The Sex Was Great But... Read Online Free PDF Page B

them over like a Get Out Of Jail card in Monopoly.
    â€œCheers,” he said, and smiled. Before I could stop myself I grimaced, because his teeth were all crooked and so—so British! He laughed. It was quite a nice laugh—eventhough I was perfectly aware that he was laughing at how grossed-out I was by his outfit.
    â€œOkay?” he asked, as I continued to stare. He was kind of cute in a Gap ad sort of way—if you took the piercing out of his eyebrow and had his teeth capped, that was. He had a luscious head of black curly hair, and a really nicely shaped face with strong features.
    I tried to stop staring, but he also had these great big green eyes, almost neon in their intensity. The type of eyes that always seem to be laughing at a secret joke. I found myself smiling back. Really smiling—grinning in fact—well, as much of a grin as the Botox injections I’ve been having recently allowed for. On the wrong side of my twenties, I couldn’t be too careful where lines were concerned.
    That was when I caught the traffic warden out of the corner of my eye and remembered that now I had no ready change for the meter. This was a disaster.
    â€œSo anyway, cheers,” he repeated, leaving me shuffling through my bag for change, which was no easy task where this bag was concerned.
    For once in my life, though, labels were the last thing on my mind, because before you could even say French designer a bag snatcher had run past, wrenched it off my elbow and charged across the street.
    It was kind of surreal, really—the shock of it, and the speed at which it happened—but most distressing of all was the way the world kept turning on its axis. Life on Vermont Avenue carried on like nothing had happened. I guess it’s like being in the jungle after a tiger has killed: the jungle does nothing to mark the death.
    I stood there in a blank daze for a bit, rubbing my lowerarm like those amputees do when they first lose their limb. The force of the strap being tugged off had hurt a surprising amount. I said something helpless like, “Help, he took my bag!” but no one seemed to notice. It was as if I was in a bubble labeled “Disaster Area—Stand Clear!”
    The only thing that happened was the traffic warden guy attached a ticket to the windscreen of my car. And then it hit me how totally random this was. My bag is me. I am my bag. That Birken is a survival kit for twenty-first-century L.A. living, containing, as it did:
Palm VII organizer, with all my contact names and addresses (the one I’ve been meaning to back up for as long as I’ve been alive. And haven’t).
Black AMEX.
Wallet with large sum of cash inside and empty photograph slot waiting for my leading man to fill it.
License: one with a really nice photograph. Also the card that informs the world that in the event of death doctors are welcome to rummage around my internal organs for anything they might find useful.
Cell phone, with all my vital numbers coded in.
Corporate Platinum Visa Card.
Checkbook.
Diaphragm (and spare in case of emergency).
Condoms (three).
Makeup.
Medical prescriptions.
Vitamins.
    You get the picture—my bag is my life, my life is my bag (and my shoes and car and…). The point was now it was gone just when I needed it most. Okay, this was it, the official worst day of my life. Not only had I been declared shallow, and proved myself crap at doing something as ordinary as running an errand, but I’d been accosted by a beggar in fingerless gloves, been the victim of street crime, and on top of that I now had a parking violation. A curse was upon me, just like that Iranian clairvoyant in Beverly Hills had warned.
    Wilhelm says I have a tendency to bail out before the ship’s started sinking, but in this case I think I was justified. So, even though as of that morning I had embarked on a drive to be deeper, kinder and less attached to material possessions, I began to weep