Black Locust Letters by Nicolette Jinks Page A

tolerate,” admitted Geri, number 23.
    “ Well...I always get wool from her.”
    “ You
said so! Why? Do you knit?”
    “ Crochet.”
    “ Oh,
good, there's a sewing club every Tuesday morning at the Jive
Café,” Geri said, then she paused. “What day do you have off? It's
during your shift.”
    Betty smiled. “I would actually have to look. The schedule
changes a bit, and we do an extra recording every now and
then.”
    “ Anyway,” prompted Della. “Jenny? How does she come into you
seeing us?”
    Betty licked her lips, not knowing how to breach this. It
felt as though she were breaking the trust they had made over the
last hour or so. “Well, I wanted to ask Jenny about someone at work
I was...worried about.”
    Realization dawned on Geri's face. “Tom. You were asking
about Tom.”
    “ My
boss said he was gone and that's why I went to the Autumn Festival.
And then the days kept on passing and there was no one who was
willing to talk about him, so...I found my way here.”
    They
were suddenly solemn, looking at one another as though making a
nonverbal decision.
    Betty sighed. “He's dead, isn't he?”
    Geri's eyes snapped to hers. “Oh, no. They sent him out.
Didn't say where, but since there's no open combat, there's only
one place he could have gone.”
    Betty blinked, surprised. “What?”
    “ They sent him out to enemy territory. Intelligence in the
worst of places. Not quite an execution, but good enough to be
one.”
    “ Why?”
    Geri
shrugged. “He talked too much to the wrong crowd.”
     

Chapter 14
    Betty made the short trek home, glad that she lived so nearby
because the rain came down like someone was pouring a hose over a
shaking bedsheet. In no time, she had a fire roaring and her
clothes drying on the backs of chairs. Her thoughts worried at her,
demanding satisfaction, turning into restless nerves when she
reviewed how very little she had to show for her
efforts.
    The
wine had been meant to give her courage, but all it had done was
turn the room into a warm haze and make the handwriting on the
envelope fuzz over. Still, she drew it to her lips and breathed in
the scent fading but subtle and still there. Quickened her pulse,
made the room swim in her vision.
    Was
this her second glass or third? She'd been distracted, anxious,
dreading the popping of the seal yet unable to draw away from it.
She was doing this tonight, and for all her procrastination she
wouldn't deter from it. Her finger slid into the open gap the wax
blot tugged beneath her knuckle then it gave way. The flap angled
open and Betty stared at it an instant, exhilarated and woozy. Then
she tipped the envelope over and shook out a letter decorated with
a flourishing swirl.
    Hands shaking, she picked it up and smoothed it out, but she
couldn't focus on the fine script. She closed her eyes.
    She
woke in time to hear Welch's voice on the radio read off the hour
as 1:35 AM. She would have to be awake in 2 hours.
    Then
she realized it was a day off and she resolved to read them - right
as she fell asleep again.
    Morning had broken through Betty’s red and white plaid 15 curtains, casting a
pink hue over her legs and shining directly into her eyes. Betty
groaned and rolled over, falling off the couch with a soft thud
that she hardly felt. She rubbed her eyes and smacked cottonmouth
from her thick tongue. It took her a few minutes to realize it was
dawn.
    Betty hadn't seen the sun rise in some time. The studio
didn't have exterior windows to cut down on outside noise, and her
days off she usually was standing over the stove, and that room had
westward facing windows.
    There on the table as she sat up was the cause of her rumpled
clothes and stiff joints: A wine bottle, not quite empty. Betty
felt like a lightweight—back in her days with Slim, she would take
whiskey and bourbon to match him and she would still spring awake
in the next morning—well, in the afternoon.
    As
Betty stood up, something fell from her lap and she re