Sweet Liar by Jude Deveraux Page A

women—especially the women—looked to Samantha as though they had stepped from designer showrooms.
    As she walked with Mike, her hand held firmly in his arm, Samantha was painfully aware of the women around her. They were so fantastically well groomed. Their hair looked as though they shampooed it with fairy nectar, their nails were perfectly trimmed and polished, as though they never used their hands, and their clothes were nothing less than divine.
    Of course one drawback to New York women was their snobbery. Many of the women gave Samantha looks of pity when they saw the way she was dressed, and some of them even smiled at her in a way that made Samantha move closer to Mike, as though for protection. Turning, he looked down at her, patted her hand, and smiled when she moved closer to him, seeming to have no idea what was going on between the woman who clung to him and the women on the street. Samantha thought it must be wonderful to be able to be oblivious.
    By the time they reached Fifth Avenue, Samantha wanted to crawl in a hole. Mike seemed to have a place he wanted to go so they hurried past store after store with beautiful clothing in the windows. They passed Tiffany’s, Gucci, Christian Dior, Mark Cross. After a while Samantha stopped looking at the clothes because the more she saw, the worse she felt.
    At Fiftieth Street, they came to a large store with dark blue awnings, and to her horrified amazement, Mike started toward the revolving doors. Samantha pulled away from him. In the first place, revolving doors puzzled her; she couldn’t seem to get the hang of when she was to enter and when she was to exit. Once, she had gone around one of the things three times before she was able to get out. In the second place, she saw that this was Saks Fifth Avenue. She could not, absolutely could not, enter a world-renowned store dressed in a worn-out, faded pink sweat suit.
    Mike went round the revolving doors, saw Samantha wasn’t with him, then went round again, this time stretching out his hand and grabbing her arm. After wedging her into the pie-shaped door area with him, he pulled her out of the door into the store at the appropriate time.
    When they entered the store, Samantha stood still for a moment, dazzled by what she saw before her. To anyone who had spent four years in a town like Santa Fe, Saks was heaven come to earth. Here were consumer goods that did not have howling coyotes on them. Here was clothing that was not made from Pendleton blankets. She saw saleswomen who wore something other than Mexican cotton and acres of turquoise and silver jewelry. She saw people who moved faster than sun-warmed lizards, and people were wearing shoes that in no way resembled the footwear of cowboys. Best of all, there was not one single solitary piece of leather fringe in sight.
    â€œLike it?” Mike asked, watching her face, which showed her awe as she looked at the sparkling Judith Leiber purses in the case before her.
    Samantha could only look at him, much too stunned to speak.
    â€œWant to do a little shopping?” He was on the verge of laughing at her as he asked the rhetorical question. “I think the escalator is back there.”
    As Samantha came out of her trance, she became aware of the women in the store looking her over, knowing full well that she failed on every count. Maybe she could go back to the house, she thought, change her clothes, and come back here. With the money she had saved, she could afford a new dress. But the truth was, Samantha knew she didn’t own a garment that was up to the fashion standards of the women she saw in this beautiful store.
    â€œI can’t go shopping wearing this,” she whispered to Mike.
    From the look on his face she could see that he didn’t understand what she was saying. Sometimes it seemed that the language difference between men and women was as great as that between Chinese and English. How could she explain to a man that