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it out loud, but India went brightly on. Even though she was now my staunchest supporter, she was still adjusting to God telling me to buy a motorcycle. This last message, if it even came from God, was going to require some serious leading up to.
    “What do you think?” India said.
    “I’ll tell you what I don’t think,” I said. “I don’t think a fashion show and chamber music are going to get rich women to fork over cash for the Sisters of Sacrament House.”
    “Honey, it’s what they’re used to.”
    “Isn’t the point to take them out of what they’re used to? Seriously, what does Mozart have to do with women sleeping in gutters and eating out of Dumpsters?”
    “Did you have another plan?” She still sounded India-cordial, bless her heart, but I pictured her rearranging her whole body at that point.
    “Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ve got a meeting to get to.”
    “Then how about this? I’ll just send out a save-the-date announcement and leave the rest mysterious.” She gave a ladylike harrumph. “Maybe you’re right. These women could use a little mystery in their lives.”
    “Go for it,” I said, hung up, and glanced at my watch. I needed to be at the FIP—Family Integrity Program—office in thirty minutes. Their building was only three blocks south of Sacrament House so I had time to swing by there first and see how Zelda was doing.
    When I pulled up, the front door was open and I could see through the screen that Mercedes was bustling around the living room with her usual vigor amped up several notches. Not a good sign. She had either just busted somebody’s chops or was about to.
    But it was Jasmine who pushed the screen door open before I even reached the bottom step. I could tell she’d been crying. No surprise there.
    “I heard you at the corner,” she said. “We was gon’ call you after you had your meetin’.”
    “Call me about what?” I said.
    At which point she burst into tears.
    “You ain’t no good to nobody that way, Jasmine,” Mercedes said. “Go get you a Kleenex.”
    “What’s going on, Merce?” I said.
    “Zelda.”
    “Is she locked in her room again?”
    “No. She gone.”
    “Gone where?”
    “Just gone. For good probably.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “We was tellin’ her las’ night that she needed to get her a NA sponsor if she want to make any progress, and she just had one a her fits ’bout how we tryin’ to run her life and get in her business. We tol’ her she need to go deeper and she says ‘I ain’t deep. I’m so shallow, you couldn’t go swimmin’ in me.’ Then Sherry start yellin’ and Jasmine start cryin’. It was a mess.”
    “You, of course, completely kept your cool,” I said.
    “I almos’ did, till she start talkin’ trash ’bout you. Then I lost it.” Mercedes went back to dusting the trunk coffee table with the vengeance of Attila the Hun. “She went all huffy to her room, and when we get up this mornin’, she gone.”
    Jasmine emerged from the dining nook, blowing her nose. “Did you tell her what else?”
    “What else?” I said.
    Mercedes wouldn’t meet my gaze.
    “What else?” I said to Jasmine.
    “She done took the money in the jar.”
    “That money you give me for when stuff come up, like we need a lightbulb or somethin’,” Mercedes said.
    “I don’t know why you tol’ her where it was,” Jasmine said.
    Mercedes gave her a black look. “What do I look like? I never tol’ her. She just a drug addict thief. They can smell money inside of a steel vault.”
    “You think she’s going to use it to buy?” I said.
    “There wasn’t enough in there for a fix. Besides, I don’ know and I don’ much care, which is why I’m cleanin’ this room. I got to do some kinda penance or somethin’.”
    I didn’t even know where to start telling her what was wrong with that theology. I had to get to the meeting or Chief was going to make me do penance.
    “This is nobody’s responsibility