That thought depressed me, too, as I left Elton at the hospital and rode a cab back to my office. When the cab reached the rehabbed warehouse I share with my sculpting friend, I had to remind myself again that I was back in America—this time, over the issue of tips, which are never as big in Europe as they need to be here. I took a breath and typed in the code on the keypad at the door. Elton’s crisis was over, my vacation was over.

I unlocked my inner-office door. Amy Blount, a young history Ph.D. who’s done research projects for me in the past, had organized my documents so rigorously that they just about saluted when I opened the door. The trouble was, there were too damned many of them. My whole worktable was covered with neatly labeled papers, while my desk held a stack of the most urgent papers.

While I was away, I only went to an Internet café twice a week to check for messages. Amy held down the fort for me, handling small projects and responding to routine inquiries. We spoke only when something came up that she couldn’t handle.

Right before I came home, Amy suddenly found an academic position; she’d been looking for three years. She had to leave for Buffalo in a hurry to start the summer term. She’d organized my papers, and left a pot of crimson gerbera daisies, a little wilted from their time alone but a gallant splash of color in my cavernous space.

This afternoon, I poured water into the daisies and pretended to be interested in the mountain range of files on my big, long worktable. Unfortunately, on top of the highest peak stood my credit-card bills. Pay within ten days to avoid loss of credit rating, a kidney, or any hope of filling your car again.

I looked at the AmEx bill out of the corner of my eye, as if that would make it smaller. The dying U.S. dollar meant I definitely should not have cheered myself with those Lario boots the day before I left Milan. Or that Antonella Mason acrylic Morrell and I found on a side trip to Treviso.

I made a face and forced myself to start digging. Fast turnaround on my own past-due invoices had to be my first priority. I put in a call to a temporary agency to find someone to help, and started returning the stack of my most crucial phone calls: those from clients with real money to spend.

A little before five, I had to stop. My body thought it was midnight, and I was starting to forget who I was talking to, or what language I was speaking, in the middle of complicated sentences.