Chapter 16 #2
More loud applause followed, and Romeo felt himself clapping along without meaning to. But as a ghostly thing, he was used to playacting as if he were one of the living.
“Now … for the main event.” Mr. Button’s voice blared through the speakers and caused a brief earsplitting shriek that made Romeo wince.
“I am very pleased to announce that this year’s Prodigy of the Year is …
” His father’s long spindly fingers removed the card from the envelope, the microphone picking up on the harsh crinkling of the paper.
“Anwar Shah,” his father finally announced.
Screams roared from all around the yacht.
Romeo watched as a brown-skinned boy around his age, dressed very handsomely in a forest-green tartan suit and spiked boots, made his way to the stage. People patted him on the back as he wove through the masses of guests, wide congratulatory smiles beaming all around.
Evie seemed to be clapping louder than anyone else in the room, her face bright and full of wonder.
“Is he a friend of yours or something?” Romeo asked.
Evie looked at Romeo as if he had grown a second head. “Me, friends with the Anwar Shah? No, not at all. In fact, I totally humiliated myself in front of him earlier. I was telling him how much I love him … but I think I ended up just scaring him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Romeo said, despite not knowing who this guy was at all.
He didn’t make it a habit to keep up with the celebrities in the world of teenage geniuses, so he often did not know who these winners were.
Clearly this Anwar fellow was a big deal though, because even his father, who hardly ever smiled, was looking upon the boy with a fond expression.
Anwar began his thank-you speech as he held up the Prodigy of the Year trophy—a giant gold button-shaped plaque.
The guy looked kind of familiar though, the more Romeo studied his face. “Who is he, anyway?” he asked Evie.
“One of my favorite writers. His books literally got me through my first lonely year in Italy. And through my grief after losing my brother,” Evie said.
“I don’t take this ‘genius’ stuff all that seriously, but I will say, Anwar’s a bona fide literary genius.
He’s the youngest person to ever be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize or to be long-listed for the Booker Prize.
He writes stories that could literally make a war criminal weep …
Okay, maybe not a war criminal, but some other almost-heartless person.
He’s only eighteen but he already has two modern classics under his belt,” she finished breathlessly.
Romeo’s eyebrows shot up. That was impressive. Though he didn’t think he was familiar with Anwar because of his work. They’d probably crossed paths some other way. His father loved to host important dinners with important people. Maybe Anwar had been a guest once?
“I wonder if I can get him to sign one of his books …” Evie’s voice trailed off as Anwar finished speaking and Mr. Button’s voice boomed once again.
“Congratulations again to our winner, Anwar. Now, before you all go back to your merriments, here’s a reminder that we have a truly spectacular display planned for later that will be unlike any technology you have ever seen before.
But first, I would like to welcome my son Octavius Button to the stage.
Octavius will be playing a never-before-performed violin concerto, which was only written last week. ”
The audience broke out into reverberant applause as Octavius stumbled onto the stage, nearly crashing into ice-Zeus, who loomed over them all, still very clearly out of his wits.
Despite this, Romeo wasn’t worried that Octavius would mess up his performance, and clearly neither was their father, who was watching calmly from the side of the stage.
They both knew that Octavius played very well when he was inebriated—which he had been for many of his recent highly regarded performances.
It was obvious to Romeo that Octavius did not want to be there; his brother looked ready to burn the ship down.
But he obviously couldn’t, so he tucked his violin under his chin, swaying slowly as he raised his bow.
A sorrowful expression painted his face, but it was mixed with something else.
Octavius appeared unsettled, as if he were standing there at gunpoint—which he basically was.
Octavius sliced out a devastatingly beautiful melody, and, like everyone else on the yacht, Romeo watched, just as entranced by his brother’s playing.
“Hey, Rome.” Evie’s voice cut through his trance.
He looked at her and immediately noticed a seriousness in her face. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
She quickly nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. I just …” She turned to look down at the main deck. “I really need to speak to Mr. Button—I mean, your dad.”
Romeo looked at her, confused. “My dad? Why?”
“I wanted to thank Mr. Button for helping me out in Italy. I had a really tough time the last couple of months and he stepped in with this complicated situation I was dealing with at the ballet company. He even helped me get promoted to principal dancer,” Evie said, smiling now with her mouth, but the rest of her features remained neutral.
“That’s amazing! Congratulations,” Romeo said, sounding way more excited than Evie had. He’d assumed a promotion would be a good thing, but maybe it just meant more hard work for her.
“Thanks,” she said in a weirdly depleted tone.
“Anyway, I know your dad is really busy, so I should probably take the chance now to greet him,” she finished, her gaze drifting back out to the crowd where Romeo’s father stood alone, his face stretched into an aggressively radiant smile as he spoke to an important-looking man in a brown suit while Octavius played on.
“You’re probably right. He’s a hard man to pin down. I live in the same house as the guy and I hardly see him outside of breakfast,” Romeo said with his own smile.
Evie smiled back. “I’d better hurry along, then, before I lose my chance,” she said.
Romeo nodded. “Good idea.”
Evie opened up her purse and pulled out an older model of a very battered-looking phone, presenting it to him.
“Here, I forgot to ask for your number earlier. Ignore the state of my phone, it’s ancient, I know,” she said.
Romeo blinked down at the device as though it might go off and explode in his face.
“I should probably give you mine too, hold on—I have an Italian phone number right now, though I never memorized it.” She pulled out a little red notebook from what appeared to a massive pocket in her dress and quickly opened it up to a notes page titled ITALIAN MOBILE with a series of foreign digits scribbled out in cursive. “There, copy that down.”
Romeo did not waste another moment; he quickly brought his phone out and began typing the foreign digits in.
Afterward, he entered his own number into her phone, which was somewhat of a challenge given that the keypad was very small.
“Perfect,” Evie said. “If I don’t see you again tonight, I’ll text you. We can try to hang out while I’m still in the city?”
There was a fluttering sensation in Romeo’s chest. “Uh, yeah, that sounds, good—really good.”
“Good. Well, I’ll see you later then, Captain,” she said with a wink and a salute.
Then she swiftly jumped off from the platform they were on before Romeo could say anything.
Not that he was in any state to speak, anyway; Evie seemed to have sent his nervous system into shock.
He wasn’t sure how many moments passed before his pulse returned to normal.
A sudden round of applause surged into the atmosphere of the ship, and Romeo glanced at the stage to find Octavius staggering off, finished with his piece and looking worn out, sickly, and sunken eyed. Thankfully, Henry was there, as he always was, to catch Octavius before he could fall.
A flash of something else caught Romeo’s attention. Above the throng of people, he could see his father’s dark-blond hair sticking out as he disappeared through the crowd, seemingly headed for one of the stairs leading to the lower deck of the yacht.
And edging closely behind, he could see slivers of silver disappearing too through the crowd, like the pluming of wiry gray smoke.