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“I am Faiza,” the girl said shyly. “Her Highness, Princess Kefaya, has sent me to get these shoes.” She held up a page torn from a glossy French fashion magazine that pictured a pair of T-strap leather stiletto sandals. “You will take me to get them, please.”
“Sure. Where do we go?”
“Where they have these shoes.”
“Do you know the name of the store?”
“Her Highness did not tell me.”
“Can you call her and ask?”
Faiza could not have looked more horrified. “Oh, no. That is not what we do. You will take me to find the shoes, please.”
Piper held out her hand for the magazine page. It bore a prominent YSL logo. She pulled out her phone and discovered a Saint Laurent boutique in the Waldorf a couple of blocks away.
“Do you like your work?” she asked the girl as she turned onto Rush.
The question seemed to confuse her. “Work is to work.” And then, as if she’d said the wrong thing, she went on nervously, “Her Highness, Princess Kefaya, never strikes me, and I only have to share my bed with one other servant, so it is very good.”
But she didn’t sound as if it were all that good, and Piper got the message. Speaking about her employment could get Faiza into trouble. Still, Piper couldn’t miss the yearning in those dark, soulful eyes as they gazed out at the young girls striding along the city sidewalks with their trendy backpacks and confident gaits.
She’d planned to circle the Waldorf while Faiza made her purchase, but Faiza begged her to come inside. The struggle between the girl’s natural timidity and her determination to do her job made it impossible to refuse. Piper reluctantly turned the SUV over to one of the Waldorf’s valets and went with her.
The designer boutique with its white marble floors, soaring ceilings, and array of luxury goods bore no resemblance to the DSW where Piper shopped. This place smelled of perfume and privilege. Faiza handed the magazine page back to Piper. “Her Highness needs in every color, please.”
“Every color?” While Piper was processing that, a young, beautifully groomed clerk approached. She was clearly drawn more by Faiza’s traditional garb than by Piper’s chauffeur’s uniform—white blouse, dark slacks, and a black blazer she’d found at Goodwill yesterday. The clerk’s eagerness suggested word had gotten out that the richest of the world’s royals were in Chicago.
But as anxious as the clerk was to help, she could only produce the shoe in two of its five colors, which sent Faiza into so much distress that her hands shook as she opened a zippered pouch and pulled out a thick wad of U.S. currency—a meaty stack of hundred-dollar bills that would be mere pocket change to a family worth more than a trillion dollars.
When the transaction was complete, Faiza returned the leftover cash to her bag, meticulously folding the receipt. She clutched the bag to her chest as they left the boutique, her forehead puckered with worry lines that had no place on such a young face.
Piper got back on her phone and forty-five minutes later helped Faiza purchase a red pair from Barneys. But even that wasn’t good enough. “You do not understand.” Faiza twisted her fingers around the clasp of her bag. “I cannot fail Her Highness. She must have all the shoes.”
Piper blared her horn at an overly aggressive taxi driver. “Don’t you think five pairs is a little piggy?”
Faiza didn’t understand, which was just as well.
Piper’s meeting with Graham wasn’t for three hours, which should give her enough time to drive out to a suburban Nordstrom where she’d located the final two pairs, grab them, get Faiza back to the Peninsula, then make it to Spiral. Piper forced a smile. “Let’s go.”
As they sped west out of the city, Faiza grew less guarded and more like the nineteen-year-old she was. Piper told her a little about her job with Graham and learned Faiza was Pakistani, as well as a devout Muslim who’d gone to the Realm at fourteen to find work and to visit the country’s holy cities so she could pray for the parents and sister she’d lost. Instead, she’d ended up enduring brutally long hours and what Piper regarded as a kind of imprisonment, since her passport had been taken from her when she’d first been employed, and she hadn’t seen it since.
Faiza repeatedly checked her bag for the receipts. Some of the country’s royals had a reputation for abusing their servants, and Piper didn’t like to imagine what might happen if the receipts didn’t reconcile with the cash Faiza carried.
The Nordstrom that carried the shoes was located in Stars territory in the far western suburbs. The clock was ticking, and the clerk took forever to ring up the purchase. But as long as the traffic gods were kind, Piper could still make it back in time for her meeting.
They weren’t. An accident on the Reagan Tollway brought traffic to a standstill, and since Graham had refused to give her his cell number, she couldn’t even call him. She could only stew.
The traffic inched forward, then stopped again. Inched and stopped. Before long, Piper’s shoulders were so tense her muscles screamed. She took a few deep breaths. Nothing she did would make the traffic go faster. She concentrated on her passenger. “If you could do anything you wanted, Faiza, what would it be?”
Seconds ticked past before she replied. “Dreams are foolish for someone like me.”
Piper realized the question had been unintentionally cruel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Faiza released a long, slow breath of her own. “I would go to Canada and study to be a nurse. One who helps babies born too early, the way my sister was born. But those kinds of dreams are not meant to be.” She spoke matter-of-factly. This was no bid for pity.
“Why Canada?”
“My father’s sister lives there. She is my only family, but I have not seen her since I was a child.”
