The Taste of Victory

The hardest part was shopping. Denise has the most awful taste. I scrolled through dozens of sites before I found a matching turquoise and orange plaid bag and got it delivered express to our hotel in Paris. The ordeal took not only my time but also my soul.

By comparison, stealing was easy.

Michael switched bags while Denise was at the end of the security queue. She looked one way. He swooped in the other. One ugly bag at her feet, a second one in his hand. Then it was my turn. Walk toward Michael, head down, phone in my right hand, left hand open, switch again. I hurried to the counter, checked the hideous bag, and took my flight. When we landed, I took my time disembarking so she would be well ahead of me.

Not that there was any reason to worry. Denise hadn’t checked any bags and, more importantly, she didn’t know me from Eve. Michael hadn’t introduced me to any of his, er, “associates.” When I asked why, he flashed that infuriating smirk of his and tapped the side of his head below his platinum blond mohawk. Because, Katherine, he had said, they might stop being associates and become marks.

I stopped at a coffee shop in the terminal. Window shopped at the duty free. Studied the departing flights. Even with all that when I arrived at the baggage carousel the luggage from our flight had only started arriving. A flustered-looking woman with three little children—two in a stroller, one strapped to her chest, and maybe a fourth on the way—retrieved a suitcase as tall as she was. A man in a suit and an obvious toupee picked up a large black roller. A young soldier grabbed his kit bag. A neon green backpack, tilted upside down and at a jaunty angle, went round and round without being claimed.

Then there was a pause. The mother and the businessman and the soldier left. The green backpack rode the carousel. I flicked my nails against my palm and tapped my toes. And, at last, the turquoise and orange bag tilted off a conveyor belt and down. I rushed forward and cradled it. Nothing seemed out of order.

At least, not until I turned around and, with my first step, bounced off a large, uniformed chest. I started to apologize and walk around but I was stopped, less by the cop’s extended arm and more by the sight of Denise behind him.

Shit.

“How do you explain this?” She waved the duplicate bag at me.

I looked at my identical bag.

“Uh, we both have great taste?” I hate lying.

“Arrest her!”

The cop sighed through his mustache. “Look, she’s telling me you stole her bag and replaced it with an identical one.”

“That’s insane.” I looked him directly in the sunglasses. “That sort of thing only happens in movies.”

“If you let me take a look in it—”

“Yeah.” Denise’s face distorted into a Cheshire grin. “If this is all a coincidence, you have nothing to hide.”

“Lady, you’re not helping.” The cop stepped between us.

Feeling defeated, I shrugged the bag off my shoulder and opened it. The cop took his penile-compensation-sized flashlight and peered in—only to immediately recoil. I smiled. Michael and I had figured any law enforcement were likely to be the repressed type and a pretty young woman with a bag full of sex toys would be the perfect way to drive them off.

“I, uh, that’s not what. I mean—um, you’re free to go.”

They must have heard Denise’s shriek all the way back in France. She called me every name under the sun and then invented a couple new ones for the cop.

“Why are you so convinced I stole your bag?” I asked when she stopped to pant a few breaths. “I don’t even know you.”

“Michael!” She pointed a finger in my face. “You must be Michael’s new girl. He got you to steal my stuff. You know he’s addic—”

She paused and looked at the cop, whose brow furrowed into his sunglasses.

“—addicted to. The. Um.”

“We should probably have a talk.” The cop took her by the arm and gestured at a door marked ‘Security.’

I snatched up the ugly duplicate bag and fled. Only once I was in my Uber did I pause to breathe. Then, as we were merging onto the freeway, I reached over the seat and grabbed the driver’s scalp. He screeched as I pulled his bad toupee off his head and there was an explosion of blond hair.

“Hey, what gives?” Michael swerved through three lanes with only two honks. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

“You absolute knob!” I waved the toupee in his face. “You knew she was going to get the cops the whole time.”

To my utter frustration, he smiled his little smirk.

“Sure. She always does. Did they arrest her this time?”

Now I was laughing too.

“I think so. Did you get the stuff?”

“Oh yeah.” Michael picked the small suitcase from the airport carousel off the passenger seat. I wrestled it into the back and pried it open. Inside was the original green and turquoise bag. I tore into that and found, wrapped in some truly terrible granny panties, a little brown bag. And, inside of that, well. I buried my face in the contents and took a deep, deep breath.

See, Denise was wrong. Michael isn’t the addict. I am.

I broke off a small corner of the cheese from the bag and laid it on my tongue. The forbidden flavor, rich and earthy, like nothing available in the States, coursed through me, sending endorphins shooting from one side of my brain to the other like fireworks.

Someday I will find the little farm outside Paris where Denise buys this unpasteurized cheese. Until then, I’ll keep shopping for ugly bags.