sandals, walking with purpose. I spied a giant Coach store and made a mental note to remember its exact location, then an even bigger Urban Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret, Sephora – and there was Bloomingdales! So many cool shops I couldn’t wait to discover for myself. I’m really going to need to find a job fast if I’m going to survive the shopping potential in this city.
Finally, we pulled up outside the Best Western, our home for the next five nights at least. It wasn’t exactly the flashy W Hotel, where I’d spent so much time kitting out celebrities with Mona in LA, but it was the most the production budget could stretch to, until we found a more affordable apartment. But the location was perfect, in the Bowery, a stone’s throw from Downtown’s most fashionable neighbourhoods.
Within twenty-four hours of landing and three appointments with real-estate agents, it became blindingly obvious that Rob and I would not find our dream apartment in this salubrious part of Manhattan, where it cost approximately ten times our monthly budget for a space more suitable to house Pinky. Instead, we were packed off with some numbers for realtors in Bushwick, on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge.
That afternoon, we decided to take a break from apartment hunting and be tourists for the day. We wandered through SoHo, with its upscale boutiques and chain stores, big imposing buildings with cast-iron façades and tall windows, and into Greenwich Village with its more bohemian feel, trees on streets, and cafés with tables spilling onto the pavement. Then we headed west, on a mission to visit the Whitney Art Museum. The queue was already at least a block down the street when we got there, but we decided to join it anyway. At the very least, Mum and Dad will be impressed I’ve taken in some culture during my first days here. The wind blowing off the Hudson made me shiver, but this time I was more prepared and took a scarf out of my bag and wrapped it around my neck. It was a vintage Cavalli, something I had picked up in a vintage store in LA on one of my scouting trips with Mona. Rob went to fetch us a coffee while we waited.
An older man standing in front of me in the queue turned around.
‘New in town?’ he said. He had a soft French accent with an American lilt.
‘Is it that obvious?’ I smiled, shuffling on the spot and burying my hands into my biker-jacket pockets to keep warm.
‘Your footwear gave it away, even before I heard your English accent,’ he replied. He had heavy lines around his eyes; it almost looked like he was wearing eyeliner. I placed him in his late fifties. I looked down at my trusty gladiators. I was determined the March sun was going to come out again today, as it had yesterday.
‘Yes, optimistic, I guess. Anyway, the forecast says it will get warmer.’
‘First rule about New York – never trust the forecast,’ he said, smiling, confirming the lesson I should have learned yesterday. ‘First time at the Whitney?’
‘Yes. You?’
He chuckled. ‘Mais, non, I’ve been coming almost once a week since it opened. It inspires me. Not just the artwork inside, the building itself is a work of art, designed by Renzo Piano – are you familiar with him?’ I shook my head. ‘Pas de problème. The views are spectacular, and I love the sense of space on each floor. It gives me a chance to think creatively.’ He stopped, a wistful look across his face, as if momentarily lost in thought.
‘Surely you should be able to jump this queue by now then?’ I remarked.
‘I don’t want to – this line is all part of my experience,’ he replied. ‘I use the time to people watch.’
‘Watch people in inappropriate shoes, like me?’ I asked, aware that my toes were cold.
He laughed. ‘Funny you say that. You have nice feet.’ I smiled awkwardly. ‘I love shoes, but also coats, dresses, jewellery – all forms of adornment. Clothes are never boring to me. They say so much about a personality – much more than the wearer realises.’ He was eyeing my feet again, and then his eyes slowly worked up my skinny jeans to my jacket and scarf, finally resting when they met mine. It made me feel uncomfortable. Oh great, he’s a foot pervert. I’ve read about people like him. He’ll be fantasising about sucking my big toe as we speak. Where are you Rob? I looked over my shoulder; the queue had grown some three times in the twenty minutes we’d been standing here. I shuffled on the spot, uncomfortable and self-conscious. The wind from the river was really whipping against us now and I pulled my scarf further around my chin, checking to ensure I wasn’t showing the slightest patch of bare skin between it and my cleavage. You couldn’t be too careful, even in the queue for a museum.
Thankfully, the man had turned around again. I noticed his slightly greying dark hair was tied in a small knot at the back. My eyes fell to the floor to check out his shoes, as I idly wondered what kind of footwear a shoe pervert wears himself. His were black, Cuban-style pixie boots, with a thin silver edging around a lifted heel, giving the impression he was at least an inch and a half taller than he really was. They were quite a style statement for a man of his age.
At last, Rob returned, clutching two coffees.
‘Sorry, got caught up chatting to the man at the coffee stall. Everyone’s so friendly in New York,’ he gushed, his face flushed with enthusiasm. ‘There’s a great food market near here, apparently – we should eat there afterwards.’
The foot-fetish man turned around again when Rob spoke.
‘Chelsea Food Market, just down the road,’ he informed us. ‘They do a fantastic burrito in Takumi Taco – check it out – Japanese-style; sounds kind of odd, but it works.’
‘Oh, cheers, mate.’ Rob smiled, always so open and happy to talk to complete strangers. I gave him a nudge, and tried to tell him telepathically that we shouldn’t engage with the foot nut. He was probably having strange thoughts about what lay beneath Rob’s pair of Adidas.
Thankfully, the queue began to move. As we exited the revolving doors inside the museum, the man pressed a card into my hand.
‘Nice talking to you, lady. If you need a guided tour of the city any time, call me. I know all the best shoe stores in New York. Au revoir.’ He winked and he was gone, swept into a giant lift and whisked up to the top of the impressive building.
‘Let’s start on ground,’ I said to Rob, stuffing the card into my pocket, glad the man was off my case.
The sun was beginning its descent as we finished at the Whitney, and it cast a stunning orange glow across the buildings. Luckily, the place was big enough for us not to bump into the foot perv again, though Rob just laughed when I told him my suspicions.
‘New York is not like London, you know,’ he said. ‘Everyone talks to everyone here. It doesn’t mean a man is a pervert, just because he gives you a compliment to pass some time in a queue. Besides, you do have nice feet.’
‘But the way he was staring at them, I felt his eyes dissect me,’ I protested.
Buoyed by the exhibits we had seen, not to mention the additional cups of coffee which helped fight the jet lag, we weren’t ready to return to the hotel yet. We walked two blocks north and found the Chelsea Food Market straight away, soon becoming lost in a delicious rabbit warren of food stalls. We found the Japanese taco stall and then shared a chocolate crêpe, before stopping for a beer at a local tavern. It was getting on for nine o’clock and we were ready for bed as we began wandering back towards the Bowery. On a SoHo street corner, a saxophonist was playing soft jazz to a backing track. We stopped to join the circle of appreciation forming
