Page 1 of Working for the Mob

Chapter 1 - Genevieve

Iknew an entire jug of coffee wouldn’t make my last twenty-four hours go from the worst day of my life to below average, but a girl could try.

In grade school, Johnathan Wheeler, a boy that I had a crush on, told me to close my eyes for two minutes and he would kiss me. I opened my eyes to find a frog on my lips, and he had invited all his friends to watch. The whole school knew what happened within an hour.

I still held out hopethatcould remain the worst day of my life. I just needed all the coffee in Lannington, Pennsylvania.

The heavenly aroma of coffee drifted to me through the crisp autumn air on the crowded train platform. Either someone waiting for a train brought a cup from home, or someone was selling coffee at the station.

I jostled through the crowd toward where I assumed the coffee was, inside the train station. With its painted white wooden-paneled exterior, it resembled an over-sized barn more than Grand Central Station. I guess that’s what I should expect out of podunk-farmville. It’s mean to say, but I’m a city girl at heart.

Lannington, Pennsylvania wasn’t my first choice of travel-visits. I just needed to stay here a few nights and crash on my sister’s couch. Well, her boyfriend’s couch. Let’s just say that anytime I visited Lucy, I never expected to sleep on the same couch twice. She went through men quicker than most people went through underwear.

A couple nights would give me enough time to plan my next steps, and then I could go anywhere I wanted. I coulddoanything I wanted.

Halfway to the doors to the station, a shoulder drove painfully in my breast and swung me around.

“Oof!” I yelped. “Excuse me!”

I briefly caught a glimpse of a traveler with a patched coat and a newsboy hat. Coupled with his sunken eyes and blonde mustache that I had to squint to see, he had the look of a desperate man.

Without saying a word, he pushed past me and disappeared in the crowd.

And I thoughtIwas rude before coffee. I guess that’s what I should’ve expected out of Lannington.

I finally made it to the barn-like station, which hadn’t even put down floorboards. They forced people to walk on hard-packed dirt to buy a ticket. Even worse, there was no coffee shop! The inside only held a ticket booth and bathrooms.

At least Lannington had indoor plumbing. You could never tell with these country towns.

I crossed through the barn to outside where my sister was supposed to be picking me up. Cars kicked up clouds of dust in the gravel parking lot as they navigated through the pedestrians. Grass fields lined the horizon as far as I could see.

Then I spotted it. My coffee! An angelic teenager stood behind his cart selling coffee from a thermos. My heart leapt and I rushed to the queue.

“Genevieve!” a familiar voice called, and I turned around to see my sister.

Lucy always dressed to the nines and this morning she did not disappoint. She wore a boxy ink-green dress that hung just below her knees and a matching cloche hat with a white bow tied around it. Her sandy-blonde French bob peeked out underneath.

Before I took another step, she hurled her arms around my neck and gripped me into a tight hug.

“I’m so glad you came,” Lucy said.

“It's great to see you,” I gasped, struggling to breathe. My asphyxiated head pounded a reminder that it needed caffeine. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“About that,” Lucy said and pulled away. She gave me a sheepish grin and pulled at the collar of her dress. Her green eyes were puffy. Something was wrong. “I think we need to find a new place to stay. I––”

“Hang on,” I said. I couldn't deal with her problems just yet. I needed coffee. I led her to a nearby bench facing the parking lot. “Stay here, and then you can tell me all about it once I’m caffeinated.”

She sat down, nodded glumly, and I raced to the coffee cart.

I arrived at the cart queue at roughly the same time as a tall man in a suit. Normally, I would have politely allowed him in front of me, but not this morning. My need was too great. Without making eye contact, I quickly stepped in front of him in line. I think I heard him scoff behind me, but I didn’t care about his opinion of me. Who wore a suit on a Saturday?

My thoughts fell to Lucy while I waited. What had happened in Lucy’s most recent relationship? If she said we needed a new place to stay, I assumed she had just been dumped. Again.

But there is no way that her last twenty-four hours had been as devastating as my own. You don’t show up in the middle of nowhere, without a plan, because you’re having a good day.

The line moved forward and I stepped with it. I was just a couple customers back.

My parents were probably wondering where I was after I didn’t return home the previous night. But they didn’t need to. In my late twenties, I deserved to be out on my own without having to run it by my mom and dad.

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