Madly.

Four.

a) Wear the sticky and barfy shirt to work, get humiliated by Nicole and Narissa, and marinate in adherence the entire day.

b) Go back to Strauss Towers to change, resulting in being late to work, giving Narissa reason to want to fire/kill her on only her second month in the job.

c) Buy something else to wear, which will most likely not be cute, ending in-yet again-utter humiliation at the hands of Nicole and Narissa.

As Madden gazed out the window of the shop, she spotted a tourist trap that sold cheap, ill-fitting "I heart NY" tees. C it was.

Barf clad, Madden grabbed her things and made her way to the stand, laying her hands on the cutest shirt they had, which was plain white and small enough that she could wear it under her blazer and have it possibly be cute. This was the one, the only shirt that wouldn't cause her dignity to crumble. Madden almost automatically scrambled for the price tag and her eyes bulged when she read $26.00 written in bolded black numbers. She sighed, but pulled out her debit card as she walked to the man with the cash box. This was, in fact, the day she was meant to be invincible and positive.

He moodily took the shirt and scanned the tag, grunting the price through his teeth. She handed over her card and patiently waited for him to swipe it. He ran it through the machine once, and it beeped rather loudly and flashed red.

Embarrassed, Madden flushed. "The card is fine, I just checked the balance earlier. Maybe run it again?"

The man rolled his eyes, but swiped it again.

Beep.

Getting nervous, she cleared her throat and assured him it was a fine card as he tried once more.

Beep.

"M'am, this card ain't worth nothin."

What a lovely man, her thoughts sighed. "I just used the card yesterday and checked up on my account earlier this week, I promise this card is perfectly functional."

"Then it's demagnitized. I don't know. NEXT!" he called towards the next person in line, ushering her out of the way.

"Wait! I'll use cash," she blushed and rummaged through her wallet, fishing out a number of bills. As she counted them out, her heart sank to find that she only had eighteen dollars in cash.

The man smirked and moved her along. Feeling thoroughly embarrassed and feeling multiple pairs of eyes burn holes into the back of her head, Madden defeatedly laid the shirt back where she found it and scrambled to find a shirt under eighteen dollars. She didn't even own a credit card.

The problem was that on the streets of New York, NOTHING WAS CHEAP. She searched through the piles of New York paraphernalia until she found a shirt that was on clearance. For good reason.

The shirt was a horrendous shade of brown that resembled literal crap. This was a problem within itself, but the shirt worsened as Madden tried to comprehend what was even on the graphic. It was a ridiculous indian nature shirt, featuring an eagle in flight layered over a cheesy shot of the statue of liberty-not to mention the only size they had was XXL. The shirt was completely absurd and no person in the right mind would buy it.

So naturally, Madden bought it. It was her only choice, as she looked at her watch and saw the minutes ticking dangerously towards 8 o' clock.

She raced back into the bathroom of Café Diem, wadding up her vomity shirt and throwing on the next shirt that wasn't much different and quite resembled vomit itself. Madden groaned as she looked into the mirror and saw the size of the shirt and how it much looked like she was drowning in it. She scrambled through her bag to find a hair tie to tie up the back, and it helped slightly, but now she had a tail at her rear end.