Chapter 4: A Casserole and a Warning

Marlene sat down at my kitchen table and cut herself a corner of the casserole.

"Eat," she said. "You'll need your strength. Both of you."

Hal had come in from the porch with his sleeves rolled and a face as innocent as milk.

Marlene looked at him.

"Hello, Hal," she said. "Nice evening."

"Marlene."

"Sit down, honey. You're going to want to hear this."

He sat. I poured coffee, and my hands were not quite steady.

"Gertrude Strub," Marlene said, "is the plant manager's wife. She runs the Plant Wives' Auxiliary the way a sergeant runs a barracks."

"I know who she is," Hal said. "She came to the Fourth of July picnic and rated the potato salad."

"Every year the plant picks a foreman from the machinists. The manager picks the man, but he doesn't pick without the Auxiliary report."

"A report," I said.

"A tea." Marlene shuddered. "She comes to your house with eight of her ladies."

"She goes through the kitchen, the parlor and the bedroom. She checks the icebox."

"She runs a white glove along the top of the door."

"And then?"

"And then she tells her husband whether the wife is, quote, a credit to the man."

I looked at Hal.

Hal was looking at his coffee.

He had the face of a man who had known this and hadn't wanted to put it next to the casserole.

"Last year," Marlene said, "Gertrude failed a couple who had the house before us."

"Who?" I said.

"The couple who used to live in this house. She said the wife kept a messy sewing room."

"He's still on the lathe. He's drinking now."

"Marlene," Hal said.

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