Page 24 of Someone Else's Shoes
‘I – I had my bag stolen yesterday. I’ve lost my phone and all my cards.’
‘Oh, no! Which bag?’ says Ray, his attention suddenly drawn from the game. ‘Not the Bottega Veneta?’
‘No, no. Just – just an old one. I’m not sure you even know it.’
‘Oh. Cool. Well … how do I do that? I don’t know how to wire money. Sasha! Shooter! On your left!’
She talks him through the process and he does it online as they speak. He seems to find the idea of wiring her some money almost akin to an adventure, and she realizes with a faint sense of guilt that they have so seldom asked him to do anything practical. He arranges to wire five hundred dollars, the most she feels she can ask for without prompting suspicion.
‘What are you going to buy?’
It takes her a second. ‘For Daddy? I – I don’t know. I’m – uh – looking at options.’
‘No, whatbag. To replace yours.’ His voice lowers. ‘The new Autumn/Winter YSL is cute. Mid-size cross-body with kind of diagonal cushioning. It’s in the newestVogue, page forty-six. You’d rock that, Mom.’
She smiles, delighted at his sudden animation. ‘I’ll take a look, sweetheart. It sounds fabulous. Thank you. And I’ll pay you back as soon as I’ve got everything straight this end.’
There is a short silence.
‘So … when are you coming home?’
‘Soon, darling, soon.’
‘Sasha’s leaving on the eighth. I can’t be here once he’s gone. He’s the only good one left. Everyone else is just …’
‘I know. I’ll fix it. I promise. I love you.’
He heads back to his game and she ends the call and breathes a long sigh of relief. That’s three more nights taken care of and her food. It will buy her time to breathe at least. She sits on the bed and feels the softness that always envelops her when she talks to Ray gradually harden as she considers her day. Right. She’ll brush her teeth in the hideous bathroom. Next stop: the gym to see whether her bag has been returned. And then a damn good lawyer.
‘Nobody’s handed in any bags.’
It has taken Nisha fifty-two minutes to walk here. She is cross and sweaty, the jacket is making her neck itch and there is definitely something off about the way this girl is talking to her.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it? There’s a Chanel jacket and Christian Louboutin shoes in that bag. The bag itself is Marc Jacobs, for God’s sake.’
The girl gives her the kind of pleasantly blank look thatsays,Boy, am I going to talk shit about you as soon as you’re out of here.She raises a smile that isn’t a smile.
‘I’m so sorry, madam, but therearesigns on the wall saying we cannot be liable for items that go missing in the changing rooms. Wedoadvise all clients to lock their lockers and keep an eye on their belongings.’ Her peculiar patronizing intonation makes Nisha want to hurl herself over the counter fists first.
‘I’ll be happy to put it in the incident book,’ the girl adds.
‘Incident book?’
‘Well, it’s usually for minor injuries. But I’m happy to put it in there so thatifand when your bag is returned, whoever is staffing Reception is aware that it belongs to you. If you’d like to give me your details I’ll make sure someone contacts you in the event of it reappearing.’
The way she says ‘reappearing’ makes it clear to Nisha that she doesn’t expect it to ‘reappear’ any time soon.
‘Well, you have beenimmenselyhelpful,’ she says. ‘I’ll be in touch. Maybe to get a recommendation for whoever is in charge of your customer-service training.’ She sweeps out, thanking God that she hadn’t bothered to bring the other bag with her.
She picks up Ray’s money from the wire service, buys a cheap pay-as-you-go phone from a pawnshop, some top-up vouchers from the supermarket, and at 3 p.m. she uses the hotel Wi-Fi to call Leonie Whitman. After a modicum of small-talk and fake admiration for her latest Instagram posts (Leonie is so thirsty for attention – like a woman with her ass should be posing in a bikini, even if it is on her husband’s yacht), Nisha asks her if she can recommend a good divorce lawyer. ‘It’s my assistant,’ she says, lowering her voice. ‘She’s in a dreadful situation and I’d like to help if I can. She’s such a sweet woman and I want to protect her.’
‘Oh, you’re so kind to your staff,’ says Leonie. ‘I couldn’tbearMaria when her husband left. She was so moody and I kept finding her weeping in closets. Honestly, I wasthatclose to firing her. It just affected the whole mood of the house.’
‘Well, you know, a good assistant is worth looking after.’ Nisha smiles, thinking guiltily of Magda. She jots down the number and ends the call as swiftly as she can. She doesn’t think she heard anything in Leonie’s voice that suggested Angeline Mercer had told her what was going on, but Leonie is a one-woman broadcasting service, and she needs to act quickly.
Saul Lowenstein, esteemed New York divorce lawyer, takes the call. She suspected he might, despite it being a weekend, given her name. He is unctuous, charming on the phone, his mellifluous, confidential tone that of someone who has listened to a wealth of furious soon-to-be-ex-wives.
‘And how can I help you, Mrs Cantor?’
