Air Time (7 page)
I
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.
Then I remember. I’m not Charlie. Someone named Elsa would not acknowledge a shout-out to someone named Charlie. Knees jelly and tingles of sweat forming across my upper lip, I summon my inner Elsa and continue shopping the phony bags. I don’t budge. I don’t respond. In about two seconds, either my cover is going to be blown. Or not. I race through my options. One: Leave. Two: Leave very quickly.
Three: Calm down. Even if someone recognizes me, they wouldn’t know I have a camera in my bag. Probably. And if they ask whether I’m a TV reporter, I’ll just say no. If they demand to see what’s in my purse, I’ll just say goodbye. Option three it is.
“Charlie Sue Wanamaker? Is that you?” There’s a hoot of greeting, “girlfriend!” and some other shopper named Charlie turns, arms wide, to embrace the woman who almost caused my heart attack. As they kiss the air, I whisper a silent thanks to the journalism gods.
I check my watch. Ten minutes, maybe, until I have to hit the bathroom and change batteries. Time to check out the kitchen. Follow the money.
Chest-high swinging doors, like in some John Wayne western, block the entrance to the kitchen. I take a Delleton-Marachelle suede tote from the table, the one with the fringe. The price tag says one hundred thirty-five dollars. By my calculation, if this honey is real, that would be an eighteen-hundred-dollar discount. I can tell it’s a phony. The fringe is attached under a suede flap, as it should be. But it’s not stitched, it’s glued. Fake.
I carry my prize through the doors, digging in the pocket of my skirt for my wallet. This is the tricky part. And almost funny. Of course I can’t open my hidden camera purse to pay for the counterfeit purse.
Okay, Elsa. You’re on.
I pause at the door, risking a wide shot. There’s only the two of us in the room, so there’s no one to distract her from my surreptitious photographic activity.
“Do I pay you for this?” Elsa-me squeaks, chirpy and chatty. I hold up the D-M, waving it a bit to draw her eye away from my camera-purse. “This is so wonderful. You have so many nice things.”
The woman at the kitchen table has a gray metal box, shoebox size, in front of her. It’s closed, and as I approach her, she puts her hand on top of it.
“That’s all you found?” she asks. “Or would you like me to hold this for you? So you can keep shopping?” She takes the purse from me, putting it on top of the strong
box, and examines the price tag. Her lipstick is probably named Killer Copper, or Molten Metal, and her hyper-permed hair pretty much matches. Her tank top T-shirt, too skimpy for someone her age, proclaims “When the going gets tough…” on the front. I can predict the back.
Elsa is congenial. I hold out one hand, covering the lens with the other. “Elsa,” I say, stepping into reporter waters. Let’s see how she handles my first test question. “Thank you so much for inviting me.” Did she invite me? And will she say her name?
“Just call me Sally,” the woman says. “And no problem, I have my little gatherings all the time. That’s one hundred thirty five dollars. Cash only. Sure you don’t want to keep shopping?”
I open my wallet, peel out three fifty dollar bills, and hand “Sally” the cash. “Just-call-me-Sally” means “Sally” is probably the only name that isn’t hers. I carefully lift my hand away from the lens. “Sally” has opened her cash box and I need that shot.
“I, um, well,” I give Elsa an embarrassed look and lean in closer to Sally as the purse proprietor adds the bills to her stash. The cash box is Fort Knox. The mint. Crammed with cash. I hope the camera stays in focus this close.
“Well, I’d adore to keep shopping of course. And thank you for offering to hold my darling bag, but I’m afraid first, I…” Elsa drops her voice to a whisper, scrunches up her shoulders, points the camera right at the boxful of bills “…have to go to the ladies. Could you point me?”
“The bathroom.” Sally hands me my change, then closes her box and looks around the room. Almost scanning. Maybe she’s wondering why people aren’t arriving with more cash and purses. I suddenly wonder if there’s
some kind of security system out there. Making certain the desperate housewives don’t abscond with their purses without paying. “Of course, it’s, uh…” she brightens “…upstairs. Top of the stairs.”
I click the bathroom door closed, and twist the little latch on the door handle. Just to make sure, I lean against the door, my back padded by a set of yellow towels hanging over a rack. I open my purse.
Come on, video. Show me the money. And the loot.
I push Rewind and watch a chaotically jerky mishmash of colors flash and flicker backward. That’s all I needed to see. If I watched it forward, I know it would be pictures.
I click out the tape and search for a pen to mark the label tape one. Damn. I don’t have a pen. This isn’t my real purse. Inside is only a camera. I touch my finger to my pink lipstick, then touch the finger to the tape label. Tape one is pink.
Just in case someone is waiting outside, I flush the toilet, then turn on the water in the sink. I click off the almost dead battery and click on a new one. I insert a new cassette, push Play, and watch the tiny cassette start to reel forward. I’m back in business.
I turn off the water, pause a beat, and open the door.
And there’s just-call-me-Sally. Standing, feet apart, hands on hips, three inches from me.
Rule one of carrying hidden camera. The person you are shooting does not know you have it. No matter what they say, no matter how they behave. The most ordinary remarks will sound suspicious and threatening. But they don’t know. Rule one is banging through my brain as I size up the situation.
“Hi, Sally,” I say, in my chirpy Elsa voice. “Need the bathroom? Hey, where’s my beautiful new bag?”
“Looks like you already have a pretty nice bag,” she replies, pointing. She makes no move to go inside.
Rule one, rule one.
“Oh, this old thing?” I reply. “I think my mother bought it for me. I use it to carry around my art supplies. That’s why I think its time to splurge on a new one. Oh, don’t tell me. The party’s not over, is it?”
“How did you find out about our little get together?” she asks.
Rule one, rule one.
“Oh, golly, I met a lovely girl in the airport, gosh, I think maybe Baltimore?” I reel off the whole story of Regine, and her card, and the Web site. Gauging her reaction the whole time. She backs away a bit. Seems to relax.
Rule two of carrying a hidden camera. The best defense is a good offense.
“You have such a wonderful turnout today. Of course, you have all those wonderful purses. I can’t believe they’re so inexpensive,” I say. Then I tilt my head as if I’d just had an offhand thought. “How does this all work? I mean…” I pause, and glance both ways down the hall, as if confirming the coast is clear and we’re alone. I lower my voice. “Does your husband know about this?”