There! That all happened within 48 hours. Who said this was going to be a dull week? First Maribel writes a letter to a a former college classmate of hers, now a prominent judge, explaining the fix she has found herself and her business in these days and asking for a reading of an obscure statute, ideally to her advantage but clear on the merits of her case at any rate. That was on Thursday. Pola, her classmate, apparently considered the letter confidential or else failed to receive it. Klara, Maribeth’s nemesis for years now, the neighbor who always shows her up with a better casserole or dress or understanding of code, waited until Friday afternoon and then a copy of the letter was made public in the form of copies distributed throughout the neighborhood. Paul Fico, publisher, read the letter out loud on Saturday morning and then printed it in his newspaper, where it was read by many, including Klara’s husband Henrik, who was thinking of himself decreasingly in terms of his nuptial status and more as a free agent who was sleeping simultaneously with Maribel and Pola—not in the same bed at the same time, but in different beds on consecutive nights. Henrik, loath to see two of his lovers calumniated thusly, lowered his horns and charged the rag, first by phone threats, then by fisticuffs in front of Daffodils, the cafe Paul Fico owns with his wife Gertie, a sometime lover of Klara who let the fact slip while breaking up the fight. No wonder Maribel doesn’t like the town. It must appear woefully amateurish in comparison to the sophisticated tone of her original latter.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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