Sweet Liar Read online

  When she reached Madison, she took a right and headed north, walking three full blocks looking straight ahead, wondering how far she had to go before she had proved herself, proved that she could go out into this city without fear overcoming her. Her thoughts were occupied with imagining telling Mike defiantly that she had spent the whole afternoon alone on the streets of New York—and she had survived!

  By the fourth block, she began to look at her surroundings, and since midtown Madison Avenue was all shops, this meant looking in the display windows at the merchandise. In Santa Fe most of the shops were full of goods for the tourists to take home: T-shirts with idiot sayings on them, mugs and badly made Indian dolls, coyotes on every conceivable surface. Everything was labeled handmade, as though people in other parts of the world had found robots to make cheap tourist goods. Besides the junk goods, there were also hundreds of galleries full of overpriced Indian art. The few “normal” stores geared toward the residents were filled with low-end merchandise: cheap rayon skirts, plastic picture frames, earrings that made your ears turn green.

  What Samantha saw on Madison Avenue were shops full of beautiful goods: the best products the world had to offer. She saw stores that contained clothes so expensive that guards stood at the door, selectively admitting customers who passed their scrutiny. When a handsome young man in a beautiful suit smiled and held a shop door open for Samantha, she felt as though she’d passed membership into a world of the rich and powerful. Entering the store, she saw lush gray carpet, mirrored walls, and merchandise that cost the yearly income of some people—mostly women who were overworked and underpaid, she thought with a grimace.

  She went into a shop full of exquisite sleepwear, Montenapoleone, and, on impulse, spent much too much on a white nightgown made of cotton so fine that it was transparent. Little pink threads were tied into bows about the neckline.

  She passed Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Yves Saint Laurent. It was in Valentino’s that she realized how much money Mike had spent on the clothes she had bought at Saks, for she saw a suit just like one she had and the price was thirty-four hundred dollars.

  “Are you all right?” the pretty young clerk asked in concern.

  “Yes,” Sam managed to say as she sat down and took the cup of cool, bottled water that was offered to her. There was part of her that felt she should be angry at Mike for deceiving her and part of her that glowed with pleasure, for what woman didn’t like to receive presents? She couldn’t help wondering when he’d worked out the details with his cousin Vicky to dupe Samantha into thinking that the clothes were something she could afford and that she was going to be able to pay for them herself.

  Leaving the store, she wasn’t sure what she should do. Go to Michael and confront him with her knowledge of what she’d found out? Then again, it didn’t seem very nice to yell at him for doing something so sweet as buying her thousands of dollars worth of lovely clothes. So maybe later she’d figure out a way to say thank you.

  With her head up (it didn’t hurt her pride or self-esteem to now be aware of the fact that she was wearing about five grand in clothes), she continued on her excursion into the wild, untamed streets of New York. As she looked in a shop window of antique jewelry, she thought, The real danger in this city is the merchandise.

  At Seventy-second Street, Sam went into the wonder of a store that Ralph Lauren had created and wandered all the floors looking at the furnishings as much as at the goods. She used the very pretty lavatory in the basement, then went back upstairs and bought a marcasite pin that looked Edwardian.

  After leaving his store, she looked west toward Fifth Avenue where she saw the green of Central Park. Turning toward the park, she thought she might wander through it, but if New York beat Santa Fe in merchandise, nowhere on earth could beat Santa Fe for scenery.

  Instead of going into the park, she took a left and went down Fifth Avenue, looking up at the windows of the buildings facing the park and wondering what famous people lived in the buildings. Just at the end of the park, she stopped into F.A.O. Schwarz and bought a stuffed monkey, thinking the funny little creature might relieve the seriousness of her apartment.

  Across the street from the toy store she saw the Plaza Hotel and there she encountered Bergdorf Goodman’s—lovely, beautiful Bergdorf’s, which she instinctively knew deserved a day all its own, so she limited herself to the first floor, where she thought she couldn’t get into too much trouble. She underestimated Bergdorf’s, for she left the store with a shopping bag full of socks and hose and a leather belt with a silver buckle. Past Bergdorf’s she saw Fendi’s and the barred, fortress-looking jewelry store of Harry Winston, which made her think of the Duchess of Windsor. Moving south, she saw Charles Jourdan, Bendel’s, and Elizabeth Arden’s red door.

  Smiling in fond memory as she looked across the street at Saks, thinking of the lovely day she’d spent there with Mike and what he had done for her that day, she turned into Rockefeller Center and saw the gold statue of the flying man that she’d seen a thousand times on TV. Leaning back against the rail that overlooked the area that in the winter was the skating rink, she set down her heavy shopping bags by her feet and rubbed her hands. She had been walking for hours and she should have been tired, but instead, she felt wonderful: She had faced the enemy and found the enemy to be a delightful, entertaining new friend. As she looked at the people around her, at the windows of the Metropolitan Gift Shop, she couldn’t help but smile. What a lovely place, she thought.

  After buying a hot dog from a street vendor, she left Rockefeller Center and walked further south, where she looked in the window of a shop and saw a four-inch-tall bronze statue of a Japanese samurai. The little warrior was strong and armor-clad, but he had a particularly engaging smile that reminded her of Michael. Thinking of all Mike had done for her, she very much wanted to buy a gift for him, and this statue would be perfect. She went into the store and asked to see the statue.

  It was in this store that Samantha learned what every true New Yorker knows: that everything in New York is for sale and what the price tag says has nothing to do with what an item actually costs.

  Contrary to the world’s opinion, there is no human being on earth nicer than a New York merchant when he’s showing his wares to a richly dressed customer. The man looked at Sam’s expensive designer suit, her Mark Cross purse, her Bally shoes, and the big diamond flashing on her finger and smiled sweetly as he handed the little statue to her. It wasn’t a false smile, for no one has ever loved anything or anyone as much as a true New Yorker loves buying and selling.

  “How much is it?” she asked.

  “Seven fifty,” the man said.

  Sam’s face fell. She wanted the statue, but that was far, far too much to pay.

  The merchant, who had a good eye for tourists—who were so naive they could be talked into anything at any price; in fact, tourists often bought things they didn’t want just to get the merchant to stop badgering them—thought Samantha was a New Yorker. She dressed like a New York woman, even had the nails of a New York woman. (In the rest of America, manicures were something only the richest, idlest, most vain women had, but in New York, thanks to the Koreans, manicure parlors were five to a block and eight dollars a session.) He thought Sam was acting when she said the price was too high; he thought she was playing the game.

  “It will be a hardship to me, but I can let you have it for five fifty.”

  Samantha looked startled. She’d not expected him to lower his price. “I’m sorry, that’s still too much.”

  Born in the city, the merchant thought. “Is there anything else in the store you like?”

  Thinking that was a very odd question, Samantha didn’t try to understand it but pointed to some garnet earrings that she liked and the merchant took them out of the window so she could look at them.

  She thought the earrings were lovely, but she refused to allow herself to covet them. It was better that she bought something for Mike to say thank you for all he�€