Cloaked Page 4

“It was Philippe himself who told me ze sad facts of zis spell,” Victoriana says. “She turned him into a frog, and he may only break ze spell by ze kiss of one wiz love in her heart.”

  “Love?” It seems weird, if the spell was placed by an enemy, that the cure would be love. But then, what about this isn’t totally weird? Clearly, these people are taking advantage of Victoriana’s innocence or maybe—let’s face it—stupidity.

  The princess shrugs. “All ze spells say zat, I suppose. We—my parents and I—zought ze problem would be solved easily. My bruzzer is handsome, heir to ze throne, and a playboy. Every girl loves him and would be happy to kiss him, even as a frog.”

  “So why not do that?” That would have shown it was a joke and ended it.

  She sighs. “Before we could, he disappeared, like I tell you. Poof!” She waves her hands. “My fazzer hunted down ze one who cast ze spell, Sieglinde. She told him my bruzzer was in ze hold of a cargo ship, bound for Miami. We would never find him, and he would never be king. But ze witch promised to reverse ze spell on one condition.”

  She stares at her shoes.

  “What condition?”

  “Zat I would agree to marry ze heir of ze Zalkenbourgian throne.” From between the photographs, she removes a newspaper clipping. The article is in French, but there’s a picture of a blond man, his mouth twisted into a cruel smile, holding what looks like a bayonet over a cowering boy. “Prince Wolfgang is evil to ze core. He visited when I was a small girl, pulling fezzers from my canary and sticking pins in my cat. It is zeir aim for us to marry so zat our countries may unite under Zalkenbourgian rule, but zat is only if I am ze heir. Sieglinde said zey would return Philippe if I agree to marry Wolfgang and Philippe will give up ze throne forever.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it so hard it hurts. “You must find Philippe!”

  I listen to the waves make their way to the shore, over and over. The seagulls have stopped crying, maybe chased away by beachgoers. Let me get this straight: There’s a frog loose somewhere in Miami, and I’m supposed to find it. A beautiful woman wants to pull me into her overflowing bowl of crazy. How do I get out of it? Forget the shoes. I just don’t want her to complain to Farnesworth about me.

  “Um, you sure you want me? Me?”

  “Oui.” She shows me another photograph, this time of a cargo ship. “Philippe was in zis ship, which arrived at ze port last week. Chevalier, my hound, found his scent in ze hold. My guards questioned ze crew. At first, zey had no memory of a frog. But when my guards pressed furzer, zey remembered zere had been one on a container bound for what you call ze Keys.”

  I bet. They got scared of those behemoth guards and said whatever they wanted to get rid of them. The Florida Keys are a string of small islands south—far south—of the mainland, connected by the Overseas Highway. But since I wouldn’t be visiting them anytime soon, I played along. “Why not just let your guards look for him in the Keys then?”

  Victoriana rises from her seat. I rise too, but she pushes past me and creeps into the hotel room. She opens the door a crack, checking for intruders. Satisfied, she closes it. Then, she returns to the balcony, shutting the French door behind her. She leans in toward me, whispering, “Ze guards, we believe zere is a spy among zem. We need to find someone no one will suspect is helping us, someone ordinary.”

  “That’s where I come in.”

  “Oui. If you agree, I will tell ze guards zat we have been engaged in a flirtation, a . . . making out. Zey will believe me for zey believe me to be—’ow you say—loose. My father will tell zem we have given up our search for Philippe. I will cry. Ze subjects, zey believe zat Philippe is on a top-secret military mission. And you . . .”

  “You want me to look for a frog.”

  “A frog prince.”

  A thought hits me. Even if there’s no prince, hanging out in the Keys sounds a lot more exciting than repairing shoes all summer. But I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I have to work. My family needs the money. I can’t just leave.”

  The princess laughs. “Oh, if zat is ze only trouble, it is solve. I will pay you—all your expenses and enough money to hire a replacement. And also . . .” She hesitates.

  “Yes.” I can’t do this. I can’t. But I want to know what “also” is.

  “If you find my bruzzer and bring him back to me, zere will be a reward.”

  “Reward?” Money. Money to pay bills. Money for college. “What reward?”

  The princess fixes me with a long stare from her ocean eyes. One eyelash is still tipped with a tiny tear, but on Victoriana, it looks more like a diamond.

  “If you find Philippe and return him to me, I will marry you.”

  Chapter 8

  “Marry me? I’m only seventeen.”

  Still, she’s beautiful, beautiful and—more important—rich. Marrying her would solve a lot of problems, even if she is nuts.

  Victoriana makes a little shooing gesture with her hand, as if my objection is of no importance. “I am a princess. Aloria is a paradise which makes zis place look like ze garbage dump. My husband would never have to worry about ordinary man’s troubles. He would know pleasures zat most men only dream of.” She reaches into her dress, and I think she’s going to show me some of the “pleasures” she’s talking about. But, instead, she pulls out a large wad of bills. Hundreds. “For the quest. You can have more if you need.”

  “I couldn’t . . .” I stare at the money, then look at her. The money. Her. I could. “Why would you want to marry me?”

  “You seem nice. Besides, I maybe should marry someone. If I am married, Prince Wolfgang will leave me alone.”

  Not very flattering. Still, I say, “I need to ask my mother.” The standard line I used to give as a kid, when I didn’t want to do something. Blame Mom.

  She nods. “I knew you were a good boy. You need time to consider whezzer to help a poor girl to reunite her family and save her from ze clutches of an evil prince. So I will give you one day. Zen we will meet.”

  “Meet? How?”

  She produces a fire engine red Jimmy Choo sandal from under her chair cushion. While I’m watching, she pulls on the strap hard enough to snap it. She gazes at it, despondent.

  “My favorite shoe—it is broken.” She sighs. “When you are ready to speak to me again, you will deliver it to my guard to let me know you are up to ze quest.”

  “What if I say no?”

  She ignores that. “When you do, I will open ze door to my suite on zat night at two o’clock. Bruno will be sleeping, and you may come in to me and get ze magical objects.”

  Magical objects? “Magical objects? You mean, like a wand? Or a cursed necklace I can give to my enemies?”

  She laughs. “You do not believe me. You think me a stupid, silly girl.”

  Yes. “No! You’re totally sane. I mean, smart . . . I mean . . .”

  “I see you, you know, working every night in your leetle shop, and I see you also, always looking around, looking for something exciting, anything, to get your life out of your mind. Zat is why you work so late, to see me.”

  “To see you? No. I work late because I have shoes to repair, lots of shoes.”

  “Zat many shoes? I think no. I think business is not so good.”

  I realize she’s smarter than I gave her credit for, even if she is crazy.

  I sigh. “I’ll think about it.”

  “While you are thinking, think also of zis.” She stands and pulls me hard toward her. Then, she kisses me, running her hands through my hair, reaching down to rumple Ryan’s Hollister shirt. Below us, the ocean is pounding like my heart, and my heart is pounding like the drums in a hip-hop song. The gulls are screaming. Finally, she pulls away. “Be my hero, Johnny.”

  Her lipstick is smudged. I bet it’s all over my face too. I realize she wanted it to be, to make her guards believe we’re engaged in a make-out session, not discussing my help on a crazy Zalkenbourgian curse. She’s using me. And I like it.

  When I can fina
lly speak again, I say, “Uh . . . I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t forget zis.” She holds up the money, then shoves it into my pocket. I shiver at her hand on my leg.

  “What if I don’t do it?” I say, though I can feel her kiss on my mouth, the wad of bills in my pocket, her touch, still sending reverberations through my body. She’s right. I want to do it, no matter how crazy she is. It would solve everything, all my problems. If only there were really a frog prince.

  Which there isn’t.

  “You will do it,” she says. “But you may keep ze money in either case, for your secrecy.”

  Then, she pulls me in for another kiss, longer than the first. I feel her hands on me, on my chest, my shoulders.

  Then, other hands.

  Big hands.

  “Enough! How dare you touch ze princess?”

  Bruno. He rips me away from Victoriana and shoves me to the other side of the balcony.

  Victoriana lets out an indignant cry, then recovers with a laugh. “Oh, Bruno, you must allow me my fun. I am a princess, am I not?”

  He says something in French, and an angry conversation ensues. Bruno turns toward me and gestures to the door. “Shoo, shoe boy!”

  “Not until I say,” Victoriana says. She pulls me toward her for what I figure will be another passionate kiss, a dangerous kiss, with Bruno watching. But, instead of my lips, she finds my ear. She whispers, “I know you will help me, please.”

  Bruno manhandles me out the door of the suite, then to the elevator. He presses the button, shoves me in, and waits until the door closes. All the way down, I feel the shoe in one hand, the bills in my pocket.

  When I reach the lobby, I duck into the men’s room stall to count the money.

  I almost hurt myself when I total it up.

  Ten thousand dollars.

  Chapter 9

  I make sure Ryan sees my lipsticked face when I return his shirt.

  “Liar,” he says. “You put it on yourself.”

  “Zis is her color,” I say, laughing.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon in a daze, not really listening to the sad tale of some guy’s busted loafer because I’m too busy thinking about how I have ten grand in my pocket and I just kissed one of People magazine’s most beautiful people. After work, I rush home, despite the heat, and show Mom the money.

  Once she examines the bills under the light and uses her counterfeit-detecting pen on them, she says, “Did you steal it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course not. I know you don’t steal. But where . . . ?”

  I explain the whole story, concluding that I’ve decided not to do it.

  When I finish, she doesn’t respond for a long time, fanning herself with a magazine. I’m about to tell her to forget about it. We’ll talk later. But then, she says, “I think you should.”

  “What?” I was sure she’d agree with me that I couldn’t take advantage of Victoriana like that. Like me, she has scruples. Why is it that only people with no money have scruples? Do we have no money because we have scruples? “You actually think I should take the money when I know I’m not going to find the prince?”

  Victoriana’s shoe is in my backpack, still on my shoulders, and I feel its heel digging into my back.

  “No,” Mom says. “I think you should take the money and look for the prince.”

  “There’s a difference? She thinks her brother’s been turned into a frog. She’s nuts.”

  “Maybe she’s not that nuts. Maybe she has faith. Maybe she must believe in something even when all hope is gone.”

  So I know what this is about: Dad. Mom really thinks he’ll come back someday.

  “The girl has her hopes.” Mom glances at the wedding photo on the table. “Who says there’s no magic?”

  “Who says? Again, we’re talking frog princes, like the fairy tale.” But even as I argue, the fact is I want to do it, not only for the money—though ten grand would solve a lot of problems. With ten grand, I’d be sitting in air-conditioned comfort right now. We could get a lot of creditors off our back and maybe even agree on a payment plan with the others. But more, there’s the adventure, the getting out of the bowels of the hotel for once and doing something fun. I want to be one of those crazy people who believes in ghosts or the Loch Ness Monster. They have more fun than sane people. Once, I repaired some hiking shoes for a guy who claimed he was looking for a Sasquatch loose in Florida. Sounds more fun than my summer. And Victoriana said I could keep the money even if I don’t find the prince.

  But what if I get in trouble for it? I don’t know much about Aloria, other than that they have a really hot princess. What if they still believe in torture there? I remember reading once about some kid who visited a foreign country and got publicly beaten with a stick for some minor crime. Maybe they’d behead you for stealing from the princess.

  My neck aches a little, just thinking about it.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say, standing up. I know I won’t, though. I got to talk to the princess. That will have to be enough.

  “Where are you going?” Mom says.

  “Back. To repair shoes, like always.”

  Chapter 10

  “So Ryan says you came back with a face full of lipstick.”

  Meg throws the word “lipstick” like it’s a stink bomb, one I know Ryan enjoyed hurling at her. She’s disgusted with me. She thinks I’m another sap under Victoriana’s spell. Maybe I am.

  “So is she going to make you her boy toy or something?” Meg’s voice is like when I sliced my finger with a big sewing needle.

  “I was just messing with Ryan about the lipstick,” I say, trying to sound cooler than I feel. “It was Marisol’s. I borrowed some.”

  A lie can travel halfway ’round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. That’s been attributed to Mark Twain, but no one’s sure if he actually said it.

  Meg looks pleased with my lie, in any case. We have a joint interest in keeping Ryan’s manatee-size ego in check. “So is she going to wear the shoes?”

  I cradle my hand in my chin like I’m thinking, but really, I’m checking for residual lipstick. Part of me wants to tell Meg everything that happened with Victoriana. I know she’d laugh at the idea of a frog prince. She’d say Victoriana’s obviously taken too many drugs. But I promised the princess I’d keep her secret. Besides, another part of me knows Meg wouldn’t approve of the kiss.

  So I say, “What do you think? I didn’t even get to talk to her. She was still passed out.”

  “Typical.” I can tell Meg’s sort of happy about being right. Still, she says, “Don’t worry. You’ll find some other way to make it. You’ve got talent.”

  “Yeah, talent for fixing shoes.”

  “I’d wear your designs in a heartbeat.” She reaches over and begins massaging my neck. Her fingers feel strong, and it’s nice to have someone rub my neck, even if it’s just Meg.

  “That feels good. My neck gets really sore, leaning over the counter all day.”

  “Yeah, mine gets the same way.” She starts using both hands, rubbing my shoulders too. She smells like coffee and a little like the ocean. For a second, I close my eyes. “Ever think things happen for a reason?” she asks.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You don’t know it at the time, but there’s some bigger purpose. Like maybe it didn’t work out with Victoriana because something else is going to happen.” She leans closer.

  “I guess.”

  “It’s not so awful being here, is it?”

  Yes. Yes, it’s awful. But I say, “No, it’s just, she’s so beautiful.”

  Meg stops rubbing my shoulders.

  “Hey, why’d you stop?”

  She walks away, not looking at me. “I have work to do. So do you.”

  She goes back to her shop and starts rearranging the sandwiches—which already looked perfect—in their glass case. She gets so into what she’s doing that I can’t c
atch her eye for the rest of the afternoon. A couple of times, I think I see her glancing at me, but she looks right back down, and I wonder if she’s mad at me for saying Victoriana’s beautiful. It’s hardly news, though.

  Oh, well. I’ll make it up to her. I have time now.

  I start working on Victoriana’s shoe, even though I don’t want to because delivering it means telling her no, telling her I can’t do what she wants. The broken strap is delicate yet strong, and as I repair it, I anticipate seeing her again, slipping it on to her foot.

  If only it wasn’t going to be the last time I see her.

  Chapter 11

  It is a wishing cloak. With it, you will find yourself any place you wish to be.

  —“The Salad”

  When I finish repairing the shoe, I call the princess’s room and ask if I can bring it up.

  As expected, his answer is a curt, “Non. I will come for it.”

  He’s downstairs almost as soon as I put down the phone. I recognize Bruno, the guard Victoriana said was her most trusted, the one who practically sprained a face muscle glaring at us. I hand him the shoe, then stand there, not knowing what to say next.

  Bruno breaks the silence. “If you think she has a message for you, she does not. Boys like you are only playthings to Her Highness.” His English is surprisingly good, with much less of an accent than Victoriana’s. “Your dalliance means nothing. Ze princess is already betrothed.”

  “Really? She doesn’t think she is.” I regret the words the second they’re out of my mouth. Why argue with him?

  He scowls. “Ze princess, she is not so smart. Her head is in all kinds of places. She must be protected.”

  I hear the unspoken words, from you.

  I shrug. “I just wanted to give her the shoe. Now I have.”

  It’s clear he wants to mess with me some more, but he must decide against it because he leaves. An hour later, one of the chambermaids drops a key card on my counter. I know without asking it’s the key to Penthouse B.