Someone Else's Shoes(7)

? ? ?

“So the lowest we can do on that job is . . . forty-two thousand. But if you switch the page numbers and change the title page to mono, we could shave eight hundred off that price.”

She is outlining their print strategy when she observes that the managing director is not listening to her. For a minute she feels the flush of embarrassment again, and stammers the rest of her words. “So—so how do those figures sound?”

He doesn’t say anything. He rubs a spot on his forehead and makes a noncommittal mmm sound, like she used to when Cat was little and she was listening to her endless babble with only half an ear.

Oh, God, I’m losing him. She looks up from her notes, and realizes the managing director is staring at her foot. Mortified, she almost loses the thread of what she is saying. But then she looks again, registers his glazed expression: it is him who is distracted. “And, of course, we could do that on an eight-day turnaround, as discussed,” she says.

“Good!” he exclaims, as if hauled from a daydream. “Yes. Good.”

He is still staring at her foot. She watches, then tilts it slightly to the left and extends her ankle. He gazes at it, rapt. She glances across the table and sees Joel and Ted exchange a look.

“So would those terms be acceptable to you?”

The managing director steeples his fingers, briefly meets her eye. She smiles encouragingly.

“Uh . . . yes. Sounds good.” He can’t stop looking. His gaze slides from her face downward, back to the shoe.

She pulls a contract from her briefcase. She tilts her foot and lets the heel strap slide slowly down her heel. “So, shall we agree to terms?”

“Sure,” he says. He takes the pen and signs the document without looking at it.



* * *



? ? ?

“Don’t say anything,” she tells Ted, her gaze fixed straight ahead, as they walk out through Reception.

“I’m saying nothing. You get us another deal like that, you can wear a pair of flippers for all I care.”



* * *



? ? ?

At the next meeting she makes sure her feet are on display the whole time. Although John Edgmont doesn’t stare, she sees that the mere fact of the shoes makes him reassess his version of who she is. Weirdly, it makes her reassess her version of herself. She walks into his office with her head high. She charms. She stands firm on terms. She wins another contract.

“You’re on it, Sam,” says Joel, as they climb back into the van.

They take an actual lunch break—something they haven’t dared do since Simon was put in charge—and sit outside at a coffee shop. The sun comes out. Joel tells them about a date he went on the previous week where the woman asked him what he thought of a wedding-dress picture she had cut from a magazine—“She said, ‘It’s okay, I only show people I really like’?”—and Ted spits his coffee through his nostrils and she laughs until her sides hurt and realizes she has no idea when she last laughed at anything.



* * *



? ? ?

Nisha is pacing up and down the chilly sidewalk outside the gym, the bathrobe over her blouse and flip-flops. She has left nine messages on Peter’s cellphone and he is not picking up. This is not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

“Peter? Peter? Where are you? I told you to be outside by eleven fifteen! I need you here right now!”

The final time she calls, a tinny, automated voice tells her this number is unobtainable. She checks the time, curses loudly, reaches into her pocket and pulls out her room-key card. She stares at it for a moment then stomps back into the gym.

The bag outside her locker is still sitting on the bench. Of course it is. Who would want that? She rifles through it, grimacing at the thought of touching clothes that aren’t hers. She pulls out a damp swimsuit in a plastic bag, winces, and dumps it on the bench. Then she reaches tentatively into the side pockets, emerging with three damp ten-pound notes, which she holds up. She can’t remember the last time she held actual money in her hand. It’s the most unsanitary thing, worse than toilet brushes, if some article she read was right. She shudders and puts them into her pocket. She rips one of the plastic bags from the dispenser above the swimsuit spinner and wraps it around her hand. Then she picks up the gym bag by its handles and walks out through Reception.

“Madam, you can’t take the bathrobe—”

“Yeah, well, this country is freezing and you’ve lost my clothes.” Nisha pulls the robe tighter around her, knots the belt, and walks out.

They can moan incessantly about how much trade Uber has cost them but it turns out no fewer than six taxi drivers will still ignore a woman in a bathrobe trying to hail a cab before one stops. He winds down his window and opens his mouth to say something about what she is wearing but she holds up a hand. “The Bentley Hotel,” she says. “And just don’t. Thank you.”

The taxi journey costs ?9.80, even though it took barely five minutes. She walks into the hotel, without acknowledging the perplexed glance of the doorman, and straight across the foyer to the elevator, ignoring the swiveled heads of the guests around her. A couple, middle-aged, him in a suit jacket and slacks, her in a badly cut dress that reveals two oysters of armpit fat—probably down from somewhere provincial for a “treat”—are already inside as she sticks out an arm and stops the door closing. She walks in, stands in front of them and turns to face the doors. Nothing happens. She glances behind her.