Four rings so far. Just getting warmed up. Boy, she was going to be crazy to hear from me. She might be starving at this hour. And I was prepared, even for starvation.
In a large box outside the phone booth—it was too big to get into the booth—was a great quantity of edibles, some of them even nutritious, which I had just selected in haste and at great expense in an all-night delicatessen.
Six rings? I must have miscounted.
Then—sound in my ear. Followed by sweetness in my ear.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Jazz?”
“Yes. You sound like—Shell?”
“Of course I sound like him. Hey, did I wake you up?”
“No. I was reading. I read a lot.”
“No kidding. Well. That’s good. Reading a lot, I mean.”
“I’m like that, Shell. Whenever I do anything, I do it a lot.”
“Fascinating. I should have guessed, having seen you eat. And I’ll bet you’re famished, what? Ravenous? Well, never fear. You can count on old Shell. I have a whole packing box full of goodies right here beside me. Gobs and gobs of food, cheeses and pickles and hamb —”
“I’m not hungry.”
“— urgers and stea … What?”
“I already had a snack.”
“Uh. Oh?”
“Yes, about an hour ago.”
“You mean … you don’t want my goodies?”
“No.”
“You mean we’re through?”
“I mean, I’m not hungry. Don’t worry about the food, Shell. Just come on up. And hurry.”
I hurried. You can bet I hurried.
She wasn’t hungry, she’d said. Don’t worry about the food, she’d said. But that was then. What about an hour from now? Two hours? Tomorrow morning, noon, night? Next week?
Yes, I guess you could call me an optimist.
Anyway, I took all that food along.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Richard Scott Prather
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4804-9854-9
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Shell Scott Sampler Page 18