Take It Off (8 page)

“Oh, you're looking for Jonathan? I just saw him, like, come with me,” a girl was saying. “Do you have any cigarettes? Everybody here is smoking, and even though I really
shouldn't
, I really want one.”

“Nope, sorry,” a guy's voice said. “I'll still take a Jonathan, though.” That was definitely Mickey.

Patch looked down and saw Sara-Beth Benny coming out from the arcades and into the seating area. She was carrying two beers in plastic cups. Behind her were Mickey, and Suki's friend Greta. Patch couldn't help noticing that Greta was sunburned. He wanted to wave at them and call them over, but when he saw the beer he realized that it would be best to try to keep them away from Barker.

“I just saw them,” Sara-Beth was saying. “Where is he? You can come sit with us, too, of course. I'm with Loki. He's an RA, so don't tell anyone!”

“Thanks, that's cool, but we just need to find Jonathan,” Mickey said, sounding a little impatient, the way he would if he were talking to a drunk person. “You should probably think about getting back to the boat, too—it's getting sort of late.”

Sara-Beth just giggled. They had gotten to the edge of the seats, right above the bullfighters, and she was craning her neck around, apparently trying to locate Jonathan. Patch doubted he was there—Jonathan would never go for something like this—but he couldn't say anything, of course, because it would call attention to Sara-Beth and her beers. Her eyes were scanning across the crowd, and then they fell on Patch and Stephanie's group. Her eyes got very wide and she jerked backward awkwardly. She hit the guardrail—which was, rather frighteningly, only about a foot and a half high—and flipped over it onto the bullfighting field.

Everyone in the stadium stood up and let out a collective gasp.

“Oh, my God,” Stephanie cried out, “that's Sara-Beth!”

“A very special student, an American television star,” Barker was saying as if to, absurdly, fill in the minister of tourism.

“Ohhh … these situations make me feel awful,” the minister replied confidentially, his voice quavering.

“Do something!” Stephanie shrieked as she grabbed Patch's arm.

Patch hurried through the stunned crowd and took a look over the edge. All the bullfighters, as well as the
bull, were on the other side of the arena. But the bull had sensed the crowd's excitement and was moving curiously in Sara-Beth's direction. He also seemed to still be angry about the wound he had suffered. There was steam coming out of his nostrils.

Sara-Beth had fallen just below Patch, and she was dragging herself out into the arena and holding on to her ankle like she'd sprained it.

The crowd seemed to be in a state of suspended animation, with their breath held and their hands over their mouths. Patch looked at Mickey, who didn't really look like he was aware of the danger. “Holy shit,” Mickey said.

Patch turned back to the edge and leaped over it. He landed standing in the dusty arena, and pain shot up through his feet. He was okay, though, and he hurried forward to where Sara-Beth was whimpering in the dirt. He scooped her up and was relieved to discover that she was virtually weightless, like a bag of leaves. The whole stadium let out its breath.

That was when he looked up, and saw the bull, still angry as hell, charging toward him. A whoop of encouragement went up through the crowd. He ran back to the edge and lifted Sara-Beth up toward Mickey and Greta, who grabbed her by the hands and pulled her to safety. Patch turned and saw that it was too late
for him: The bull was charging at him, and he was really, really close this time.

Patch dodged to the left, and the bull nearly ran into the wall. Then he twisted his huge, shiny black body around and came back at Patch. The smell of sweat and blood mingling in the dust was overwhelming. Patch dodged right, and the bull missed again. But when he had turned himself around, and again faced Patch, he became confused. Patch sank down on his knees and looked calmly up into the eyes of the bull.

The bull pawed the dirt for a moment and snorted. The crowd was completely silent, and they watched in fear as the bull faced Patch down. But then, incredibly, the bull kneeled into the dirt, too. Patch approached it and reached out to stroke its head gently, and the crowd, seeing this, broke out in a cheer.

Patch rose and led the bull back toward the bull trainer's area on the side of the arena. Once the bull was safely put away, the crowd rushed onto the field and lifted Patch up. They cheered for him and passed him around on their hands. Eventually, he reached the side of the stadium where he had last seen his friends. Mickey was keeping an eye out, and when he saw Patch he grabbed his hands and pulled him away from his admirers.

Patch was instantly surrounded by Mickey, Greta,
Barker, and the others. Stephanie was holding Sara-Beth in her arms. She looked miniature next to Stephanie, who wasn't large herself.

“That's the kind of thing I thought only
I
would ever do,” Mickey said, slapping Patch's back. He was obviously impressed.

“You saved me!” Sara-Beth said. “Thank you so much, Jonathan! I promise my agents and managers will make it up to you.”

“That's Patch,” everyone said.

“Oh,” Sara-Beth said with a giggle, “thank you, Patch.”

“Well, Patch, my boy,” Barker said, “it looks like you've saved the day again.”

Patch smiled shyly. He was relieved that Sara-Beth was okay, and that the bull hadn't been killed.

“This is the best student I've ever had,” Barker was telling the minister of tourism. “Well, since Stephanie, at any rate.”

“You must come stay at my official residence in Madrid …,” the minister of tourism was saying

“You will judge the survival test tomorrow …”

“We will name a suite in my hotel after you …”

“Perhaps you could give your own evening lecture …”

Below them, the crowd continued celebrating
without seeming to notice that it had lost its hero. The sun had begun to go down, and soon enough they had to return to the
Ariadne
. They slipped out of the stadium, trying to avoid notice. Barker and the minister went arm in arm, Mickey and Patch carried Sara-Beth, and Stephanie and Greta followed close behind, their faces creased with admiration.

“Shit, 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'd
missed 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.

“Bueno,”
the guy behind the counter said curtly.

“Cuanto?”
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 in
an 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.

“Not the same!” he said, looking obviously disgusted with me.

“Can'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 fucked up so badly with Flan that I would never be able to make it better, and that thought just made me feel way more desperate.

Since I couldn't go back to the Internet café, I figured I'd just go back to the ship. This day was blown to hell anyway. But maybe they'd have fixed the Internet? I walked down whatever street I was on, which seemed to be going toward the docks. That's when I saw it.

Prada. Thank the Lord, there was a Prada store in Mallorca.

I think I remembered reading about this in
Black Book
, how this hot young architect, Rafik Merleau, had designed another highly postmodern Prada store in Spain somewhere. I went into the temple and soon found myself lost in its space-age corridors. Of course, there was fabulous clothing at every turn. I was totally consumed by touching the fabrics and picturing myself in different outfits, although I didn't let myself try anything on because I didn't have my credit cards, and if something fit really, really well, and I couldn't buy it, that would basically be torture.

If my life were a movie, this is where the camera would zoom in on a clock with hands moving around the face at hyperspeed. What I'm saying is: I lost myself in there.

When I came out I felt much calmer, and the air was cooler and smelled of the sea. In my new, chill state of mind I realized what I should have realized hours ago: I could call Flan collect! Her parents wouldn't even notice the charge on their bill, since the Floods are fabulously wealthy and also a little bit out of it. I would just tell Flan how sorry I was, and how much I'd been yearning for her, and this whole nightmare would be over. It
was so simple, I wanted to cry.

I found a pay phone, and after a few foiled attempts at dialing out of the country, I got an operator who spoke English (heavily accented English, but English all the same) and he agreed to put me through to the Floods. The phone rang a few times, and then someone picked up. The operator said that he had a collect call from Spain, and then it sounded like he was talking to himself. It sounded like he was telling himself that he didn't want to collect any calls. For a minute I thought I might be going crazy, and then I realized I wasn't going crazy. I was listening to the operator talk to Rob, the stepbrother who was invading my life.

“Will you accept the charges?” the operator asked again.

“Charges? But, Officer, I haven't done anything!” Rob burst out laughing. His English was only marginally less accented than the operator's. It sounded like there were people laughing with him, and they sounded like girls. Could that be … my sweet little Flan?

“No,
collect
charges!” The operator continued.

“No collect charges!” Rob parroted. He
repeated himself a few times, like a chant.

For a minute, the fact that Rob would answer the Floods' phone seemed very normal, but then I realized that it only
seemed
normal because it was
my
life. Except with Rob where I should be. First Rob had tried to take over my home, and now he was going for my girl. Why else would he be at Flan's house at—I looked at my Tiffany watch and added six hours to account for the time difference—
two in the morning!
I mean, that was pretty hard to misinterpret.

I slammed the phone down and realized that I was gripping it so hard my knuckles had turned white. Rubbing them distractedly, I left the kiosk.

After taking a few steps, not knowing where I should go, I was stopped by a thought of a very different nature. This was when I started doing the backward calculation: If it was two o'clock in New York, it was … eight o'clock here. What was it, seven thirty that we were supposed to be back on board? For the second time that day, I began to run for my life.

As I ran, my head filled with dire thoughts of Flan. Rob was moving in on her, and who could blame him? And by being such a shithead to her before I left, I had basically made the whole thing
happen. I felt like someone had taken out my heart and dropped it in the ocean and it was just going down, down, where nobody would ever find it.