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Back The Shoe Queen
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

But Lulu wouldn’t let it go. “Now I come to think of it, unavailability must be the most attractive thing of all for someone like you. Someone who only toys with the idea of having an affair rather than really doing it. All that hopeless longing and sighing. All that fantasy. Why, Zachari is just perfect for you.”

“For the last time, Lulu—” But Genevieve’s voice lacked conviction, and she knew it. She looked down at her fingernails, newly manicured at Lina Cavalieri’s salon just before lunch. She made her hands into fists.

“Vivi? What is it?”

“If only Robert hadn’t bought me that horse,” said Genevieve. “I can’t bear it. You should see it. You should see its eyes. Whenever I look at the ghastly thing—”

“Come on.” Lulu gestured for the bill. “You’d better show me.”

“It’s changed everything,” said Genevieve. “I can’t ignore it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

( six )

THE NEXT MORNING GENEVIEVE skipped breakfast and went straight to the study in her dressing gown. Sitting at her desk (amboyna with dark acajou and slim sabot-footed legs), she started writing a poem about a girl who didn’t know her own name. The words came rapidly. By the time she paused to read over it, she already had over twenty lines and was practically breathless with the intensity of it all. How wonderful it was to be able to find such a release for her most troubling emotions. A release that, as a kind of bonus, was itself an act of creation. This was the best thing she’d ever written, it had to be. This was the poem that would establish her as a real figure on the Anglo-American writing scene here—not just a would-be or a hanger-on.

She’d been striving for acceptance by Paris’s artistic élite ever since she and Robert had first arrived. In those early days, while still registering the full extent of her disappointment with Robert’s drab circle of mediocre acquaintances, she’d walk for miles along the Seine, over to the Left Bank and past the Métro Vavin into the 6th Arrondissement. She’d peer through the windows of the Café Select, La Rotonde, The Dôme, and scan the pavement tables for the more famous writers and artists who passed their days there, scribbling and sketching in their notepads. She’d take her poetry notebook into whichever café she’d chosen, order a café au lait and settle back to write and to eavesdrop. She was here in the city of her dreams, but only as a spectator.