Someone Else's Shoes

Along with Sam, Nisha Cantor is one of the novel’s two protagonists. She is a wealthy American woman who frequently travels around the world with her husband, who is currently in London on undisclosed business. Before her marriage, however, Nisha went by Anita and grew up poor in the Midwest. Her mother left her at an early age, and her father forced Anita to steal from stores as a young child so that her family could get by. At age 19, Anita took a bus to New York City and got the first job she could find cleaning hotel rooms. She would later go on to clean for a wealthy family and then work at a gallery, where she would change her name and personality to become Nisha. Early in the novel, her husband, Carl, decides to leave her for his younger assistant, cutting Nisha off entirely so that she is forced to go back to cleaning hotel rooms in order to have even the smallest amount of money. While working at the hotel, she forges new friendships with Jasmine and Aleks and gains a much healthier perspective on life; Aleks in particular teaches her the concept of non-transactional friendship.