BooksBarbecue
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

Poor Robert. The gift was full of love. But he didn’t know her. He would never know her.

( five )

GENEVIEVE WAS TO MEET Lulu midmorning for the assault on Zachari’s shop, but in the event she was already there, alone, before even the weak March sun was properly up. She’d had a poor night’s sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw those hooves rearing up above her. Her head was full of whinnying and snorting. It was as though that monstrosity in the hallway was laughing at her. Unable to bear the thought of more hours lying awake, followed by breakfast with Robert (what would she say to him over the breakfast table? What would she do?), she’d bathed, dressed and left the apartment. It was the kindest, most thoughtful present she’d ever been given. And this made it all the more awful.

A lamp glowed from a basement window below the shop. His workroom? He must be there on his own. She contemplated ringing the bell but was discouraged by the Closed sign. She didn’t want to aggravate him more than she had already. After circling the tiny courtyard a couple of times, she walked back out of the passageway.

The Rue de la Paix was quieter than she’d ever known it. The shutters of the great fashion houses were all closed, the air still. She stood for a moment, gazing out across the Place Vendôme. The famous column looked somehow pudgy this morning. Soft. Like a bolt of cloth standing upright at the center of the eight-sided piazza. Must have been a trick of the light.

As she stood there in dreamy contemplation, a long black Lea-Francis car passed by too close to the curb and splashed dirty puddle water all up her legs. Her unique court shoes by André Perugia, the Paris shoe designer—impossibly high Spanish heels and pointy toes; the softest leather overlaid with a mass of brilliantly colored and intricately worked triangles in silk, suede and brocade, inspired, so Perugia said, by Matisse’s painting, and worn especially to impress Paolo Zachari—were drenched and mud-spattered. Outraged, she stepped forward, opening her mouth to shout something, but the car was already disappearing down a side street. There was a woman sitting in the back. She wasn’t clearly visible, but Genevieve thought she knew who it was, all the same.

After two fortifying coffees and a croissant beurre, consumed at one of the window tables of a nearby café with a lurid green interior, Genevieve made herself bend down to peer at her sodden shoes. It was as she’d thought. They were ruined. She’d wet her hankie in a glass of water to dab at them, but what was the point?