I FELT BETTER when I got up the next morning. Not good enough to bet on a horse, but like something bad was over. It was still early enough to risk using the phone in my office. My phone is just an extension run from the collection of deservedly unknown artists who live downstairs. They don't know about it- neither does Ma Bell. They probably wouldn't care if they did know- they don't pay their own bills.
"Any calls, Mama?"
"No calls. You come in today, okay?"
"Anything wrong?"
"Someone leave note for you."
"So?"
"Talk later," she said, hanging up.
I took a quarter-pound slab of cream cheese out of the refrigerator, dropped it in the bottom of Pansy's bowl, covered it with her dry dog food. "I'll bring you something good from Mama's," I promised her.