they know you, even when they don’t. How to talk, how to look, how to be. He taught me all that. Hacking is what he called it. Just like Kook does on computers, but I hacked people. I hacked conversation. Mostly, though, I did a lot of roping people into rigged poker games.” He shook his head.