Page 22 of Princess Seeks Dragon
Chapter Seven: Best Laid Plans
My laptop buzzes anddies, the bottom of it red hot. It’s done this before, but not in a long time. Back home, I have an expensive cooling pad with fans that keep the processor humming along under the onslaught of fifty open tabs.
“My applications,” I hiss, carrying my faithful old friend to the table by the front door so it can cool down. Since I woke up a couple of hours ago, I’ve done everything I can to take my mind off my situation. Compartmentalizing, they call it.
Unhealthy, the guidance counselor at my middle school called it.
Anyway, whatever they call it, I was doing it, sitting in the marshmallowy soft bed and using the perfect pillow as a lap desk as I filled out applications to work at the campus cafeteria, the elementary school after school program and summer camps, as a checker at the grocery store, and as a sales associate at Kane Garden Center.
But if I get hired, I have to use my real name, fill out tax forms... Can the Genovese family find me that way? Do they have an “inside man” on the police force? If they do, why did Mom tell me to go to the local police? How would she know who I can trust when she was married to a mobster for years without catching on?
I groan and start getting ready to leave. I figure if this place is like most hotels, I have to leave by eleven.
And then I’ll walk to town. Two miles or whatever.
I need a car. I have a car. I have a car and a mini-mansion in Bayside, and a closet full of designer clothes...
I take a deep breath as a wave of pettiness washes over me. I don’t like all those things as much as I like freedom, honesty, and not being involved in a family that runs drugs or smuggles weapons, right? I like having a choice in who I love and when I get involved with someone. I don’t need a car. Millions of people live without a car.
Out of the half-sobbing breaths comes a calm smile. A smirk. I had my name legally changed to Argento a few years ago, but I still have my old college ID. Still have my old driver’s license, and it’s not expired. I’ll apply for jobs with my old identification cards. Find the post office and get a P.O. box. Get my computer to work again and go back to looking up apartments for rent.
I’m a survivor. A tough Jersey girl who knows how to be a princess or a pauper. I can do this. I can—
Wham! Wham, wham, wham.Someone pounds on the door of my hotel room and reminds me I have other skills, too.
I can almost pee my pants and drop to my knees in a fraction of a second. “Shit, what do I do, what do I do?” I mouth to myself, crouching down low.
It could be a bad guy.
It could be the hotel manager.
Maybe I was supposed to check in someplace and not just use the funny little keypad by the door.
Mobster or maid service?
Maybe if I just stay quiet, they’ll go away.
“Angela, even if you don’t open up, I’m still going to come in.” The voice is masculine and has a faint lilt to it. It sounds vaguely impatient, even a little exasperated.
I think mobsters would just sound mean.
What do you know? You never saw Ronnie raise his voice in three years!
“I’m a friend of Milo’s! And a friend of a friend of your dad!” the voice shouts.
With shaking knees, I slowly get up and grab the pretty brass fruit bowl off the table, dumping it out and sending apples and pears rolling across the carpet. “Why are you here?” I ask through the door.
“I’m here to help!”
Well, that’s fucking vague.
I keep the door’s security chain on and pull the door open just a smidgen.
The man outside the door makes Vincenzo Genovese look like a prepubescent teenager.
