The three counter women, one an unhealthy-looking should-be-in-college girl with random tattoos, and two plump-but-pleasant-looking mom types ignore me. I consider robbing the cash register, that’s the extent of my invisibility. They may be Channel 10 fans and not know Charlie McNally from Charlie McCarthy. But I’m convinced my disguise will work. I’m no longer Charlie McNally. I’m someone-Elsa.
Chapter Eight
I’ve been worried most about this very moment. The crossroads between planning and reality. I’ll walk through the already open door and face a roomful of strangers. What if someone stretches an accusing arm across the open doorway, blocking me, and says, “Excuse me, this is invitation only. And you don’t have an invitation.” Then I’m done. No story. Video of a door slamming in my face. The only thing that would be worse is being recognized. Then I get busted, my news director and old Susannah find out what we’re really doing, and Franklin and I are toast.
Sitting in my Jeep, parked a block from my destination, I check the camera in my purse one final time. It’s rolling. I check my watch. Ten after three. Which means I’ve got batteries until 3:40 p.m. I check the address once again. I’m in the right place. The message we got said just to arrive between three and four in the afternoon, knock, then open the door and come in. If that’s how these things work, fine.
With one final adjustment to my “purse,” I walk up the bluestone path toward the front door, head high and pointing the lens in front of me. I pause, briefly, to shoot a steady pan of the unassuming house at 57 Glendower Street. It’s yellow vinyl siding with white trim around the door, black-and-white vinyl awnings over each window. Wrought iron window boxes filled with last-of-the-season geraniums telegraph someone struggling to make the best of a too-small home in a deteriorating neighborhood. It looks as if the houses on either side may be empty. One has a For Sale sign stuck into the browning grass of the careworn front lawn. I get the signs. I get the house. I get the license plates of the cars in the driveway.
I aim the camera lens to take a shot of my fist knocking on the door, then shifting the camera back beside me, open the door. There’s hardly room for me to fit inside. The place is wall-to-wall women.
A zoo. Filled with the din of shopping animals seeking their prey. Maybe thirty? forty? women, from lanky-haired teenagers to gray-bouffanted grandmothers, in Levis and designer T-shirts, madras skirts and ladylike flats, tunic tops over cropped pants with chunky-heeled mules, all converging around tables set up in two rooms. Two rooms I can see, at least. It smells like leather and plastic. It smells like makeup. It smells like hair spray. And way, way, too much perfume.
I step inside and almost get knocked over.
Two women, each carrying an armload of leather and plastic loot, power across my path. I step back into the entryway, getting my bearings. On my left, through an archway of once-dark wood, what’s probably a dining room table is covered with a jumble of more purses, umbrellas, tote bags, wallets and scarves than I’ve ever seen outside of a department store. I aim my camera in that direction, but I know I’ll have to get closer. Right now all the lens will capture is a not-terribly-flattering shot of a row of women’s rear ends, as shoppers scramble through the faux treasures piled in front of them.
Holding my camera steady as I can, I slowly turn to my right. The two shoppers who almost put me on the floor are now part of another pack of purse hunters surrounding two card tables set up in the center of the living room. Furniture is sparse. There are no photos, no knickknacks. Maybe it’s all been hidden for today’s extravaganza.
Wide shot of the dining room. Got it. Wide shot of the living room. Got it. Ready to go in for close-ups.
I hear a knock on the door behind me. I flatten myself against the wall as three more purse-stalking fashionistas flutter and yoo-hoo their way to the tables.
No one has acknowledged my existence. Happily, I don’t see anyone who could be Keresey in disguise. And my time is ticking by.
Stepping into the living room, I smile my way confidently to a clear section of one of the card tables. Welcome to Burberry City. Shoulder bags, coin purses, umbrellas, tote bags, pouches and wallets, all with the well-known camel, black, red and white plaid. Placing my purse carefully on the table, lens aimed toward me, I choose a small shoulder bag and pretend to examine it. I’m actually checking for the Burberry tell-a distinctive and never-changing pattern in the plaid. With a glance to confirm no one is noticing and a secret smile of triumph, I casually hold the bag up in front of my hidden lens. These babies are fakes.
I put my camera purse on my shoulder again. Keeping my hand near the lens just in case I need to cover it, I aim for the table, recording the intently calculating faces of the bargain hunters, each focused on selecting from the still enormous assortment of designer doubles.
“Amazing, huh?” I put a little squeak in my voice, pitching it high and feminine. How Elsa talks. I’ve got to get some usable info, and my time is running out. I carefully tilt my purse in hopes of getting her face on camera, even though I’m not allowed to record her voice. “Have you been here before?”
The woman beside me, hair chopped in a bob and wearing a baby-blue twinset reaches her acrylic red fingernails toward a Gucci-looking leather bag decorated with interlocking G’s.
I know the G’s are in the wrong place.
Blue-twinset apparently doesn’t. Or doesn’t care. “Nope, friend told me about it. Perfect, huh?” She never takes her eyes off her catch, opening the not-really-gold-plated clasp and checking the inside with an appreciative nod. She snaps it closed, tucks it under her arm, and reaches into the pile again.
“My husband would die if he knew I was here,” she says, scrutinizing a Chanel wannabe. “But I say, I can get five or six bags like this for the price of one real one, you know? And wouldn’t he be more upset if I bought the real one?”
“So, everyone here knows they’re, um, copies?” I ask. Elsa is so naive.
“Well, of course.” She still hasn’t looked at me as she considers her choices, keeping up a stream of chat. “But I figure there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as they don’t say they’re genuine. Right? Don’t ask, don’t tell. And it’s all cash, of course. So I just take it out of the grocery money.” She cocks her head. “You pay in the kitchen.”
“Ah,” I say. Putting my purse on the table again, I pretend to examine a Fendi clutch, holding it up as the camera-cross fingers-rolls. I’m oh-so-casual, hoping this next question won’t set off any intruder alarms. Talking like Elsa. “Do you know our hostess? I’d love to meet her.”
“Kitchen,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. This is working. I’m pretty sure I’m getting good stuff. Franklin is going to be thrilled, and turns out he’d have been quite a sore thumb here. There’s not a man in the place.
The table closer to the kitchen is all Delleton-Marachelle, from their iconic short-handled doctor’s bag to their newest suede sling, sleek and oversized, dripping with fringe and tagged with a heavy brass D. Like the ones the Prada P.I. sent Franklin. I lift my hand from the lens and aim at the display. I can’t even calculate how much this collection would cost if they were authentic. That might be a fun element for our story, putting a price tag on this shot.
“Charlie?”
The voice is coming from behind me. Friendly and welcoming. And devastating.
I carefully lower my hand over the lens and begin to turn around. This is going to be difficult to explain. This is, actually, going to be impossible to explain. This is going to be a mess.