In 1973, I worked with a woman who is one of the best people I've ever known. She possesses the traits I value in friends: loyalty, kindness, compassion, and honesty.
She shared with me that she would like to have a part-time job because she was having financial difficulties but she did not want other people to know about it. The woman, a widow, had recently lost a great deal of weight and received many compliments on her appearance. Our boss at work complimented her as did a great number of the other men at work. Her late husband's sister also worked with us and it was obvious to me that she was a "Green-Eyed Monster" as she said to me, "Too bad she couldn't have lost that weight when my brother was alive." I responded, "I'm proud of her; she's doing it because of her health." She responded, "And it doesn't hurt that she has all those guys sniffing around now!" Refusing to acknowledge that I knew what the disgusting term "sniffing" meant, I said, "Well, that Youth Dew perfume she wears is intoxicating, isn't it?" She said, "That's not what I meant!" I stared her down and asked, "Well, what else could you have possibly meant?" Naturally, she did not answer.
My mother's doctor lived several doors down the street from us and he had asked my mother if she would be interested in babysitting because he and his wife liked to go out on the weekends and they needed someone trustworthy. My mother told him she'd reared enough kids and grand kids but she would ask me if I knew anyone who would be interested. I told my friend and she said that would be perfect. Not only did she become their babysitter, but she eventually cleaned their house and would help cook for dinner parties. When working for them, she would park her car in our driveway because we had the space and the doctor didn't and she didn't want to park on the street. The weekends that Gerald and I didn't go out, she would bring the children with her to visit with me. It became a routine with us.
One day, my boss asked me to come to his office and he told me that someone had called his wife and told her that he was having an affair with my friend and he asked if I knew about it. I was dumbstruck. He spoke to me because he suggested that my friend request a shift transfer and asked if I would encourage her to do so. I said, "That would just make both of you look guilty and why should she have to change her lifestyle because of lies?"
I went to the "Green-Eyed Monster" and asked her about the story but I didn't do it in a confrontational manner, but with a "conspiratorial" tone. I said, "I heard you'd found out what your sister-in-law was doing on the weekends." I could tell that she was thrilled that she thought she had me in her spider-web of calumny. I asked her how she's found out. She was positively gleeful when she reported to me that when she first saw her brother's widow's car was not at her house for long hours, she also went to check at our boss' house and his car was also missing. She actually said, "1 plus 1 equals 2.", and she bragged how she checked it out every weekend but she had never been able to find them together. I asked, "You mean you spend your weekends trying to catch them?" She said, confidently, "And I will catch them!" I said, "Oh, no you won't because she's with me every weekend." I saw the color actually leave her face. I said, "Now, you should go and tell everyone you've told your lies to and tell them you were wrong and you need to call the boss' wife and tell her you were wrong!"
Of course, she didn't do that, but I went to every single person, on all three shifts, and said, "I need to tell you that no matter what lies you've been told, there is no affair because she's been at my home every weekend." Many asked what she was doing at my home, but I would tell them it was none of their business. I said to my friend, "Hell, next they'll be saying we're lesbians!" I did not call the boss' wife.
We would laugh as we would see the car of the "Green-Eyed Monster" slowly go by my house. I said, "Let's go out and wave to her!", but we didn't.
The "Green Eyed Monster" died recently. Yesterday, I saw a former co-worker walking his dog at the park. We were reminiscing and he mentioned the old gossip and said, "Do you think it was true?" I almost screamed as I said, "I told you back then it was a lie!" He said, "Oh, everybody thought you were just being her friend."
I said, "Oh, my God, Shakespeare was always right about everything!" He said, "Hunh?" I said, "The evil that men do lives after them!"
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