Black Locust Letters (4 page)

Such
a mood one would always find Gertrude in, talking of this and that,
everything under the sky and above it and within it. She talked
like this to patients in particular, for the other nurses and
doctors had long since wearied of her stories.

“
Did
anyone come in looking like they'd taken a beating?” Betty finally
squeezed in.

“
The
market incident? Heavens, no, or I'd have put him to rights
immediately. Why, only last spring a red bear and a gryphon got
into such a tangle, you'd never have seen anything quite like it
before. The bear they sent to the veterinarians, the ones on the
riverside, what's their practice called now, old Doc Francis' son
bought the place, anyway, and the gryphon wouldn't be sent to the
veterinarians. He demanded to see me. I was so charmed, and in no
time we were the best of friends, and he healed up so beautifully
from my salve!” And on and on she went.

By
the time Betty left, two hours had gone by, and Gertrude waved
Betty off with the parting words, “You've tired me out. Come again,
dearest, and we will talk again. Good-bye, good-bye.”

It
was getting late by Betty's schedule, but there was one more place
to check on Tom and it was on the way home, and the mortician liked
visitors but didn't like to talk, so it was made all the more
agreeable to Betty.

The
morgue looked like it should be a landscape center instead of a
place to prepare the dead. The mortician swore the path groomed
itself and annuals cropped up overnight fully in bloom. In a place
other than Sanctuary, he might have been disbelieved, but Never
Weres were strange about giving the newly deceased a picturesque
farewell, so it seemed rather normal to someone like Betty, who had
never lived anywhere else.

The
mortician talked a whole ten minutes, said that he hadn't had
anyone come through his doors in the last two days, and so it was
with sore legs and nothing to show for it that Betty went
home.

That
night she kept her ear to Welch's show and wrote down suspicious
words and phrases. Every minute she wasn't on the microphone
herself, she listened to the others, the Alpha day hosts in
particular, though Welch seemed forthcoming.

It
was unfortunately impossible to listen to both hosts and still
perform her morning job, so she had to content herself with
listening to one on one day, and the other the next. She looked
like she'd been jumbling her sleep schedule around, though, so by
the time she had Sunday off, she just fell into a day's
sleep.

Monday after her show, she evaluated the phrases she'd found
in the break room while everyone else attended to their own duties.
There wasn't much to look at. The codes weren't a standard set of
words, nor a numerical or skip code; it was sort of a combination
of everything. Mostly it was inside understanding stemming from a
common knowledge. Maybe a wave talker and an interpreter would read
the same copy of a book, and the talker would make references which
only applied to that particular book. Nothing was more devastating
to the troops during the World War as when they lost their
interpreter, since they could try to guess what the wave talker was
saying, but in the end they probably would come to the wrong
conclusions.

The
phone rang in Mr. Gresley's office. His voice came through a crack
in the door. Betty thought of closing it all the way, but she was
already on the other side of it, waiting for the bathroom to become
available.

“
Hello, this is Mr. Gresley.”

The
toilet door was locked. Was someone actually in there or did Welch
lock it and then leave out the window again? It had been a while
since he'd done something like grape gelatin in the coffee pot, so
he was due for another trick. Still, it felt awkward to knock and
ask if anyone occupied the toilet. Mr. Gresley grunted.

“
Well as may be, given the circumstances. ….yes, that. Know
anything?”

Betty heard a horrendous fart on the other side of the door
and edged away from the toilet.

“
I
can't say I have much to add to that, General, other than it's a
damn shame. He was the brightest in the field.”

Was
Mr. Gresley talking to her father about Tom? Betty couldn't believe
that, but neither could she imagine they were talking about
anything else. Mr. Gresley sighed at something the General
said.

“
If
Area 51's testing goes bungled, we may have a chance to renew that
pledge. Maybe a second nuclear winter would put this strife behind
us ... or yes, that could be, too...I hear them, I hear them, work
never stops for the likes of us. Yeah-huh. Bye.”

The
receiver gave a soft thunk as Mr. Gresley put it down. He groaned
and his chair creaked as he leaned back in it, then Betty heard the
scrape of boots as they propped up on a desk.

Betty no longer needed to use the toilet. In any case, even
the hallway was getting fumigated with a stench like rotten eggs
and dog fart. Instead she went to the break room, gathered up her
things, and pondered what to do over a cup of coffee.

There was only one thing to do: Find a way back inside. Betty
rubbed her eyes. Did she want to intentionally go back into the
wave talking world? Yes, she'd accidentally found herself twisted
into a corner there before, and she'd paid dearly to extract
herself from it.

She
poured herself a bit of cream, and it was there that she discovered
what Welch had done: He had strained off some cottage cheese and
dropped it by spoonfuls into the cream stored in the icebox. So
when Betty poured the cream into her coffee, the curds floated
around the top of the cup and it seemed the cream had gone off.
Being as unwilling to buy new cream as the next person, Betty
tossed out her coffee and put the cream back in its place,
pretending to have not noticed the curds. None too pleased, she
washed out the mug. An idea formed, one which could replace her
coffee and answer the questions about Area 51 fermenting in her
mind.

At
the reception telephone, she dialled Pearl's number.

The
waitress clinked down a coffee and cinnamon roll oozing with cream
cheese frosting. Betty, pale-faced, barely muttered a word of
appreciation before the waitress was gone. She glanced at the clock
on the wall. Pearl said she'd be here within an hour, and that was
a half-hour ago. Betty had called her from the station, thinking
that it would take forty-five minutes to walk here. She was wrong,
and now she debated what other drink she should get besides coffee
to keep from looking like she was being stood up for a
date.

There was only one thing to do, then: Find a way back inside.
Betty rubbed her eyes. That was what brought her here, what had
made her call Pearl after nothing more than scant exchanges of
pleasantries for so long. But now she was having second thoughts.
Did she want to intentionally go back into the wave talking world?
Yes, she'd accidentally found herself twisted into a corner there
before, and she'd paid dearly to extract herself from
it.

Had
she done it, though? Had she ever been free from it, or had she
been hiding from the real troubles, tucking into a hole and hiding
like her bogey did during cleaning day? The thought was not a nice
one, and while she sat here, she stared blankly at the white washed
panelling and the cutesy doilies spread out over the
tables.

This
was Pearl's favorite shop, and word would spread that Betty had met
up with her here. Over a bugged phone line, though, it was hard to
be picky about the venue choice without being obvious. So she'd
agreed to Pearl's suggestion. Pearl never was the brightest, and
she just might get lost if Betty had tried to direct her someplace
else.

She
looked to the clock again.

“
Hi!” Pearl's squeaky voice came with the opening of the door,
and the people behind the counter responded with warm salutations.
In a flutter of pink scarves and gleaming teeth, Pearl sat down in
the chair opposite Betty.

How
the years had changed them. Last she had been with Pearl, they were
both wearing white button-downs and school skirts. Betty's attire
had taken a turn for utilitarian and timeless, while Pearl's had
gone glossy, sleek, and tailored so tight that she couldn't do more
than wriggle her ankles to move. Even her white lace gloves looked
tight, and her cropped blonde hair was shiny with aerosol spray.
The Pan-Am smile Pearl gave Betty could have been disingenuous, but
that was how Betty always remembered her smiling.

“
Good afternoon, Pearl. You're looking well.”

“
And
you're looking a little puffy. Are they working you too hard?”
Pearl asked, suddenly looking worried as she grabbed Betty's
hand.

This
reminded Betty of her coffee, which had gone cold. Ah, well, better
off to not drink caffeine so late in the day. Pearl's casual
comment struck too close to the truth, so Betty laughed it off.
“Don't they always?”

“
Well, don't let them waste you away too much, or I won't have
a friend left!”

“
So,
what have you been doing with your married life?” Betty asked, and
instantly the other woman set off in a nonstop chattering. Most of
it was talk about Christmas and New Years, and about the annual
Thanksgiving argument over if potatoes should be whipped or mashed,
and about the scandal that her sister-in-law made by regifting the
gloves she'd been given for her birthday.

Betty watched her friend with a small smile, enjoying this
simple time, pretending that all was as it used to be, and that
this was how things would be again in the future, even though she
knew that it was utterly impossible. She tried not to feel guilty
that she was using her friend to get information. After all, her
father and Slim hadn't felt guilty about using her.

“
It
was so terrible what Slim said about you after you ran away. Why,
I'd nearly thrown him out of my house twice in as many days.”
Pearl's comments brought Betty back to reality with a snap and a
twist in her gut. “I see why you left him. Such an unseemly fellow,
and after all he seemed so nice. I can't cut off ties with him, you
know, since he and Karl are...well, anyway. I just wanted to let
you know that you can come to me any time you need to.”

“
Thank you, Pearl,” Betty said, thinking to herself that it
was a nice thought but Betty would never be able to go to Pearl for
help. If she needed help, Pearl was the last one who could provide
it. “Anything new with Karl? Any chance of getting out of
Sanctuary?”

Pearl blinked. “I'd forgotten! And I was so keen on telling
you, too.” She lowered her voice and said, “There's talk that the
Cold War isn't as cold as they all say it is. Some battalions are
mobilizing, and we haven't heard one way or the other, but there's
a good chance that we'll be next. They're moving some families to
Texas. Big air base there, as I understand it, but Karl thinks we
might move out to Nevada since that's where he's been flown in to
work on testing sites, but he doesn't look too happy about the
idea.”

Pearl sighed dramatically. “He says he doesn't like how
quickly they've said it's all safe, but really, there's a lot of
open air there and so much of it is sun. How I can't stand the
cloudy days here, and the snow! It's intolerable.”

“
I
like the snow. We always had such fun making snowmen.”

Pearl's eyes glistened at the memory. “You liked to make
them, I liked to give them hats and scarves and buttons for
eyes.”

“
We
had a whole army of them once.”

Pearl laughed. “And then the g-men ran around poking holes in
them with prods to check for explosives! How stupid they
were.”

Betty chuckled, but she felt sad and so very, very bereft.
Here was what she had left behind. A cheery friend, a wealth of
memories, and a treasure trove of golden times. It was all corroded
now, as surely as she had poured acid on them. Well, so she would
have to be careful.

Though she hadn't put together much from this conversation,
the news about troop movement and weapons testing were real gems,
things that Pearl might be scolded for revealing later. But with
her, they could do no more than be annoyed for having shared the
intelligence with her. Pearl had never been one to have a complex
understanding of the world.

“
Look at the time. You've kept me here longer than I really
should be,” Pearl said, and Betty agreed it was time to
leave.

While she paid, she caught the gaze of a shrewd lady, and the
look in those eyes was hostile.

Betty hastened to be about her business, leaving the café
eagerly, and hitting the sidewalk with palpable relief. She had
household errands to run, things like bread and onions to buy,
because she did not stop eating simply because she was
investigating a murder.

The
market at Sunny Glenn was once made of metal and concrete. The old
market's support poles twisted into orchard trees, and the tarp
that used to stretch between them was now a canopy of branches
hunched under pears, nectarines, and cherries. Their roots cracked
the slab of a floor into gray mosaic, where zucchini and honeydew
melons thrived. It was here the residents of Sunny Glen went for
their nourishment, if they weren't in the mood for fresh liver from
the dock shops.