Page 51 of Someone Else's Shoes
She waits. ‘Okay.’
‘I will get my lawyer to talk to your lawyer and draw up something that will be fair and equitable.’
‘I don’t have a lawyer, Carl. You’ve seen to that.’
‘Then I will fix it. And then our lawyers will talk and we will work out a way that you can move forward in comfort.’
She regards him curiously. Is Charlotte behind this? Has he been advised to say these things? He seems genuine. She scans the room surreptitiously and cannot see Ari or Charlotte or anyone else at any of the other tables. She catches sight of Jasmine sweeping the lobby and glancing her way. Jasmine raises an eyebrow, as if to say,You okay?And she gives her the slightest of nods. She sits back in her seat and crosses her legs.
‘So I thought we should …’ he continues. Then: ‘What – what are those shoes?’ Carl is staring at her feet.
‘Oh. Those. It’s a long story.’
‘Where are your Louboutins?’
‘Why would you be looking for my Louboutins?’Don’t youknow her clown feet are too big for them?she wants to say. But she doesn’t want him to know that she knows.
He takes a sip of his coffee, doesn’t meet her eye. ‘Well. Just that they would be part of the settlement.’
She stares at him. ‘You want the damnshoes off my feet?’
‘I bought them, Nisha. Legally speaking, they are … my shoes. Along with everything else.’
‘Which you gave me. Making them legally mine. Why would you want myshoes?’Go on, she thinks,just say it. You want to give them to your clown-footed girlfriend.
‘I had them made specially. They’re … they’re worth money.’
‘You’re being weird, Carl. You have, like, a gazillion things that are worth more than those shoes.’
‘Sentimental reasons, then.’
‘You’re about as sentimental as the Berlin Wall. Don’t give me that.’
‘Don’t be obstructive, Nisha.’ His voice holds a warning. ‘I am being very generous here.’
‘I’m not beingobstructive, Carl. And you’re not being generous. Yet. For all I know you could be about to offer me a suitcase full of fucking lentils. Anyway. I don’t have the shoes.’
‘What do you mean you don’t have them?’
‘They were in my bag. And someone took them.’
‘“Took” them? You mean stole them?’
‘I don’t think so. They picked up the wrong bag. The day you served me with papers.’
‘What? Who? Why haven’t you got them back?’
‘You know what, Carl? In the grand scheme of things, given you left me with no money, no clothes and nowhere to even spend the night, losing a pair of my fucking heels really didn’t feel like my biggest problem just then.’
He has always been weirdly possessive about things he bought her, as if they were somehow still his own. Sheremembers a Gucci handbag she left in a restaurant in the early days of their marriage. He hadn’t spoken to her for four days.
‘Well, when are you going to get them?’
‘Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to work out how to survive with no money and no roof over my head. You wanted to show me how powerful you can be, well done. You did it. You stripped me of everything in an instant. I got the message loud and clear: that you’re the one with all the cards. I’m sorry if I mislaid some of yourstuffin the process.’
He seems appalled. At his own behaviour maybe?
She waits a moment before she speaks. ‘What did youthinkwas going to happen to me, Carl?’
