Summary

“Loose Change” by Andrea Levy features a female first-person narrator who describes herself as a typically unsociable Londoner. However, one day she meets a foreign-looking young girl in the bathroom of the National Portrait Gallery. The girl is the only one who offers the narrator some change so that she could buy a much needed tampon. The girl leaves, seemingly not expecting the narrator to pay her back.

The narrator finds the girl, Laylor, looking at a painting. The two talk about the portrait, and the narrator decides to show her a few other paintings which she believes are better.

The narrator thinks that Laylor is too noisy and offers to buy her a cup of tea in return for the coins she gave her. She also wants to get away from the girl. A...