The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,38
matter. This has already crushed her first kid.”
David hushed up to give this some thought. He took a drink of his tea and said, “If you go through with this, you’re a better man than me. I’d tell her to go jump in a lake.”
I chuckled. “That’s what Walter said.”
“Walter? Walter Dale? He knows about this, too?”
“Yes. He said she should take a running leap into Lake Jackass. He’s my eyes and ears on this, and has supplied me much useful information.”
“Well, you certainly picked the right guy!” said David, remembering Walter’s talents for getting the questions and answers to tests from professors back during college, usually involving unknown, unseen methods.
“Walter had high scores in all his classes,” he muttered.
“I need to bounce some ideas off of you, and maybe get some more insight into all this mess,” I said.
“Okay, shoot. What can I do?”
“Dr. Franklin Burke, husband, is having some kind of dalliance with a young, beautiful, and rich socialite. Now you and I know that when a fellow becomes enamored with a female, all logical thought processes come to a screeching halt.”
“Right,” said David. “Assuming that there were any logical thought processes to begin with.”
“Well, when the girl you’re involved with is the answer to all your imagined needs, a fellow is bound to get off-balance. We’re all vulnerable here; you know I am. I know what you’ve been through as well.”
David nodded but said nothing. He was just glad he hadn’t missed the marriage-boat, even if it was years after our pre-conceived ideal time for matrimony.
Here was the big question I had for Dave: “When a man is so involved with a female, or in love, or enamored with her to the point that he’s stupid in love, what does it take to set him straight?”
David thought on it for a moment, and declared, “Time and observations have shown me that when a man, any normal man, has made up his mind to do something as stupid as leaving his wife and children for an attractive bimbo, there’s nothing on this earth that you can do which would make him do the right thing. You can talk to him until you’re blue in the face, and he’ll still choose to do the most stupid thing, even trading in his home. He’s enamored. He’s ‘in love.’”
We both chuckled at that, the “in love” part. Dr. Franklin had probably been dumbstruck, and there's no known cure, unless a prettier, richer, and maybe younger girl came along who would show an interest in him. But that wasn’t going to happen, and it would still be no solution if it did.
“What does Franklin love, besides himself? What means the most to him, besides this ‘fling’?” asked David.
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know. I did the same with the next few questions from Dave.
“Does he have any scruples? Is he a member of a church? Would this reflect poorly with his kinship of doctors in the city? How about the country club?”
We laughed at the mention of the country club. Would they have a morality clause in their membership contracts? The thought of this struck us as funny, somehow. But not belonging to a club, we wouldn’t know.
“What does he care about?” David asked.
Does he still love Helen, after all these years?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied. Strangely enough, I honestly felt sad about this. Then it hit me.
“He loves his kids.”
David said, “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Now, here’s a hard question for you, Randall,” said David. “So don’t be getting mad at me for asking it.”
I steeled myself. “Go ahead.”
“Okay,” David continued. “I’d like to know why Helen came to you in the first place, seeing how she dumped you for Franklin many years ago.”
This was a question out of left field; I didn’t see it coming. “Her daughter Mindy said she needed someone she could trust,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.
“She needed someone she could trust, eh?” wondered David. “Or is it, she needed someone she could use?”
“Use? You’re saying she’s using me?”
“I’m not saying this, I’m wondering this,” said Dave. “I want to know why she didn’t just hire a private investigator to get to the bottom of this mess and acquire enough information to file for a divorce against the good Dr. Burke?”
I thought on this for a minute, trying not to get mad at the question. David was a trustworthy friend; it’s hard to get mad at him.