Olivia (Logan 5)

He nodded.

"Now just a minute," Belinda began. "I invited Bryan to dinner tonight."

"It's Ryan," he corrected again and backed away.

"That's all right. I'm not hungry. Nice meeting you," he added glancing at me and quickly left.

"Hey?" Belinda called after him. She turned back to me, her eyes furious. "That's not very nice, Olivia. He gave me a lift home all the way from . . ." She hesitated. "From someplace far away and the least we could do . . ."

"You're drunk, Belinda, and you haven't been home since I left. Where have you been?"

"With friends," she declared, her hands on her hips. "You're married and living in your own house now, so don't come here bossing me around. And I'm not drunk." She hiccupped and stumbled toward the stairway.

"I have to get to the office," I said. "I'm not going to waste my time sobering you up and looking after you when you should have been here looking after Daddy. You're a selfish, inconsiderate person, Belinda, and one day you'll wake up and find yourself stranded on an island of insanity. I won't come to rescue you. I promise," I said and walked past her.

She tried to say something, but I slammed the door behind me before she could utter a word. My conscience told me she might fall down the stairs attempting to get to her room, but I didn't care. If she did, it would serve her right. As I got into my car and drove to our offices, my anger was so hot I was sure smoke came out of my ears.

What I found at the office confirmed my worse suspicions. Not only hadn't Daddy been there looking after our affairs, he hadn't returned phone calls made to the house and he had let some accounts drop us.

I went right to work, restoring as much semblance of order as I could manage in the few hours I was there. Samuel called looking for me.

"I had a feeling I would find you there when Carmelita told me you had left the house hours ago. I thought we weren't going back to work until tomorrow, Olivia," he complained when he heard what I was doing.

"I don't have that luxury. My father let too many things go, Samuel. I won't be home until much later."

"But . . . what about our dinner? I made reservations at the club. We have people to meet."

"I'm not very hungry. Go without me if you want," I said.

"This is ridiculous. Surely, it can all wait another day," he moaned.

"You might as well know right now that I don't procrastinate, Samuel. If something needs to be done, I do it," I told him in a tone of voice that would engrave the words in his brain.

"Of course," he muttered. "Maybe I should come there and help you," he added but without any enthusiasm.

"There's nothing you can do here. It would take longer to explain it to you first, Samuel. I'm very upset," I said and told him a little about Belinda's behavior while we were away.

"I see," he said.

"It's better I get to work and keep my mind off my anger."

"All right. go to the club then and I'll wait for you there. Maybe you'll finish in time and . ."

"Don't wait supper for me. If I can come, I will," I promised, but I knew it was an empty promise. Samuel accepted that offer quickly. He wasn't unlike so many other people I knew: satisfied as long as there was pretense, as long as they could fool themselves into believing something they knew wouldn't happen or wasn't true.

There was so much to do, I got lost in the work and didn't pay attention to time at all. When Samuel called again, he was already home from the club.

"I expected I would find you there," he said. "I can't believe you're still at it, Olivia."

Even I was surprised at the hour.

"I'll be home directly, Samuel," I said.

"Everyone at the club wanted to know where you were. When I told them you had gone right to the office, they were all impressed," Samuel said. I heard the way his voice dipped and I understood that "impressed" was not quite the way they really reacted.

"I'd better call and see about my father," I said realizing I had never even called him. "I'll see you soon."

When I called Daddy, the phone rang and rang until Carmelita finally picked up.