Melanie and her entourage didn't make it onto a bus till three o'clock that afternoon. She had managed to sleep for a couple of hours, and was feeling fine when she helped her mother roll up her blankets, and shook Jake awake.

“Come on, Jakey, we're going,” she said, wondering just what drugs he'd taken the night before. He'd been dead to the world all day and still looked hung over. He was a handsome guy, but as he got up and looked around, he was looking very raw.

“Jesus, I hate this movie. This looks like the set for one of those disaster epics, and I feel like a dress extra. I keep waiting for someone to paint blood on my face and put a bandage on my head.”

“You'd look great even in blood and a bandage,” Melanie reassured him, tying her own hair back in a braid.

Her mother complained all the way to the bus, and said the way they were being treated was disgusting, didn't anyone know who they were. Melanie assured her it didn't make any difference, and no one cared. They were just a bunch of people who had survived the earthquake, and no different from anyone else.

“You shut your mouth, girl,” her mother scolded. “That's no way for a star to talk.”

“I'm not a star here, Mom. No one gives a damn if I can sing. They're tired, hungry, and scared, and everyone wants to go home, just like we do. We're no different.”

“You tell her, Mellie,” one of the guys in her band said, as they boarded the bus, and then two teenage girls recognized her and screamed. She signed autographs for both of them, which seemed ridiculous to her. She felt like anything but a star, half dressed and filthy, in a man's tuxedo jacket that had seen better days and the torn net and sequin dress she'd worn onstage.

“Sing something for us,” the girls pleaded with her, and Melanie laughed at them. She told them there was no way she would sing. They were young and silly and about fourteen. They lived near the church with their families and were on the bus with them. They said part of their apartment building had fallen down, and they'd been rescued by the police, but no one was hurt, except an old lady on the top floor who broke her leg. They had a lot of tales to tell.

They arrived at the Presidio twenty minutes later, and were escorted into old military hangars where the Red Cross had set up cots for them and a mess hall. A field hospital had been organized in one of the hangars, staffed by volunteer medical personnel, National Guard paramedics, doctors and nurses, an assortment of volunteers from local churches, and Red Cross volunteers.

“Maybe they can airlift us out of here by helicopter,” Janet said as she sat down on the cot, utterly horrified by the accommodations. Jake and Ashley went off to get something to eat, and Pam offered to bring back food for Janet, since she said she was too tired and traumatized to move. She wasn't old enough to be that helpless, but she saw no reason to wait in line for hours for disgusting food. The band and the roadies were outside smoking, and after everyone else left, Melanie slipped quietly through the crowd to the desk at the front of the room. She spoke to the woman in charge in a soft voice. The woman at the desk was a National Guard reserve sergeant in camouflage fatigues and combat boots. She glanced at Melanie in surprise, and recognized her immediately.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, smiling warmly. She didn't say Melanie's name. She didn't need to. They both knew who she was.

“I played a benefit here last night,” Melanie said quietly. She smiled broadly at the woman in camouflage fatigues. “I got stuck here like everyone else.”

“What can I do for you?” She was excited to be meeting Melanie in person.

“I wanted to ask what I can do to help.” She figured it was better than sitting on her cot, listening to her mother complain. “Do you need volunteers?”

“I know there's a bunch of them in the mess hall, cooking and serving food. The field hospital is just down the road, and I'm not sure what they need. I can put you to work at the desk, if you want. But you may get mobbed if people recognize you.” Melanie nodded. She had thought of it herself.

“I'll try the hospital first.” It sounded better to her.

“Sounds good. Check in with me later if you don't find anything there. It's been a zoo here since the buses started coming in. We're expecting another fifty thousand people in the Presidio tonight. They're busing them in from all over the city.”

“Thanks,” Melanie said, as she went back to find her mother. Janet was lying on her cot, eating a Popsicle that Pam had brought her, with a bag of cookies in her other hand.

“Where've you been?” she asked, glancing at her daughter.

“Checking things out,” Melanie said vaguely. “I'll be back in a while,” she told her mother. She walked away and Pam followed her. She told her assistant that she was going to the field hospital to volunteer.

“Are you sure?” Pam asked, looking worried.

“Yes, I am. I don't want to sit around here doing nothing, listening to my mom bitch. I might as well be useful.”

“I hear they're pretty well staffed with National Guard and Red Cross volunteers.”

“Maybe so. I figured at the hospital, they might need more help. There's nothing much to do here except hand out water and serve food. I'll come back in a while, or if I don't, you can find me there. The field hospital is just up the road.” Pam nodded and went back to Janet, who said she had a headache and wanted aspirin and water. They were giving that out at the mess hall. A lot of people had headaches from the dust, stress, and trauma. Pam had one herself, not only from the night, but from Janet's demands as well.

Melanie left the building quietly, unnoticed, her head down, her hands in the tuxedo pockets. She was surprised to find a coin there. She hadn't noticed it before. She pulled it out as she walked along. It had a Roman numeral one on it, I, with the letters AA, and on the flip side, the Serenity Prayer. She assumed it belonged to Everett Carson, the photographer who had lent her the jacket. She put it back, wishing she had different shoes on. Walking along the cement road with pebbles on it was a challenge in the platform shoes she'd worn onstage the night before. They made her feel unsteady.

She was at the field hospital in less than five minutes, and there was a hum of activity there. They were using a generator to light the hall, and had an amazing amount of equipment that had been stored in the Presidio or sent over by hospitals nearby. It looked like a very professional operation, full of white coats, military uniforms, and Red Cross armbands. For a minute, Melanie felt way out of her league, and foolish for wanting to volunteer.

They had a desk at the entrance to check people in, and as she had in the hangar they'd been assigned to, she asked the soldier at the desk if they needed help.

“Hell, yes.” He grinned broadly at her. He had an accent straight out of the Deep South and teeth that looked like piano keys as he smiled. She was relieved to see that he didn't recognize her, and he went to ask someone else about where they needed volunteers. He was back in a minute.

“How do you feel about working with the homeless? They've been busing them in all day.” So far, many of their injuries had been among people who lived on the street.

“Works for me.” She smiled back at him.

“A lot of them got hurt sleeping in doorways. We've been sewing them up for hours. Along with everyone else.” Their homeless patients were more challenging, as they'd been in bad shape before the earthquake hit, and many of them were mentally ill and hard to manage. Melanie wasn't daunted by what he said. He didn't tell her that one of them had lost a leg when a window sliced through it, but he had been taken by ambulance somewhere else. Most of what they were dealing with at the field hospital were minor injuries, but there were a lot of them, thousands in fact.

Two Red Cross volunteers were in charge of checking people in. There were also social workers on hand to see if they could help in other ways. They were offering to help sign them up for city homeless programs, or permanent shelters if they qualified, and even if they did, some had no interest in signing up. They were at the Presidio because they had nowhere else to go, just like everyone else. And everyone at the Presidio got a bed and free food. There was an entire hall set up for showers.

“Can we give you something else to wear?” One of the volunteers in charge smiled at her. “That must have been quite a dress. You may give someone a heart attack when the jacket opens.” She was smiling broadly, and Melanie laughed and looked down at her voluptuous chest, which was exploding through both the jacket and the remains of her gown. She had forgotten all about it.

“That would be great. If you've got any, I could use some shoes too. These are killing me, and they're hard to walk in.”

“I can see why,” the volunteer commented. “We have a ton of flipflops at the back of the hangar. Someone delivered them to us for all the people who walked out of their houses barefoot. We've been taking glass out of people's feet all day.” More than half the people who'd arrived had come without shoes on. Melanie was grateful at the prospect of flip-flops, and someone handed her a pair of camouflage pants and a T-shirt to go with them. The T-shirt said “Harvey's Bail Bonds,” and the pants were too big. She found a piece of rope and tied it around her, to hold up the pants. She put the flip-flops on and threw away her shoes and dress, and the tuxedo jacket. She didn't think she'd see Everett again, and she was sorry to toss his jacket, but it was a mess anyway, covered with plaster dust and dirt, and at the last minute she remembered the AA coin and slipped it into the pocket of her new army pants. It felt like a lucky token for her now, and if she ever saw him again, she could give it back to him in lieu of the jacket.