"Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor - Diamonds are Forever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

"You could hear her?"

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"Oy vey, Clint," she said, smiling. "Thought she'd break your eardrums with a couple of those."
Jodi was something of an anachronism. Her grandparents were immigrants who still spoke more Yiddish
than English and had maintained an intimidatingly firm emphasis on the link between the old and new
traditions. Linguistic traditions, anyway, if not religious ones. Jodi's grandfather had been active in the
needle trade unions, a follower of Max Shachtman's brand of socialism. He had no use for religions of
any kind, but that hadn't stopped him from maintaining a number of Jewish habits and customs. Jodi's
family was almost a time capsule of clich├йs from the '40s and '50s, and Jodi had inherited enough to
sound like a near-parody of the New York "Jewish American Princess." So why did I find her Yiddish,
of all things, endearing? Especially when spoken with that New York accent that reminded me of nails
on a chalkboard?
Probably just the blindness of love, I had to admit. I'd known Jodi Goldman for four years, though, so
hopefully the blindness (or, in this case, deafness) would last for many years yet. "She was ecstatic," I
said, answering her question. "I guess I should have more faith in my family, but they are still, well . . ."
"About as rustic backwoods as you were when you first showed up?"
I laughed. "Worse, sweetheart. I'd gone through college before that, remember. First SladeтАФ"
"тАФthis century, yes, I know, my fave nebbish. You mentioned it a time or two, probably because your
whole family mentions it every time you go home, yes?"
"And on the phone. Look, I sorta committed us to go visit. You don't argue with Mamma."
"Yeah, sounds like my mother. When are we supposed to get there, so they can get a good look at what a
horse you're bringing home?"
Jodi's sensitive about her heightтАФshe's taller than me by two inches or so, and I'm almost six feet tall.
This doesn't bother me, but when she's nervous she tends to fret about it. As well as her weight, which
for her height is just fine. "Don't you worry about that, Jodi. When they get a look at you, Father'll be
tellin' me how lucky I am, and I'll have to watch so Adam doesn't try to steal you. Next week."
"What? Are you totally meshuggeh? What about work?"
"Mamma knows I can take the time off. What about you?"
She made a sort of growling noise in her throat, and then hummed several bars of a Streisand tuneтАФa
sign she was both thinking and calming herself down. "Okay, yeah, I think I can do that. They won't be
thrilled, but if we want to make your Mamma happy, I can live with it. Oy, I have packing to do! Do you
have electricity where you live?"
I managed to keep from laughing. "Yes. We have our own generators, actually. Every month Father or
Adam trucks in to town to buy the fuel. Had to have the phone line run in special; these days I suppose
we'd have done something like get a satellite link, but not back when the family first decided to get one."
Jodi blinked. "Running out a phone line just for you? That's pretty pricey, Clint."
"I said we was backwoods," I drawled, emphasizing my Kentucky accent. "Didn't say we was poor
backwoods. If the Slades ain't the richest family in Crittenden County, it's only 'cause we've spent a lot
of it the last few decades."
"I never knew, Clint." Jodi looked at me with surprise. "How'd your family get rich?"
I realized my big mouth had me dangerously close to the secret. Time to follow the honorable Slade
tradition of ducking the truth. "One of my ancestors, Winston Slade, made a ton of money mining, and
brought it with him to the homestead when he settled down." That was, as one of my online friends

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