THE HUNCH
 
 

I had a hunch the bastard was cheating on me. But our hours were so different, how could I know for sure? What with him a mail sorter on the night shift and me a teacher at the local middle school. And I couldn’t tell by the money. He never forked over his paycheck, just what he had left at the end of the pay period. Of course, he had expenses too: gassing up the car, haircuts, lunches—what he called his “walking around money.” And then “his obligation,” the child support for the brat I didn’t know about when we got married. And wouldn’t you know it? This month, he said, the kid wanted a set of drums.

   

But I had enough of a hunch from the gifts he brought home at Christmas, from his co-workers, he said. I’m talking cashmere sweaters just the right size and Clive Christian perfume, whatever that stink was. Certainly nothing I’d’ve bought. That was the year he gave me a dented cutting board, not even wrapped.

   

Since I couldn’t be sure, why stir up his temper? He had one, you know. Like his idol, Muhammad Ali, he had fast fists, but their sting was worse than a bee’s. I know, but I guess I got what I wanted, the handsomest guy I ever saw, that manly, square-jawed kind of handsome; that stop-traffic-dead-on-the-street kind with dimples, curly black hair, and smooth, easy-going manners. Let’s face it: I fell for him. We eloped after six weeks of athletic sex.

 

But all that holding-my-tongue business changed when I encountered blabber-mouth Helen in the Market Delight dairy aisle.

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See whether you can figure out how to she got a fix on the truth. And what she did about it.

 

To find out more, click here.

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