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Earl (Earl & Wilma) Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.
Wilma came home from choir practice really quiet, and after about an hour she said, “Earl, I need to tell you something, but you’ve got to promise not to get mad.”
Now what kind of a thing is that for a wife to say to her husband? I don’t get mad, at least not very darned often, and in my opinion, telling somebody not to get mad is a good way to start him down the mad road.
“I’ll try, Wilma. What is it you need to say?”
“You know Del Hanna, right? He sings in the choir and—”
“I know him,” I interrupted.
“Well, like I told you, he and I were supposed to practice our duet for church. I’m doing the soprano, the melody, and he’s got this part that echoes everything I say but with different—”
She was stalling, so I interrupted again. “What happened?”
“I thought he’d asked Anita to come early, but when I got there, it was only Del.” She licked her lips. “He said we didn’t need her, and that’s true. He can play the parts and sing too, so it wasn’t—”
More stalling. “What did he do?”
A frown creased her forehead. “He was playing, and I was singing, and he said I should sit down on the bench beside him so he could hear me better. I did, but it felt funny.”
I’ll bet it did. It felt like my blood pressure was rising, but I managed to nod as if I wasn’t picturing myself tearing the guy’s arm off and beating him over the head with it.
“Then he put his arm around me, kind of like he was showing me something, but...” Reliving it, Wilma grew angry. “Earl, I stood up right away, and I told him off. I said, ‘Del Hanna, you can have all the ‘ladies’ you can get to put up with you in your life, but no decent woman would give you the time of day.’”
“Then what?”
She looked surprised, like I should have known. “Why, I left him sitting there. I went outside and waited until some of the others came to practice, and then I went in with them. I didn’t speak to Del or look at him, but I told Ronda that I wasn’t going to be able to do the duet.” She shivered. “Even thinking about singing with that...creep gives me goose bumps.”
I felt a surge of relief. I felt proud of my wife. I felt ready to track down Hanna and... Wilma pointed a finger at my nose. “Remember, you promised not to get mad.”
“Wilma—”
“Earl, we have to live in this park. We don’t want to start a feud.”
“Nobody I know would take Del’s side.”
“Maybe not, but people love to talk. Some would say I should have known better than to go there and meet him.”
“But he drew you there under false pretenses.”
She rubbed at her forehead. “When I think of exactly what he said, I can’t recall anything about Anita being there. I assumed she’d be, because that’s how you or I would arrange something like that. We’d be careful of appearances and reputations and...feelings.”
As I opened my mouth for another but, Wilma went on. “I want you to promise to let it go. I let Del know exactly how I felt, and I doubt he’ll try anything with me again. I’ll tell Ronda privately that I never want to sing with him. She’ll understand.”
My gut said it wasn’t enough, but she added, “I didn’t tell you this to make you mad at Del. I told you because I don’t think there should be secrets between man and wife.”
She was right. When I’d seen Del trying to snuggle up to Wilma, I’d wondered if she liked it. Now I knew she didn’t. No matter how embarrassed she was about the incident, she’d kept me in the loop.
She’d also put old Del Hanna in his place. Maybe Wilma isn’t as defenseless as I thought.