The Story:
"Silence, please…" the Reverend Glynn Wolfe said, standing in front of everyone.
"But Wolfy..." Tom Stutzman reacted, looking him with his single eye.
Stutzman and George Scott, seven years with Linda, were sitting in the first line.
"Hey! Don’t you remember I told you that you should not call me like that in public?"
"Yeah, but when we’re alone you like it, don’t you?"
"I do not know what you're talking about!" Wolfe shouted.
"Take a look to the Reverend..." Jo, one of the barmen sitting in the first row too, said to his buddies.
"Stop now!" Glynn cried out. "We’re not here to talk about me! I told you that the situation is serious, very serious. Did you not read the newspapers?"
"Eminence," Arthur answered, speaking also on behalf of the other plumbers seated in second row, "you tell us to hide and isolate ourselves from the world..."
"Eminence?! What Eminence?! How many times I have to say that I'm just a reverend?"
"Call him Wolfy..." Stutzman said.
"Tom…" Glynn said. "If you cannot shut up I close your last eye for ever..."
"Excuse me..."
The Reverend tried to go on: "So, as I see you don’t know anything. I'm sorry, but I have to give you bad news: she’s still hunting!"
A sudden frosty silence invaded the hall. A few moments later the small crowd began to murmur.
"Be calm, gentlemen," Wolfe said, "keep calm..."
"It’s easy to you!" Michael, one of the musicians seated in second row, shouted. "She believes you died..."
"Yes", Sam, another of the barmen, had the same opinion. "We’re the ones who are at risk, not you..."
"Guys, let him talk!" Andrew, sitting next to Lenny in the third row, exclaimed.
"You're lucky too..." Jack Gourley, three times married with Linda, said. "You became gay..."
"You’re lying!" Lenny replied. "He already was, me too!"
"Shut up everybody!" The Reverend screamed. "Fighting among ourselves is not the way to solve it!"
"Good, Wolfy", Stutzman approved, "I’m with you!"
Glynn watched him with murderous eyes.
"If I had the authority I would return you to jail..." he whispered. "Listen, we are here to help each other... We are in danger, don’t you see? Me too! If Linda were to know that I am still alive, according to the law I would still be her husband..."
At that time Scott, seated at the right side of Stutzman, raised his hand.
"George ... do you want to say something? Come, come here..."
The man, that although his age was still a handsome person, left the chair and came before the others.
"Dear men, beloved husbands, listen carefully to me, that I was the first to get married to Linda. We need to assist each other; we must show solidarity between us. Have you forgotten how things worked? During the wedding all the spotlights were on her, the bride. When she got pregnant, who stayed in the middle of the scene? She again was, in all her glory, Linda and her growing belly.
I don’t want to talk about when the first descendants came... Mom Linda here and mom Linda there. And what about us? We have always been the contour, like the salad. Yeah, we’re just the salad..."
Everyone applauded and praised the speaker, visibly excited.
In that instant, the unexpected happened.
The door on the bottom of the hall, enveloped in darkness, was opened, and someone came in.
Everyone was congealed and all turned towards the figure moving in the dark.
They heard slow but steady steps.
They perceived a thoughtless but enormous confidence.
And finally the light revealed the unpredicted guest.
"L-Linda ..." Reverend stuttered, the only one able to talk between the frightened husbands.
The woman advanced a step further and watched them one by one.
Then she smiled; with her mouth, her eyes, with the whole body; an extraordinary smile, as only a wife can design.
What followed was inevitable.
The barmen, the plumbers, the convict Tom, the musicians, Andrew and Lenny, Jack, George and Wolfy, all ran to meet Linda and tightened her in a warm embrace.
Nobody knew if it was a gesture of love or otherwise.
The News:
The Sun, Published: 24 Feb 2009 - By VIRGINIA WHEELER:
A GRANNY aged 68 has officially become the most married woman in history — tying the knot 23 TIMES.
Linda Wolfe — who first wed aged 16 — notched up the huge tally after becoming “addicted to the romance” of getting hitched.
The mum of seven’s longest marriage lasted seven years.
Her shortest was just 36 hours.
She has wed a convict, barmen, plumbers and musicians.
Two husbands turned out to be gay.
Linda is now listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most married woman.
And the serial bride — who has been single for ten years — said she was “on the lookout for number 24”.
She said yesterday: “It’s been years since I walked down the aisle. I miss it.”
Linda, who cannot even name her husbands in order, first wed “soulmate” George Scott in 1957. It lasted seven years.
The best lover was Jack Gourley. Linda, of Alexandria, Indiana, said: “I kept coming back to him. We wed three times.”
The strangest ceremony was at the Indiana Reformatory Prison to one-eyed lag Tom Stutzman.
Her last, to reverend Glynn Wolfe, was a publicity stunt — making him the world’s most married man with 29 brides.
He died a year later aged 88.
Linda, now in a retirement home, said she has never cheated on a hubby.
But she said: “Men ran after me. I’ve tried to figure it out and I can’t.”