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Back The Shoe Queen Save as PDF
Chapters (67)
  1. Cover
  2. “And may I say, those shoes are adorable.”
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. ( I )
  7. ( one )
  8. ( two )
  9. ( three )
  10. ( four )
  11. ( five )
  12. ( six )
  13. ( seven )
  14. ( eight )
  15. ( nine )
  16. ( ten )
  17. ( II )
  18. ( eleven )
  19. ( twelve )
  20. ( thirteen )
  21. ( fourteen )
  22. ( fifteen )
  23. ( III )
  24. ( sixteen )
  25. ( seventeen )
  26. ( eighteen )
  27. ( nineteen )
  28. ( IV )
  29. ( twenty )
  30. ( twenty-one )
  31. ( twenty-two )
  32. ( twenty-three )
  33. ( twenty-four )
  34. ( V )
  35. ( twenty-five )
  36. ( twenty-six )
  37. ( twenty-seven )
  38. ( twenty-eight )
  39. ( twenty-nine )
  40. VI
  41. ( thirty )
  42. ( thirty-one )
  43. ( thirty-two )
  44. ( thirty-three )
  45. ( thirty-four )
  46. ( VII )
  47. ( thirty-five )
  48. ( thirty-six )
  49. ( thirty-seven )
  50. ( thirty-eight )
  51. ( thirty-nine )
  52. ( forty )
  53. ( forty-one )
  54. ( forty-two )
  55. ( VIII )
  56. ( forty-three )
  57. ( forty-four )
  58. ( forty-five )
  59. ( forty-six )
  60. ( forty-seven )
  61. ( forty-eight )
  62. ( forty-nine )
  63. ( fifty )
  64. ( fifty-one )
  65. Acknowledgments
  66. Acknowledgments
  67. Questions for Discussion

It was only as she approached the shop that she realized he wouldn’t be alone. In her head she had walked straight in, as she always did, through the empty studio and up to the darkroom. But it was a Tuesday, and the shop was open. A receptionist sat behind the front desk, and a woman with elaborately curled hair was reading a magazine. A similarly elaborate and beribboned poodle was seated on the floor at her feet.

“Good morning,” said the receptionist. “What can I do for you?”

“I…” Genevieve cleared her throat. “I’d like to see Mr. Giles, please.”

The receptionist, an attractive woman in her early forties with blond hair and green eyes, smiled politely, glanced at the diary and said, “Your name, please?”

“I don’t have an appointment.”

“I’m sorry.” The receptionist, still smiling but more quizzically now, picked up a pencil. “The diary’s full for today. He has portraits all morning, and then he’s out this afternoon. I could put you in for tomorrow at about eleven?”

“Oh, I’m not here to have my photograph taken. I just need to speak to Mr. Giles.”

The receptionist studied her more carefully, apparently taking in the school uniform for the first time. “But of course—he did your school a few months back, didn’t he? If your parents want some extra copies, I can help you with that. Did you want the small size or the large? We do some very nice frames, you know—”

“No.”

The curly-haired woman peered up from her magazine. The dog looked over too, wearing precisely the same nosy expression.

“Is there something else I can do to help?” The receptionist wasn’t smiling now, but her face was still kind. She had one of those rare faces that manage to be pretty and motherly at the same time.

“Please.” The nausea came on, and Genevieve swallowed several times. “I need to speak to Mr. Giles urgently.”

“Anthony is busy with a client.” The voice was quiet but firm. “Would you like to leave a message?”

Anthony…The sign over the shop said A. R. Giles, and Genevieve had always assumed the A stood for Alexander, the same as his son. She had never called him anything but “Mr. Giles.” How absurd.

Anthony…It was as though the receptionist had been talking about an entirely different person.

“Miss?”

Genevieve felt herself pale under this woman’s gentle gaze. And she knew, as she bolted out of the shop and threw up in the gutter outside (watched through the window by the curly woman and her poodle), that Mr. Giles’s wife was not dough-faced and gap-toothed at all. Far from it.

( twenty-four )