Read Online Black Locust Letters by Nicolette Jinks - Free Book Online Page B

we both got
strange schedules. Hell, there ain't more than ten humans who keep
our hours, and I know every one of them. I've been doing my slot a
long time. Long, long time. There ain't no woman who I like to keep
round me. But there is the alternative lifestyle. Makes for
company.”
    “ What do you mean?” Betty asked, but she thought she already
knew exactly what he was talking about.
    “ Ah,
forget about it. I'll tell you next time they think to stick their
favorite hosts together. Might be sometime in the spring, maybe
sooner, sometime during the holidays.”
    They
paused to thank people who came to stuff money into a can with the
picture of a teary-eyed little girl on it, and amid all the hands,
suddenly a familiar grey-brown coat sleeve tucked a fifty into the
pot, and Richard Welch jumped up to make a fuss over him, pumping
his hand up and down viciously and exclaiming what a good sort of
man he was. “What is your name, my good man? Let us put you on the
record.”
    Clarkin's head towered over Richard's, and he looked like his
usual self in his brown suit, white shirt, and candid smile. His
amber eyes locked on Betty's baby blues, and her breath caught. The
smile changed to something more welcoming and she blushed
furiously. “Thank you, but I prefer to remain
anonymous.”
    “ If
that's how you'd like it, sir, but thank you again,” said
Richard.
    Suddenly, Betty was so overwrought with nerves that she
couldn't think, not even after the Never Were had turned and left
them to watch a child doing the cake walk. All at once, she felt as
though she were floundering for any semblance of manners while she
just gaped.
    Richard elbowed her. “What a man! An alternative, sure, but
that doesn't mean you gotta give him the second-degree. Who do you
suppose he was?”
    Betty swallowed. “Decapitaria Clarkin Hannah. Aerial
Battalion.”
    “ You know him?” Richard turned to face her,
then let out a long whistle. “You know him—baby girl, you and I have
gotta talk, next break. And welcome back.
Our Lovely little Betty Boo Cratchet from the morning show is here
with me tonight at the Town Hall, where we are raising money for
the War Orphans Fund...”
    Was
it just her, or did Richard sound happier now that he'd discovered
her little secret?
    Wait, when had Clarkin become a secret?
    Betty was so flustered she lost herself in her own words. To
hear herself being repeated on the radio in the distance made her
think that she had taken the drunken plunge into the Tempest River
during the Autumn Moon Carnival. Distantly, she knew that somewhere
in the Town Hall, Clarkin was listening to her stumble over words,
and he knew that he was the cause of it.
    After some good-natured bantering, their talk section was
finally over, but the hosts didn't have the time to discuss
anything else. Their song and commercial breaks were taken up
greeting fans and thanking donors.
    After seeing Clarkin, Betty had thought that the worst could
have possibly happened, and she anxiously wondered if she'd see him
again, or if he had come expressly to see her despite her
dismissals, and if so what he hoped to gain by it.
    She
was so caught up in it that when she saw another fifty go into the
can, she half-expected it to be Clarkin again. But this time, the
sleeve was blue, and as her eyes followed the sleeve up to the
yellow rope epaulette, she realized with growing horror that the
night had just gotten worse.
    Slim
stood before her.
    Her
heart stopped its irregular pattering entirely and her jaw dropped
as he ignored Richard's praises and proffered hand. He took
Betty's, bringing it up for a kiss.
    “ Good evening my dear. Welshie, play us something slow, would
you?”
    Then
he half-pulled, half-led Betty out from around the safety of the
booth, and she let him even as her mind screamed at her to object,
to yank her hand away, anything. But there was a steely glint to
Slim's brown eyes, and a set to his jaw which would brook no
opposition, least