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left a message too. “Maggie. It’s Justin. About last night. “I’m sorry about what I said at the restaurant. it’s just that...you didn’t seem to be having a very good time...But, well, call me. Okay?”
    Forget him.
    Forget last night.
    I have more important things to worry about.
    There’s my phone again.
    6:15 P.M.
    I should have let Zeke leave a message too. It was a mistake to pick up the phone.
    All he did was complain, complain, complain. I told him that if he stopped complaining and tried harder to have fun the time would go faster. He shut up with the complaints after that. But he hung on the line and told me it was my turn. That I should say something. “Like?” I asked.
    “I don’t know like what did you do last night?”
    I tried not to sigh too loudly.
    “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing important. I have to go. Dad’s having this screening.”
    “I wish I could go to the screening. What’s he showing?”
    “I don’t know. Good-bye, Zeke.”
    We hung up.
    Zeke can really get on my nerve.
    Monday 7.27
    1:13 P.M.
    Manning the front desk during lunch hour. Piper went out for lunch. Offered to
    bring me back something. Told her I brought lunch from home and I’d eat it here. That’s not lying. It’s none of her business what I eat or don’t eat.
    The people who volunteer here are always bringing in food for snacking—cakes,
    cookies—all fattening. I guess Piper is another one of those lucky people who can eat all they want without being fat.
    I’m beginning my diet. I feel clean, light, and in control.
    I’m disgusted when I think of the mountains of cakes, cookies and ice cream I
    used to eat.
    1:30 P.M.
    Phone call. I answered the way I usually do, “Palo City Animals Shelter. This is Maggie. Can I help you?”
    “Well, that sounds very businesslike,” said the male voice on the other end. My father. “I thought your job was to take care of the animals. What are you doing answering the phone?”
    I explained that I was working at the front desk while the volunteer went for
    lunch.
    “What about your lunch?” he asked.
    I told him that I was eating at the desk and he make some lame joke about my
    terrible working conditions.
    I didn’t say anything and waited for him to tell me why he’d called.
    “Your mother didn’t show up for a benefit committee meeting,” he said. “The
    HCA office called to see if I know where she is.”
    My heart sank. I didn’t know where Mom was either. Dad and I were both
    thinking the same thing, but we didn’t say it. Mom was off somewhere drinking. Was she going to blow this chance to regain her place in Hollywood high society?
    “Seems like your mother has lost interest in the benefit,” Dad said.
    I agreed and told him that she also had a two o’clock meeting at HCA to go over the program for the auction one more time before it went to the printer.
    Dad asked me if there was any way I could go over to the HCA office and cover for Mom.
    “I’m working here ,” I reminded him.
    “Those shelter people will let you leave,” he said. “After all, the benefit is for them. They get the money.”
    I said that I would tell Piper that Mom was shorthanded and needed my help. Dad said his car would pick me up in half an hour. He added that the success of the benefit is important to Mom. He said she’d been absent from the Hollywood social scene lately and that the benefit was her chance to return to it. “So do what you can, Maggie,” he told me.
    “And let me know how I can help. We won’t make a big deal out of it, but let’s be there when your Mom needs us.”
    “Okay, sure,” I agreed.
    After I hung up I realised that nighter of us was surprised that Mom had
    disappeared. We didn’t know where she was, but we new what she was doing. And we knew she sooner of later she’d be home—drunk.
    10:14 P.M.
    I hated to leave Piper with all of my work on top of her own. “Good thing I had a big lunch,” was her parting comment.
    I told the