disappearance,â Morgan said, as if I were doing something wrong.
Billy gave me a sympathetic look. âStill havenât heard from him, huh?â
I shook my head.
âShe needs to get her mind off him,â Morgan said.
âI donât
want
to get my mind off him,â I said. âI want to know where he is and why he left.â
âWhat I mean is, you need to get your mind off thinking about him
all the time
,â Morgan said. âItâll drive you crazy. You need to get busy with something.â
âWhy donât you come to the homeless shelter with Morgan and me?â Billy said. âThey can always use extra help.â
Billy volunteered at a place for the homeless. He also volunteered at an animal rights organization and at the Humane Society, and was a founder of and the most active member in the Downtown Avian Rescue Club, which rescued injured migratory birds. Needless to say, heâs a vegan.
âI donât know,â I said. I admire Billy, but the way I was feeling, I thought Iâd probably just depress the destitute.
âSeriously, Robyn, you should try it,â Billy said. âThe best way I know to feel good about yourself is to help someone else. Isnât that right, Morgan?â
Morgan nodded. âAlthough, to be honest,â she said, âI feel just fine about myself.â
I was sure that was true. Morgan was not given to self-doubt, self-pity, self-loathing or, especially, self-criticism. The person who liked Morgan best was Morgan herself. Billy was her number-two admirer.
âWeâre going down there tomorrow, right, Morgan?â Billy said. âAnd I know theyâre looking for more volunteers. The colder it gets, the more people use the shelter.â It was really cold already, and the nights getting longer. It was dark by five in the afternoon. âThey need as many people as they can get to make soup and sandwiches, set out coffee, clean up after meals, sort and hand out donations of warm clothing and sleeping bagsâstuff like that. Itâll make you feel better. And youâll meet a lot of interesting people. What do you say?â
I wanted to say no. I didnât feel like doing anything. But Billy made it sound as if Iâd be welcomed with open arms, so instead I agreed.
Billy beamed at me. âItâs a great place to volunteer, Robyn. You wonât regret it.â
As it turned out, he was wrong. It wasnât long before I was sorry I had ever said yes.
CHAPTER TWO
T
he way we had arranged it: I would meet Morgan and Billy at the shelter, Billy would introduce me to the director, and the director would assign me something to do.
The change in plans: While I was waiting for the bus, Morgan called me on my cell phone and said she couldnât make it after all because she had woken up with a really bad sore throat. She said they didnât like people to volunteer at the shelter if they were even remotely sickâa lot of the homeless people who used the place werenât in the best of health. Some of them had immune systems that were seriously unreliable. But, she said, Billy was on his way, he was excited that I was going to join him, and he was dying to show me around.
The way it actually happened: I got off the bus where Billy had told me to. I could have waited for a second bus, but it wasnât due for another ten minutes. It wouldnât take that long to walk to the homeless shelter, and walking would help me to stay warm. At first I was moving past downtown stores, office buildings, and restaurants. Even there I kept running into people who were down and out. Iâd only gone half a block before a grubby young man sitting in the doorway of a vacant store asked me for money. He was halfwrapped in a weathered sleeping bag and he kept his eyes on the ground when I dropped some quarters into a plastic cup on the sidewalk in front of him. One block onward, I passed a man