Free Take It Off by J. Minter Page A

close behind, their faces creased with admiration.

As usual, I’m fashionably late
    â€œShit, shit, shit!” I put my face into my hands and tried to inhale a normal breath. A few of the vaguely punkish-looking Spanish people around me turned and smirked, and then turned back to their computers. I had been sitting in the Internet café for hours, checking and rechecking my e-mail. There was only one new message in my in-box, from [email protected], which was an e-mail address I didn’t recognize. I didn’t feel like I could handle any bad news right then, so I decided not to open it. I quit and logged back on to my e-mail account, but there was still nothing from Flan. To distract myself in between, I looked halfheartedly at shoes on the Marc Jacobs website that I thought would look cute on her. I should have taken this as a sign of how deep an obsession this was becoming: I wasn’t even thinking about clothes for me.
    Arno must have left at some point, but I’dmissed it.
    Also, I was feeling a little crazed. I’d had about four espressos, so that the guy behind the counter wouldn’t think I was a freeloader, and the caffeine had hijacked my bloodstream.
    Eventually I couldn’t take the stares anymore, so I collected my stuff and went up to the counter. On my way, I decided that the best thing to do would be to call Flan at home; when I heard her voice, I was sure everything would come magically together.
    â€œBueno,”
the guy behind the counter said curtly.
    â€œCuanto?”
I asked.
    A little machine printed out a bill, and he put it in front of me. Incredibly, it seemed that I had been there for four hours and thirty-two minutes, and I owed four euros for Internet time (which seemed actually sort of cheap) and sixteen euros for the coffee (which seemed absurdly expensive). I reached into my bag for my wallet, and the warm comfort of my dad’s AmEx. But when I opened it, I saw that neither the AmEx nor any of my other credit cards were in there. For a minute I panicked, thinking I had been robbed, but then I remembered that I had put all my credit cards inan envelope with my plane tickets and traveler’s checks (which my mother had insisted I buy, even though they’re basically obsolete since European ATMs take American cards now).
    Shit.
    I had an American twenty and five euros. I held my wallet out to the guy, so as to illustrate my situation. He stared back impassively. I tried to pull out the twenty, but my hands were so jittery that I fumbled the wallet. It leaped out of my hands like a slippery fish, and I had to kneel on the ground to pick the wallet and the bill up. When I stood, I noticed a big black smudge on the knee of my white Helmut Lang jeans. I tried not to flip about that, and pushed the twenty at the counter guy.
    â€œNot the same!” he said, looking obviously disgusted with me.
    â€œCan’t you change it or something?” I was realizing that I really had to pee.
    The guy took the twenty and dangled it in front of my nose. He yelled, “No good to me!”
    What would you have done, in my Gucci loafers? Though I felt totally bad about it, I turned on my heel and ran. I ran and ran and ran until I had safely lost myself in a crowd.
    Outside, it was still the ripe part of the afternoon. I turned off whatever street I was on and ran through the little winding streets, past old, crumbly buildings and cathedrals and beggar women in black until I reached another populated, bustling main drag. I started walking at a normal pace, scanning for a pay phone. Then I remembered that I didn’t have my credit card, so there was no way for me to call the States. I walked glumly for several blocks, not caring where I was headed.
    I was feeling really cut off, really powerless. And as I walked through the crowds of screaming and laughing vacationers, this feeling of aloneness intensified. I was beginning to think that maybe I had