Someone Else's Shoes

The second chapter switches to the viewpoint of Nisha Cantor, a wealthy American woman also in her forties who is traveling in London with her husband, Carl. She is running vigorously on a treadmill at the same gym Sam is at and speaks loudly into her phone despite the complaints of those around her. She takes a call from Carl but notices something odd in his tone as he is talking to another person in the background. A gym attendant tells her not to use her phone, and Nisha berates him as she heads toward the changing room, where she takes her black Marc Jacobs bag from her locker and puts it on the bench beside her, knocking another black bag to the ground in the process. During another phone call with her son, Raymond, she passes Sam and comments to herself on Sam’s sad looks and bad posture. After this call, she tries for the second time that day to reach Magda, Carl’s employee, but Magda never answers. As she goes to change after her shower, Nisha realizes that the bag she thought was hers is just a similar knockoff. She confronts a gym attendant about what she believes to be a theft of her bag and custom-made Louboutins but cannot get an answer about who took her things and has to leave the gym in flip-flops and a robe.

Sam feels embarrassed about how bad the last meeting went but still has three more meetings to endure that day. Ted and Joel tell her that she only acted so clumsily because she did not feel confident in her shoes and that she needs to act like she owns them. Although she still feels some residual embarrassment at the beginning of the next meeting, Sam realizes that the manager she is trying to get to sign a contract with her company is not paying attention to her, but to her feet. He signs the contract without even looking at it, and Sam and her coworkers recognize that she can use the shoes to her advantage in the following meetings. She walks into the next meeting confidently and lands that contract as well.

Meanwhile, Nisha is still unable to find her bag, so she pulls some money from Sam’s bag and leaves in a taxi. Nisha walks shamelessly through her hotel in the robe and flip-flops, ignoring the stares of other guests, but when she gets to the penthouse in which she and Carl are staying, three men block her from entering. One of the men, Ari, Carl’s bodyguard, tells her that she cannot enter, gives her an envelope with divorce papers, and sends her back down in the elevator.

For her next meeting, Sam puts on the Chanel jacket that was also in Nisha’s bag but briefly worries that she is “using sex as a weapon” with her attractive new shoes (27). Her next meeting is with Miriam Price, whom she wrongfully expects to be a man like her other clients and who is much tougher to negotiate with than the others as well. In the ladies’ room, Sam again encounters Miriam, who only now notices her shoes. The women bond over luxury footwear and agree to negotiate a deal that works for them both in the next week.

In the hotel foyer, Nisha attempts to call Carl repeatedly, but his secretary, Charlotte, tells her that he is in an important meeting and cannot be disturbed. Nisha goes to the hotel gift shop and tries to purchase new clothes and charge them to her hotel room, but the manager informs her that Carl has given instructions not to charge anything to his account on her behalf. The manager offers to arrange a car to take her somewhere, but Nisha says she has nowhere to go and refuses to leave until Carl comes down to talk to her. The manager tells Nisha that he does not want to make a scene, but two security guards come to take Nisha away.

When Sam returns to her office, she is greeted with praise from Marina, another coworker. Returning to her cubicle, she calls her husband, Phil, to ask how he is doing. Phil has been depressed since the death of his father and barely leaves the house or applies for work, so he declines Sam’s invitation to go to the pub with her and her colleagues to celebrate her achievements that day. Cat then calls Sam and urges her to go to the pub regardless. Sam’s boss, Simon, comes to her cubicle and berates her about how badly the first meeting of the day went. Despite the fact that her business negotiations that day amounted to almost a quarter of a million pounds, he still scolds her for her lack of professionalism in the one unsuccessful meeting, ignoring her subsequent successes.

At the White Horse pub, Sam’s coworkers try to assuage her guilt at utilizing the items in the bag, and she decides to wait until the next morning to return it. Marina also convinces her to put the shoes back on, and Sam dances with her and Joel, feeling happy and confident. When she sits down, a tall, well-dressed man appears in front of her and hands her a bag, saying cryptically, “This is what you want” (45).

Nisha attempts to call her few friends in London to ask for help or money, but no one wants to assist her. Nisha reflects on how she does not trust female friendships and briefly alludes to someone named Juliana, whom readers will later learn is Nisha’s former best friend before her marriage to Carl. Nisha then reflects on all the alterations to her personality and physical appearance that she has made to maintain her attractiveness for her husband, yet despite her best efforts, Nisha fears that she will lose Carl to a younger woman. Still in her robe, Nisha attempts to get cash at ATMs and go to stores where she has an account, but Carl has blocked all her access. Magda finally returns Nisha’s call, telling her Carl had fired her. The two discuss an unnamed man that Nisha needs to meet, and although Nisha is unsuccessful at obtaining new clothes for herself, Magda arranges for her to stay at a nearby hotel. On her awkward walk to the hotel, she finally puts on Sam’s shoes and is as disgusted by them as she is by the dingy hotel. Magda calls back again and tells Nisha that the man they have discussed wants to meet her at a pub. Nisha suggests meeting at the White Horse at eight o’ clock that night. Magda says he will know what she looks like and will give her what she wants.

Nisha goes to the White Horse and waits at the pub nearly until midnight, but the man never comes. As she leaves the pub, Nisha hears a group of men that had harassed her earlier. One of the men grabs her, but she attacks him and runs away, somewhat thankful for her borrowed pumps. However, she realizes she has lost her cell phone in the process. At the hotel, Nisha borrows a phone to call Magda, who tells her that the man was at the pub and delivered the package, identifying her by her custom Louboutins.

After waking up with a bad hangover, Sam visits her best friend, Andrea, and they discuss Phil’s depression and Andrea’s cancer and recent job loss. Sam tells Andrea the events of the previous day, and they decide to open the package that the mysterious man gave her the night before. Inside is a thumb drive that contains a pornographic video, at which both women are shocked and horrified.

The remainder of the chapter switches to the perspective of Ari, Nisha’s former bodyguard. He is tracking Nisha’s phone and finds it underneath a parked car. He then makes a call, saying only, “I found it. She’s nowhere. We may have a problem” (73).

Nisha remembers that she and Carl had been renovating a house in Chelsea and that she should be able to get in, as she is still the owner. When she goes to the house the next day, she meets a woman with two children at the door. The woman informs her that she bought the house from Carl four months earlier. Nisha calls a friend and asks him to wire her $500 under the pretense of buying Carl a surprise gift. After the call, she goes back to the gym to check whether anyone has returned her bag, but no one has. Nisha then buys a cheap phone and calls a friend to ask about a divorce lawyer, who informs her that because the divorce papers were filed in the United States, she is not likely to get an equitable divorce; indeed, Nisha would be unable to pay for his services in her current circumstances. At the end of the call, he suggests that Carl might be having an affair with his assistant, as that is usually the case in circumstances such as Nisha’s.

When Sam gets home, she finds that no one has walked their dog, Kevin, so she takes him on a long walk herself. On this walk, she contemplates how busy and stressful her life has become, for she habitually takes on the burden of all the work in her family. She also thinks about dancing with Joel the night before and how Marina had told her that he was interested in her. When she returns home, Sam reflects on the camper van that Phil bought two years before for family vacations, which had never been used for its original purpose. When Sam goes inside, Phil asks her how the previous night was and apologizes for not coming. Sam sits down beside him and rests for just a moment.