Edge Play X (23 page)

Once they
were outside, the sales women inside commented quietly to each other about X.
She was pretty, they admitted, pretty but not beautiful like the models—no, she
could stand to be thinner (but they made this remark about all but a few women
who entered the store), and while we’re at it some
Botox
wouldn’t hurt and neither would a good
dermabrasion
to take off a few years. Mr. Compton, they continued, could get a woman much
more beautiful than her, and then they each silently and internally compared
themselves to X and wondered why that particular woman had garnered the
attention of such a wealthy, prominent man while they had not.

What the
women did not understand was that Terry Compton had already fucked many of the
most beautiful women in the world, women whose loveliness was so incredible as
to be almost otherworldly and ethereal, beings whose pulchritude was so great
as to elicit a sense of the divine in others, for certainly a God existed in
order to create such a lovely and angelic creature. But in each case, Compton
had fucked them and then reliably grown tired of fucking them, fully aware of
the delightful transience of their beauty, something he had enjoyed and
relished while all the time longing for something more.

 
And as much as
Compton
had sent X out with
Madeleine so that the woman who would be accompanying him around the city would
be dressed appropriately to reflect her status as the companion of a
billionaire, he appreciated that X did not make fashion the main priority of
her life. All the other women he had brought along on his travels had been all
too enthusiastic to spend his money at the shops and boutiques.

He knew
from the details that he had been told about her that she was unlikely to
indulge herself in that behavior. The woman had a socialist streak. That is why
he had stressed to Steinberg to make sure that the woman thoroughly engaged in
this consumer pursuit.
 

It was true
that she was different from all the others: X, with all her quirks, the
genuineness of her being, but especially for her treatment of him, for her
capacity for cruelty, had set herself apart.

Once
outside, Madeleine asked X if she was enjoying herself.

X took a
long drag from her cigarette and looked up to the roof lines of the buildings,
each peak dotted with the fluttering of birds.

“The
clothing,” X said, trying her best to be kind, “is incredible, beautifully
tailored.
 
I can see the difference in it
and what is sold at a department store.”

“You do not
usually buy designer apparel, is that right?”

X nodded
her head yes and then continued. “And your opinions of the clothing, I value
what you have to say. I do. You clearly have an understanding of what looks
good on a person, of what flatters them.”

Madeleine
was quiet, fearful of what X would say.

“It’s
just…” X trailed off, unsure of how to say it, “I saw the tags on the clothing.
The bras themselves cost several hundred dollars. The price of the clothing…I
cannot in good conscience buy it.”

Madeleine
was speechless for a moment.
 

With a
fragile voice, Madeleine replied, “Mr. Steinberg was very clear to me that you
should purchase whatever clothing you like. Mr. Compton has not set an upper
limit for it.”

“It isn’t
that,” X returned. “I am just…not the kind of woman these clothes are meant
for.”

What X
wanted to tell Madeleine was that maybe
Compton
thought the clothing
would make her happy, and if he had made that assumption, he was wrong. What
was more likely, X guessed, was that
Compton
had arranged for the
shopping expedition as a way to control her. That was how he controlled people,
with his money. Maybe he wanted to impress her, thinking her deepest sentiments
could be changed, that her feelings about his bloated wealth could be shifted
with the right bribe.

Even so, it
was not
Compton
’s motives as much as
the price of the clothing which disturbed X about the shopping expedition. The
garments would ultimately go out of fashion; they were ultimately disposable. X
knew that women bought designer clothing to demonstrate their societal rank, to
show that they had the ability to spend on a dress what other people spent on
their monthly mortgage payment. One thing that she was certain about was that
purchasing the status clothing wasn’t about impressing men. X had never met one
who had ever given a shit about the brand of purse she was carrying.

X had tried
on dresses that cost what X used to bring home in a month of legitimate work;
there were purses, shoes and coats so expensive that the money could have
supported families like her mother had worked with, to school them, give them
medical care, change the direction of an entire village.
 

In those
years of her mother’s remission, a time when her mother had decidedly embraced
life, X had occasionally traveled along as her mother dotted through South
America, India and Africa, visiting places where the poverty was so acute as to
burn the images into the mind forever. They had traveled to places where women
still died outside of hospitals because they could not afford caesarians, where
children went blind from lack of proper nutrition, where people picked through
garbage for food, and where the clothing that people wore consisted of ragged
shirts and shorts emblazoned with American logos.
 

X thought
to herself that she should not have agreed to this ridiculous shopping
expedition, wondering how it was that
Compton
was able to direct her
actions so well, first buying her artwork and now trying to dress her and
impress her with apparel that would be out of fashion in less than a year. She
had agreed to have Madeleine take her around, but X had assumed that once in
the stores that she would be able to browse the racks and then leave; instead,
Madeleine had directed X as to which purchases to make.
 

“Oh, my,”
Madeleine sighed. “I do respect what you are saying. I do. When Mr. Steinberg
told me you are a painter, and then when I met you, I could tell in an instant
that you are not a shallow woman. The clothing, yes, the pieces are expensive,
but as you know, so is some art. Please try to appreciate the craftsmanship of
it.”

“It isn’t
that,” X said.

There was a
silence between them, a space caused by neither of them knowing exactly what to
say.

X finished
her cigarette and crushed it out under her boot.

“I don’t
want any of the clothing,” X said. “The bra I have on, I’ll keep that since
they threw away my other one.”

X looked at
Madeleine and noticed that her eyes were welling up with tears. The woman was
trying her best to contain them.

X gently
took a hold of her arm and asked her what was wrong.

“I don’t
want to concern you,” she said.

“No, tell
me.”

Finally,
she looked at X.

“If you do
not buy anything, Mr. Compton and Mr. Steinberg will not hire me again.”

X thought
of Madeleine and her son. There was no ring on her finger, and X assumed that
she was a single mother.

“So
Compton
always hires you when
he brings women to
Paris
?” X asked.

Madeleine
did not answer her question but X could see the answer in her eyes.

“Would he
really not hire you again?” X asked.

“Oh, no,”
she said, “I am sure of it.”

In fact, X
wasn’t entirely sure that
Compton
wouldn’t hire Madeleine
again if X refused to buy any clothing. But what she could tell from looking at
woman was that Madeleine indeed believed that to be true.

X took a
moment to consider what to do. She thought of what her mother would do, decided
that if the bastard wanted her to spend his money, he’d get his wish.

“Alright,”
X said. “We’ll get the clothing inside, as long as you promise me something.”

Instantly,
Madeleine’s mood changed.

“Yes, what
is it?” she said happily.

And this
next part X said in French, surprising Madeleine at her fluency and making it
so that the bodyguard, an Englishman, would not tell Compton or Steinberg about
what they were discussing.

“Promise me
at the next store we visit, and the store after that, not only will we buy
things for me,” X told her, “but we will also buy things for you.”

Madeleine
was thinking, weighing out what X had asked her.

“What is
it?” X asked, unsure why she was not answering.

“Mr.
Compton…” she said.

“Do the
receipts list what size is purchased?” X asked. She shook her head no.
 
Madeleine was a size or two smaller than X.

“He doesn’t
have to know then, does he?” X asked, and after a few moments, Madeleine agreed
to her request.

7.

Later than
afternoon, after they had finished shopping, X hugged Madeleine goodbye, the
saleswoman all smiles and sparkling eyes, a look of gratitude on her face.
Madeleine stayed behind at the last boutique, busily arranging for X’s new
clothing to be wrapped, boxed, and delivered to the hotel.
 

When X
returned to the room, a note was waiting for her on the table in the entryway.
She picked it up and opened it. The note, from Steinberg, let X know that Mr.
Compton and his business associates had needed to go to an important meeting
with representatives from the Paris Stock Market. It went on to say that Mr.
Compton gave his regrets, but that he would need to cancel their planned
excursion to
Versailles
.

X tossed
the note into the bin below the table before heading to the couch and turning
on the television. It seemed to her that
Compton
spent most of his life
in meetings, shuttling from here to there, moving around money as if performing
a shell game, not just knowing shit from
shinola
, but
through some technologic alchemy, actually turning one into the other. A
feeling of disappointment came over her. It wasn’t so much that she had wanted
to spend time with
Compton
(although the idea
didn’t bother her nearly as much as it used to), but she had wanted to see
Versailles
. The son of a bitch
had stood her up.

It was
mid-afternoon by then. The note had not specified when
Compton
would return, and X
could only assume that he would not come back until much later. She knew this
much, that she wasn’t about to wait around for him in the hotel room when there
was a whole city to explore.

From a
pistachio colored box on the coffee table, X pulled out a small round
chocolate, savoring it as each bite melted in her mouth. Then, after finishing
it, she put her map of
Paris
into her purse,
checking that the agenda that Steinberg had given her was still inside, and she
headed out to the metro.

As she left
the hotel and stepped onto the busy Parisian street, the sun finally shining
and lessening the chill of the winter air, X had the feeling that, if she
desired, she would never need to return to the hotel, that her feet could carry
her past Paris until the buildings shrank behind her, that she could continue
until the soles of her shoes lifted off the ground, ascending over the
concrete, taking her away from her predicament.

She entered
the Metro station and bought a ticket. The tunnels were cleaner than what she
had seen in the States but still a commotion of activity. People hurried in and
out of trains, zooming past each other or pausing in front of money machines or
train schedules.

X entered a
train and it started to move, taking her to
Montmartre
, the place that her
mother had so many times told her about. Then she was quick to send a text
message to Agent Simeon telling him that she was alone and on her way to
Sacré
-Coeur.

8.

X’s mother
had given her the bulk of her history lessons about
Montmartre
,
telling her how historically, it was the district with cheap booze, cheap rent,
and cheap women, the kind of place that artists and perverts were drawn to (X
having noted to her mother that the two were often one in the same). X also
knew that Van Gogh had lived with his brother for a couple years in a house on
a little market street there and how, after living in
Montmarte
,
his colors became more vivid and intense, his scenes more lively.

But X knew
about
Sacré
-Coeur because in the house where she was
raised, her parents had displayed a small photograph of X’s mother which showed
the young woman dressed in a simple sheath dress and pillbox hat as she stood
on the lush lawn outside the church, its grey-white domes the backdrop behind
her. X’s mother had told her how she loved
Montmartre
, how it was the real
Paris
, the grittier version,
that the area was the lily underneath the gild.