Good Little Wives

by Abby Drake

  “You don’t think it will hurt me?”

  “Kitty! It’s the truth! The truth can’t hurt you because you didn’t kill him!”

  Kitty silently stared out at the street. “What’s the second thing you know?”

  Dana gripped the steering wheel more tightly. “You need another lawyer.”

  “I can’t afford one, Dana. I have no money, remember?”

  In all the years Dana and Steven had been married, she’d never once asked him for anything. Oh sure, he’d given her free rein over the household expenses and let it be known that she could spend some on herself whenever she wanted. She certainly hadn’t gone without. But Dana was from a cop’s family, where collars were blue and left unstarched, where dining out meant Friendly’s on Friday nights, where grocery shopping was supplemented by coupons. No, she’d never asked Steven for anything.

  “I have plenty of money, Kitty,” Dana said suddenly, as if waiting would make her change her mind. “I’ll get you another lawyer. A good lawyer.”

  “But your husband…”

  “Let me worry about Steven.” She smiled a small, wry smile and wondered if she could convince him this would somehow help Sam get a high mark at school.

  Caroline jumped into a cart that was parked outside the clubhouse and took off down the cart path toward the second tee. She did not remember getting into her car and driving over there. She did not remember what she’d said to Chloe after the girl’s announcement. She only knew she must find her husband and get him off the goddamn golf course and put him to work. He had to fix this. No one else could.

  Lee Sato, she seethed.

  How dare he?

  She pushed her foot on the accelerator. Ten fucking miles an hour? Didn’t this thing go any faster? It was bad enough they wouldn’t allow cell phones out on the course, as if one ringy-dingy would break the concentration of some fucking spike-shoed genius.

  The cart wobbled up an incline, past Tee Number One. Four men whose wives had been at her luncheon were lining up their balls. God, she thought, don’t any men in this town work for a living?

  She gave a short, disinterested wave and jerked the wheel, nearly tumbling the cart onto the pavement. She didn’t care if the men were watching or not. She couldn’t look as ridiculous as they did in their spring greens and blues, shivering to death because for godssake it was only April and this was New York, not Palm Beach.

  Around another corner, up another hill. But Tee Number Two was vacant; they must be on their second shot.

  Without another thought, Caroline yanked the wheel to the left and sped (sped? ha!) up one side, then down the other of the embankment, then straight onto the fairway where she gained momentum and was flat-ass flying now.

  Then she saw him.

  “Jack!” she shouted above the tick-tick of the toy motor. “Jack!” Shouting, like cell phones, was not allowed on the fairway. In fact, on this particular dogleg, carts were forbidden, too.

  The men were sprinkled this way and that depending on where their balls had landed. Four men and four caddies. All of whom stood still, eyes directed at her.

  She spotted the pale aqua cashmere she’d bought at Myrtle Beach and given Jack last Christmas. “Jack!”

  He detached from his caddy and took a step toward her. “Caroline? What in God’s name are you doing?” The other men formed ranks and moved in close as if needing to protect Jack Meacham from his wife.

  Bob Halliday was there, of course. And Richard Stanley. And Jonathan Gibson. Men whose money had wound up in Jack’s investments, had helped buy their house, helped send Chloe to Mount Holyoke, where she’d met Lee Sato, who had been enrolled at Amherst.

  “It’s that piece of shit!” She shouted though Jack was only six or eight feet from her. “He was your choice. I hope you’re satisfied.” She switched off the ignition and pulled herself from the cart, preferring to stand with both hands on her hips.

  “Caroline,” Jack said. “Perhaps we should go somewhere to discuss this…”

  “There’s nothing to discuss! Just get your ass into Manhattan and find that slimeball Sato. He’s broken their engagement and he’s broken Chloe’s heart!” The part about the heart slipped from her mouth just as tears sprang to her eyes. “Now, Jack!” she cried, then climbed back into the cart before the men might notice that her hands had started to tremble and her dark mascara was running down her cheeks, before they might suspect that Jack’s in-charge wife, the Caroline Meacham, hated her goddamn life.

  Seventeen

  “You should have been there,” Bob said to Lauren. “I have never seen Caroline Meacham quite so…emotional.” He chortled as he sat on the edge of their big bed where night after night Lauren slept on one side and he on the other, far enough apart so no warmth from either body could drift over the mattress and stir fruitless longings.

  “I can’t believe Lee broke the engagement. What will Caroline do?”

  “Well, for starters, she seems determined to make Jack talk some sense into the boy.”

  “She should leave well enough alone. If it’s not meant to be, no amount of prodding will make it a happy marriage.”

  Bob’s white eyebrows rose. “Careful, my dear. I might get the impression that you’re talking about us.”

  Lauren ignored him. “I went to see Dory while you were at the club. The baby is adorable, but she’s having some hormonal problems.”

  This time his chortle sounded more like a snort. He meandered into his closet. “The girl overreacts.”

  Lauren bit her lip and moved toward the window seat, the one place in the gargantuan house where she could safely tuck herself away and curl up into her thoughts.

  Bob returned with a pair of lightweight navy flannels that he happily stepped into. They were too short, but Lauren didn’t mention it. Sometimes she was tired of being his mother and his keeper as well as his wife.

  “Audrey never had hormonal problems,” he remarked. “Not once, not with any of the seven.”

  He stuffed his shirt into his pants, then clipped on his suspenders. Lauren wondered what it would take to strangle him with them, and if the elasticity would render the action worthless. “Audrey wasn’t forty-one when she gave birth.”

  “True, but she was only forty-three when she was run over by the bus.” He snapped one suspender onto his shoulder, punctuating the last word, a jab at Lauren for not giving birth to any of his children, and for having had the audacity to live when Audrey had not.

  There was no way she would share her worries about Dory. There was no way she’d tell him the only way Jeffrey got to see his son was by peeking into the nursery, that Dory refused to let him into her room, that Lauren had spent half the morning trying to convince him that pain meds sometimes did strange things and that Dory would come around. “In the meantime,” she’d said over and over, “you have a very handsome baby boy!”

  No, she would not share these things because Bob would not understand. He was from a different generation, planet of the old.

  “I’ll call Caroline,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll want to talk about what’s happened to Chloe.”

  Bob nodded because the men liked it when their women stuck together. Caroline’s “upset” at the club would soon be forgotten and forgiven: She was Caroline Meacham, after all, and Caroline Meacham mattered for the funds she raised and the society she wrought and because, Lauren suspected, most of the men were more than a little intimidated by her.

  Lauren knew that, sadly, Dory would only matter that much—even to her father—if she’d married an investment banker instead of a gardener.

  If Bridget didn’t get to see Luc now, her next chance might not be until August. By August she might be dead.

  So there were worse things, she supposed, than sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring, because Aimée had given Luc the house number and not the number of her cell.

  There were worse things, like having the chemo that she’d start tomorrow. As long as Bridget could
n’t be in France, she’d decided she might as well get it done. How could she have predicted they’d give her an appointment so soon? That’s what she got going to the hospital in New Falls not New York, for figuring that any day now everyone would know anyway so she might as well save the train fare and the time.

  So tomorrow she’d begin, and in the meantime she’d wait for Luc’s call. She’d stay busy by moving the buttons on her lavender linen blazer, a dexterous reminder that she’d been self-sufficient before she’d turned into a snob.

  She wouldn’t have to move the buttons if her boobs didn’t outpace her butt whenever she gained weight, which she always did when reality intruded and she buffered it with chocolate. Maybe after chemo she should have a breast reduction. Maybe Dr. Gregg would have an opening now that Caroline seemed content for the time being.

  The clock struck three.

  The phone rang twice.

  The phone.

  The phone!

  The needle dropped; Bridget’s blood pressure shot up. She grabbed the receiver, turned it upside down then right side up, and fumbled for the talk button.

  “Hello? Hello?” Oh God, why had she said it twice?

  “Bridget? Is that you? It’s Lauren.”

  Bridget hadn’t seen Lauren since Vincent’s funeral, hadn’t spoken with her since Dana told her about his gigantic dick.

  “Hang up the phone,” Bridget demanded. “Call me on my cell.”

  “But I only wanted…”

  Click.

  Call waiting notwithstanding, Bridget couldn’t take the chance that Luc would call and she’d push the wrong button and cut him from her life.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Sorry,” she said to Lauren, “but Aimée’s expecting a call on the house phone.” She quickly explained that the girl was home, that she’d saved them the transatlantic trip. “Speaking of kids,” she added, “I heard you’re a grandmother again.

  Lauren said yes, but there were some problems with Dory’s psyche, though what really mattered now was Caroline. She told her about the broken engagement. “I just spoke with her. As you can imagine, she’s devastated. Jack needs to convince Lee to change his mind and, most of all, before the gala.”

  “What did you suggest?”

  “Lunch, of course. Tomorrow. At the club. She needs our support, Bridget. You’ll be there, won’t you?”

  “Well,” Bridget said. “No.”

  “You won’t go to lunch?” Lauren asked.

  Bridget eyed the house phone, praying it would ring. “I can’t,” she said. “The people who escorted Aimée home have made plans for us in the city.” Apparently she wasn’t ready after all to tell the others about her cancer or her chemo. Maybe when her hair began to fall out. Or after Luc called, whichever came first.

  Lauren paused, as if reassessing. “Well,” she said slowly, “you will be missed.”

  The way you were missed at our last lunch with Kitty, Bridget might have said if she wanted an argument, which she did not.

  Instead she said she was sorry, then she said good-bye.

  She picked up her needle and thread again and resumed eyeballing the phone.

  Elise was waiting at Kitty’s apartment, sitting on a vinyl chair that once might have been white and was perched on the sagging balcony outside Kitty’s front door.

  Dana had planned to simply drop Kitty off, but the sight of Elise raised her curiosity. She got out of the car.

  “You need to call off the dogs, Mother,” Elise said, untangling her long legs and standing up, a head taller than Kitty. She pulled off her sunglasses, removed her soft, floppy hat, and shook out her mane of golden red hair.

  Kitty unlocked the door, and the three of them filed in.

  “I wasn’t aware you knew where I live,” Kitty said, tossing her keys onto the kitchen counter next to the Krups coffeemaker that seemed out of its continental element on top of the worn Formica.

  “This place is wretched,” Elise said, in a voice that seemed more surprised than judgmental.

  “Tell that to your father,” Kitty replied, and Elise winced. Elise and Vincent had been close, Dana had heard from Lauren or Caroline or someone who supposedly knew. “I’d offer you coffee but the generic brand won’t be on sale until next week.”

  “See?” Elise said to Dana. “She wonders why I don’t come to see her.”

  “That’s hardly fair,” Kitty said as she took off her jacket and sat down on the couch. “Besides, what do you expect when you greet me with an accusation about dogs?”

  “Well, the police are all over town, questioning everyone as to where they were the morning Daddy was killed.” She uttered the words “Daddy” and “killed” as if they hurt her throat.

  Dana leaned back against the counter and studied the beautiful girl. Boob shots and everything, Sam had said about Elise’s calendar. Dana wondered what possessed a young woman to do that, to strip herself naked when she’d been raised in a place, in a family, that was so guarded, so protective of its own.

  “By everyone,” Kitty said, “I assume you mean Yolanda.”

  “For one, yes. She went to the police station to give a statement.”

  Was that where Yolanda had been going when Dana had seen her this morning?

  “But it’s not just Yolanda. They’re harassing everyone in New Falls. All of your friends, Mother. They’re turning Daddy’s death into a charade.”

  The hurt eked out again, this time when “Daddy” was linked with “death.”

  “First, my dear daughter, in case you haven’t noticed, I no longer live in New Falls, so what do I care? Second, I’m sure that the few friends I have left won’t mind the slight imposition. I’m sure they’d like to see the case solved. Because they know I did not kill your father.”

  Elise’s glare was radioactive.

  “Obviously,” Kitty continued, “you don’t believe that.”

  The girl returned the sunglasses to the bridge of her nose, which had been perfectly sculpted by nature, not man.

  “I might have believed you,” Elise said, turning toward the door. “But Daddy named Marvin executor to his estate. And Marvin found a paid-up life insurance policy with your name as beneficiary.”

  Kitty laughed. “Tell your brother to check again. I’m sure it was an oversight.”

  “Oh, it’s true,” Elise said. “The strange thing is, Daddy actually took out the policy around the time of your divorce.”

  Dana stood up straighter.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kitty said.

  “Don’t you?” Elise asked. “Well, the policy is for two million dollars. It would seem you would know something about that.” She stared at her mother another moment, then added, “So like I said, call off your dogs, Mother. You’re only hurting people who don’t deserve it.” With her hat in her hand and a clip to her long-legged, supermodel stride, Elise DeLano let herself out the door.

  Dana had planned to go to the police and inform Detective Johnson about Caroline and the hit man. But her head was hurting from the thoughts that bounced in her brain like numbered cubes in a lottery bin, each popping up with a nice, round number: two million.

  She went home.

  “Holy cow, Mom,” Sam said as he met her at the door. “What took you so long? I tried to call but you didn’t answer your phone. Wait till you hear what happened.”

  Her empty nest wasn’t effervescent when none of her boys was there, but right now silence might have been nice. She pressed her fingers against her temple. “Headache,” she said. “I need my Jacuzzi.”

  He trailed her through the kitchen and out into the foyer and up the butterfly staircase toward the master suite. “But Mom…” he persisted, even as she waved him off, her focus on warm water and the honey-almond milk bath she’d picked up on her last trip to the spa with Caroline and Bridget and Lauren and…Kitty.

  “Sam,” Dana said when she reached the suite, “please.” She closed the door in his face.<
br />
  “But Mom,” he said from the other side, “don’t you want to know that Chloe Meacham’s fiancé called off the wedding?”

  She stopped, of course. Her eyes moved to the big bed, where the thick, white down comforter was waiting to bundle itself around her after a long, soothing bath.

  But a broken engagement?

  Chloe’s?

  She drew in a slow breath and leaned against the silk wallpapered wall. “Samuel David Fulton, you’d better not be lying.”

  If he was still there, he was holding his breath.

  “Sam?” she whispered. Perhaps he’d left because he’d been only joking. It was so like her boys to joke.

  “I’m here, Mom,” he whispered back. “And no, I’m not lying. I even saw her cry.”

  Dana let out another sigh. With resignation, she opened the door. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me the details. But first at least let me fix tea.”

  Eighteen

  “So I have a theory,” Sam said after he ex plained the scene at Caroline’s (“She was defensive about both Kitty and Vincent, Mom”), said that poor Chloe was totally wrecked (“She’s nice, Mom. Why would a guy do that to her?”), and told how Caroline tried to throw him out but then she took off.

  “On her way out she shouted that she’d try to make Chloe’s father fix everything, but not to expect much because all men are assholes.”

  “I doubt she used that word,” Dana said, sipping her tea, her headache mysteriously gone.

  Sam held up his palm. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You weren’t a Boy Scout. That was your brother Michael.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But she said it, honest.”

  She sipped again. “Well, this is all very interesting, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Vincent’s murder.”

  “What if it does?” Sam asked.

  Dana shook her head. “How? Other than saying hello at a few social gatherings, I doubt Lee Sato even knew Vincent DeLano.”