Secrets of a Shoe Addict (10 page)

And in a sibling relationship that had always been a little bit strained, Sandra didn’t want to add any sour grapes.

Unless they were in the form of wine.

But who was she kidding? Tiffany probably never even had more than a glass with dinner, if any at all. Far be it from Tiffany to lose even one iota of her legendary control.

Which is why it was such a surprise when the phone rang and it
was Tiffany, calling from what she described as “the floor of the crappiest, dirtiest part of the dirty, crappy Las Vegas airport.”

“Why are you on the floor of the airport?” Sandra asked, immediately alarmed, yet intrigued.

“All the flights are running late because of thunderstorms or something. The place is mobbed.” She made an exasperated sound, then said, “But that’s not why I called. I need a job. Fast. And I was wondering if you and your shoe people were hiring.”

“What?”
Sandra couldn’t process this that fast.

“Your company,” Tiffany said. “Are you hiring?”

A year ago, Sandra and some friends had met every Tuesday night to swap shoes in an effort to, if not get rid of their shoe addiction, at least make it cost less. Eventually, in a move that turned their addiction to actual
profit
, they pooled their money to support the work of a brilliant young Italian shoemaker named Phillipe Carfagni. Now their company paid for the manufacture and import of his work, and had gotten it into an impressive number of stores, boutiques, and online shoe sites. But the company was still young and, as such, still struggled to make ends meet with the few employees it had.

“Why?”

“I need a job.”

“What? Why do you need a job?” Sandra asked, shocked. “Are you and Charlie splitting up?” Oh! Bad mistake! Tiffany hadn’t said a word about leaving Charlie, but Sandra had leapt all over it like
Are you finally leaving the bum?

Which was how she really felt.

“No!” Tiffany barked. “God, Sandra, can’t I just ask you about a job without you leaping to crazy and insulting conclusions?”

“Well . . . yes, it’s just . . . you just said you’re on the floor of some Las Vegas hotel—”

“Airport.”

“—right, airport, and you’re obviously in the middle of something more demanding than, say, sitting around doing your nails while watching
The Price Is Right
and deciding you want a new hobby. So . . . seriously, Tiffany, why are you asking about a job
now
?”

“It doesn’t matter
why
,” Tiffany said, an edge still sharp in her voice. “Maybe I’m just bored waiting for my flight and thought of it. Maybe I’m just trying to make conversation. Maybe—”

“Okay, now I
know
something’s up,” Sandra said. She’d had more than her share of liars over the phone these past few years, and she could pick them out within seconds. “You should have stopped at the bored-and-waiting-for-your-flight part. I might have bought that.”

“Would you buy in-debt-from-buying-too-many-clothes-and-shoes?” Tiffany shot back.

Sandra laughed. “No way. Try again.”

“It’s the truth,” Tiffany said. And this time her voice was different. Serious. Broken.

“What? You got into financial trouble buying
clothes
? And
shoes
?”

“I know it’s not like me, but it’s the truth. I accidentally spent thousands of dollars on these stupid, impractical designer clothes. Then there was a mix-up with the plane tickets home, so I had to get a first-class seat at the last minute for a nine-year-old who can’t be separated from the group, and the whole thing’s a mess, and if I don’t make a lot of money fast, my marriage is going to be in really serious trouble. So I was wondering if you needed any part-time workers for your company.”

Sandra listened to this with disbelief.
Tiffany?
Spent thousands
of dollars on
clothes
? It didn’t make sense, but the one thing that was obvious was that it didn’t
have
to make sense right now. Right now Sandra needed to listen.

She just wished she could do more to help. “The company is really still in its infancy, and I can’t hire people unilaterally, and besides, you wouldn’t make that much that soon even if we
were
hiring, which we’re not. Maybe I could loan you the money, if I tapped into my retirement. How much—?”

“No! You can’t do that. I wouldn’t let you, so don’t even
think
about it. I was just desperate, honestly, and I thought you might have some sort of idea. . . .” Tiffany sniffled. “I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” Sandra said, meaning it sincerely. “If there was anything I could do, I’d—wait a minute. You just want work? For money? Fast?”

“Yes.” The answer was more of a question, and Sandra could picture Tiffany sitting straighter on her square of linoleum, listening for the potential answer to her problems.

And maybe Sandra had it. “There is
one
thing I can think of, one way to make good money fast. . . . If you’re really serious, that is.”

“There is?” Hope was clearly rising fast. “What is it? Does it take some special skill or education or something?”

“N-no. Not really. Just a willingness to . . . put yourself out there.”

There was a pause. “Sandra, you’re starting to make me nervous. What is it?”

“Keep an open mind.”

“Sandra—”

“I mean it. I don’t want you throwing this back in my face later. It’s a perfectly legit way to earn money, and I even did it myself for a while.”

“Do
not
tell me you were a prostitute.”

Funny how quickly she’d come to that conclusion. “No!”

“Thank God.”

Sandra took a short breath then continued. “Have you ever thought about the possibility of being a phone sex operator?”

Chapter
        
6
   

P
hone sex?”
Loreen repeated. She couldn’t believe Tiffany was suggesting this! Apart from the irony of Loreen having to turn virtual tricks to pay for the trick
she’d
accidentally become, this was
not
the sort of thing Tiffany Dreyer ever even
talked
about, much less suggested as a PTA fund-raiser.

They were sitting on Loreen Murphy’s sofa, trying to sort out the details of the nightmare that remained from their trip to Las Vegas

“Look,” Tiffany said with a sigh. “It’s not
just
the PTA card that got racked up. I got into a little financial trouble in Vegas myself.”

Loreen looked at her. “How little?”

Tiffany swallowed. “Five thousand.”

“So we’re up to ten thousand,” Loreen said, and almost laughed at how ludicrous it was. They needed ten thousand bucks in, like, a month. Fat chance.

Abbey, who had been watching silently—and, Loreen thought, judgmentally—spoke then. “If we’re looking to come up with a quick fund-raiser, I could use some cash myself.”

For the church, Loreen thought. If Abbey was going to help pay the cost of their sins, she was going to want them to tithe.

Like they could afford
that
.

Tiffany, however, didn’t make the same assumption. “Did you lose money
gambling
?” she asked Abbey in disbelief.

Abbey shook her head. “No, it’s something else. I . . .”She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No, no,” Tiffany said. “We’re putting it all out there. We’re going to help each other out of this mess. So how much do you need?”

“Ten thousand.”

Tiffany and Loreen exchanged looks. This didn’t sound like tithing for the church. Abbey was in some serious trouble of some sort.

“What happened?” Loreen asked.

“It’s a long story. It has to do with a charitable donation I made that went wrong.” Abbey shook her head. “Not all that interesting.”

So in a way Loreen had been right. But who was she to judge? If Abbey would help pay off her mistake, she’d help Abbey pay off hers.

Tiffany took a sip of General Foods International Coffee. “Obviously a bake sale isn’t going to cut it.” If they were at Tiffany’s house, it would have been freshly ground and brewed coffee, but at Loreen’s if it wasn’t instant, it wasn’t happening. “Neither is a car wash.”

New panic surged in Loreen’s breast. “Please, let’s not make the kids do anything to help with this. I just . . . I can’t bear the idea.”
Good Lord, the
children
working to pay of her
prostitution debt
? It was worse than third-world sweatshops, by far. “I’ll sell my kidney first.”

How much
did
kidneys get on the black market anyway?

Andy toddled in, stopping in front of Tiffany and raising his arms. “Looks like Kate got tired of babysitting,” Tiffany said, lifting the child into her lap and cupping her hand over the soft hair at the crown of his head. “Poor sleepy baby,” she said quietly, rocking him gently. “I don’t think we have a choice,” she said to everyone else.

“We must. How much do you think we could earn doing temporary secretarial work or something?” Abbey asked, tapping the table idly with her fingernails. “Theoretically, two of us could take a job every day, and the other one could take care of the kids.”

“I can shift my real estate work schedule around,” Loreen said, “in order to take as much solid work as I could get.”

Tiffany shook her head. “But that’s still just one paycheck at a time. You can’t make the kind of money we need working as a temp.” She lifted her coffee cup, but didn’t take a sip before setting it down again. “I’m telling you, we need to be much more aggressive about this.”

“
That
is not the only answer,” Abbey said. “If I did it and anyone found out, it could ruin Brian.”

It figured, Loreen thought, that of the three people willing to work on this, one had to be married to a pastor. “If I did it and got found out, it could jeopardize my custody case.”

“And I risk my marriage by doing it,” Tiffany agreed, holding her sleeping child closer. “But I don’t have a better answer.”

“Me neither,” Loreen said.

“I don’t either,” Abbey added.

Loreen, for her part, was beginning to see the appeal. “Well . . . it’s just acting, I guess. Just pretending.”

“Exactly!” Tiffany agreed.

Abbey looked dubious.

“Look, my sister can come over to my house on Thursday when Charlie’s at his poker game. She’ll tell us how to do it. If you want to come, come at seven thirty. If you don’t—” She looked pointedly at Abbey, then at Loreen. “—then don’t. It’s up to you. But I’m going to do it.”

Abbey spent the next few days worrying over the increasing pile of stresses that was being heaped in front of her.

How could she work as a phone sex operator and still hope to keep her own past from being scrutinized by Brian or his congregation? If they didn’t find out about her from her own misstep, she knew Damon well enough to know he was probably ready to take out a full-page ad in the
Washington Post
to expose her if she didn’t acquiesce.

Damon, once the stuff of dreams, was now a thing of nightmares. And if Abbey wasn’t careful, he would open her Pandora’s box for all the world to see.