The Green Revolution by Ralph McInerny Page B

the florist that had caught Miriam’s eye on the bill. No, that wasn’t fair. Pearl was no idiot. He should have done more than just drop the credit card bill on her desk, point to the check marks and roll his eyes. It was an hour or so later that he’d had the big inspiration to send Miriam flowers.
    â€œAny message?” Pearl had asked, not meeting his eyes—but then she would have had to bend her head to do that.
    â€œâ€˜Just because…’”
    Pearl wrote it on her little pad and went back to her office. Her legs were great with those high spiked heels. It occurred to him later that Pearl had used that florist with malice aforethought. Well, if she had, the effect had been delayed.
    â€œWho’s the tall girl you were having lunch with at Chesterfield’s?” Miriam asked some weeks later, not lowering the newspaper when she said it.
    â€œThat was no girl, that was Pearl.” He hadn’t missed a beat. Sometimes he amazed even himself. Old quick-witted Iggie.
    â€œYou’re being talked about.” The paper came down and her eyes drilled into him as if she were the dentist, not he.
    â€œSo who told you I had lunch with my secretary?”
    â€œHow is Prissy supposed to know this glamorous Amazon is your secretary?”
    â€œMaybe I’ll put her in uniform.”
    â€œHow often does this happen?”
    He got up and crossed the room and sat beside her on the couch. “Oh, Miriam, not you. The green-eyed monster?”
    She might have been one of his patients, rigid in the chair, awaiting the bad news while he studied the X-rays. But he did manage to get his arm around her shoulders. Even so, it was five minutes before she scrunched down sufficiently for him to kiss her. Right then and there, Iggie resolved that it was all over with Pearl.
    Pearl proved surprisingly intractable.
    â€œPearl, we were seen by a friend of my wife’s!”
    â€œHaving lunch at Chesterfield’s. It could have been worse.”
    A woman is a ruthless thing when she’s got you in her clutches. Iggie had thought that Pearl could handle a little fling without making a federal case of it. The next thing he knew, she was crying. He quickly shut the door of his office. For a moment he wanted to strangle her. What had he ever seen in her? Of course she had a little history, a divorce threatened, but that had seemed a recommendation. She had been around the block a time or two. Just a guess, but he had gathered from what she had said that it was her husband who was talking divorce.
    â€œHe’s even looked into annulments.”
    â€œThen you’d really be free.”
    Of course, she had misunderstood his meaning, but the result of the misunderstanding had been so torrid he hadn’t clarified his remark.
    After the two close calls, Iggie was the soul of discretion. They never went back to Chesterfield’s, and why rent a motel when Pearl had such a convenient apartment? Looking back on it, reading Miriam’s farewell address, he couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been. A man his age, off on a romp with his secretary. Madness. It was over, by God, and he meant over. Then he found the letter Pearl had written Miriam pinned to his pillow. It looked as if Miriam had taken several stabs at it before securing it.
    â€˜I know that Ignatius has spoken to you of me. The last thing I want is to come between a man and his wife. I know how traumatic talk of divorce can be and have stopped Ignatius every time he has talked of leaving you …
    He had torn the thing into shreds and flushed it down the toilet. He had come home with a buzz on, but now he was clearheaded and sober. And frightened. He just wasn’t the kind of man whose wife walked out on him. He was a Notre Dame man! He had to get Miriam back—but how could he unload Pearl?
    It all became a great deal more complicated when a big guy in a towel confronted him in the club locker room