Good Little Wives (10 page)

'Twas the night before chemo and there Bridget
was, traversing the back roads of New Falls, having waited until Randall and Aimée were sound asleep, having sneaked from the house and into the garage. She'd put the transmission of Randall's S–600 into reverse and quietly rolled it out to the sloping driveway, then down to the road, without turning on the engine or even the headlights. And now she was headed to Dana's, so they could tiptoe into the city and find Bridget's lover, or rather the man Bridget had once slept with and had made love with and now only
wished
were her lover.

God,
she thought,
I am pathetic
.

Dana was standing at the foot of her driveway, wrapped in
her long red down coat, because Dana had become such an animal lover lately that she wouldn't even wear faux, though for some oxymoronic reason, she saw no problem donning the down. How that irritated Caroline! Not to mention the local furrier, who still did a brisk business in New Falls.

“Talk about the car being a beacon,” Bridget said as Dana climbed in. “Your coat can be seen from here to Long Island.”

“It's freezing out. It's midnight.”

“We'll stop and get coffee.” She paused while Dana buckled her seat belt. “You're a good friend to do this, Dana.”

Dana rolled her eyes. “Well, I couldn't have you going off and getting into trouble. It seems I have enough friends there already.”

Between New Falls and the Upper East Side, Dana filled Bridget in on Caroline's hit man and Kitty's supposed insurance windfall. (They didn't discuss Lauren and Vincent because that was old news by now.) Then Dana told her what Sam had said about Chloe's broken engagement, and Bridget told her what Lauren had said. It wasn't until they'd merged onto FDR Drive that Bridget revealed their destination.

“We're going to the Pierre,” she said, sipping the last of her Dunkin' Donuts coffee that had cooled off in the forty-minute trip. “I need to see my first husband.”

Late night traffic slipped by them. It always amazed Bridget that so many people here in the States always had somewhere to go, day or night.

“I didn't know you had a first husband,” Dana said quietly.

“Non
,” Bridget replied. “No one does. Not even Randall.”

 

“You're sure you want to do this?” Dana asked after the valet took the Mercedes and they went into the lobby.

“I must see him one last time,” Bridget replied. “I want to tell him in person about my cancer.” She'd already told Dana that she and Luc had been childhood sweethearts, that they'd married too young, that they'd divorced. She did not tell her about Alain (to speak his name would be too painful) or that she still loved Luc, that she'd never stopped loving him, all these years (not that Dana wouldn't figure out that part by herself). As they stepped up to the front desk, Bridget said, “Luc's my last link to my home. I'm sure you know what I mean.”

Dana said she didn't know much of anything lately, except that her friends seemed to be having lives far more interesting than hers.

A clerk promptly appeared.

“Monsieur LaBrecque,” Bridget said, “Monsieur
Luc
LaBrecque.”

“One moment please.”

Bridget tapped her foot in time with the tap-tap of the clerk's fingernails on the computer keyboard. Dana still clutched her coat as if it were January and New York were Fairbanks. Together they resembled two spoiled housewives on a dubious mission.

“I'll ring him now,” the desk clerk finally said.

Bridget grasped her new Kooba handbag in one hand, Dana's arm in the other. She hoped Dana couldn't tell she was holding her breath.

The clerk turned his head and said a few words into the phone, then a few more.

They waited.

He spoke again.

They waited some more.

Then he turned back and, with a small smile, said, “Mr. LaBrecque will be down momentarily. The Pierre bar closes at one, so may I suggest you wait in the lobby?”

 

“Bridget.”

The sound of his voice—the sound of his voice saying
her name
—brought tears to her tired eyes.

“Luc,” she replied. When she'd seen him last fall it had been years. He'd been thinner, older, yet then—as now—she had still seen the boy who had ridden the white horses alongside her father, who had woven a wreath of flowers for her hair on the day they were wed, who had proudly held their son on the day he was born.

Luc.

He always seemed like the happy, vibrant boy who did not need a wheelchair.

From the corner of her eye, Bridget saw Dana blanch.
Right
, she thought.
I forgot to mention the wheelchair.

“This is my friend Dana Fulton.” Dana said hello, then discreetly excused herself and crossed the trompe l'oeil muraled lobby, where she sat out of earshot, friend that she was.

“Bridget,” Luc said as he rolled next to her. “Why are you here? Is everything all right? It is so late.”

He was so close to her now, his heat and his being and his body that she once had so loved, that her tears could not stop, her tears could not stop.

“Come,” he said, “
asseyez-vous
. Sit.”

She followed his lead as she always had. He guided her to a chair in a dimly lit corner. She sat.

He touched her arm. “
Mon dieu
,” he whispered. “
Quel est erroné?
What's wrong?”

“Mon coeur
,” she said, touching her chest. “It breaks when I see you.
Je suis désolé
.”

He leaned toward her; she leaned toward him. He held her; she cried softly.

“You look wonderful,
chérie
.” Then he pulled away. “And yet you are…sad.”

“Non
, not sad,” she said. “I am happy to see you. I will always be happy when I see you.”

He touched her cheek. “I was going to telephone tomorrow when my business is finished. Why have you come tonight?”

“We need to talk,” she said. “Aimée is not going back to school in France. I'm afraid I will never see you again.”

“She told me her plans,” he said, lowering his voice. “It is for the best. Your home is here, Bridget. It has been for years.”

“My home is with you, Luc.”

“Non
.”

“Je t'aime
,” she said.

He put his fingers to his lips. “
Non
,” he said. “It would not work. I have a different life now. I love my wife.”

There is a certain sensation that comes with loss that Bridget remembered from the day Alain died. It begins in your throat as a soft, gentle puff, a “lump,” people called it, though nothing was there. Whatever it was, it was in her throat again now and had started to travel to her head and her heart.

I love my wife.
Could he have been more clear?

“But…” she said, “but I have cancer.”

He blinked. “What?”

She didn't respond, which she supposed was mean, but he had rejected her, so did it matter?

“Bridget,” he said, touching her arm. “Is it bad? Is it true?”

Her eyes dried; her ache lessened. “Tomorrow I begin chemotherapy. I only wanted you to know. Just in case. Because if I do not survive, there will be no one to put wildflowers on the graves of my family, the grave of our son.”

Then she stood up.

“Bridget,” he said, “
Non. Ce n'est pas possible
.”

“Oui
,” she said, then turned to look for Dana. The word “cancer” had certainly gained his attention, but suddenly it did not feel so well,
she
did not feel so well. She had wanted his love; she did not want his pity.

“Then is this the reason?”

“Reason?” she asked. “What reason?”

“Is this why that man came to my home asking many questions? Bothering my wife? Bothering my daughter?”

She stood still, perfectly still. “A man?” she asked. “What man? What questions?”

“He asked questions about you. About when we were young. Does it have anything to do with you having cancer?”

A wave of dread rose like a groundswell. It was cold and damp and a shiver ran through her. She swallowed air. “You should have called me,” she said.

“I am sorry.”

Sorry?
She doubted he was sorry. He'd obviously been more concerned about
them
, his wife, his daughter. She closed her eyes. “What did the man look like?”

“It was a month ago. Maybe more. He was an American.”

“Was he old? Was he young?”

“He wore one of those
stupide
baseball hats Americans love. I don't know which team. But he had gray hair. And a mole. Yes. He had a mole right here.” He pointed to the side of his nose. “He frightened my daughter. I warned him not to return.”

She pulled her coat more closely around her. “If he comes back,” she said, “tell him I said to contact me.” Then she closed off her pride and her emotion, said
au revoir
, and went to find Dana.

 

“All these years I have thought I still loved him,” Bridget said when they were back in the silver Mercedes, heading north.

“But you stayed here with Randall?”

“When I tried going back, Luc had another.”

“I'm sorry,” Dana said.

“It was my fault. He was my life and I let him go.”

“Perhaps it was not meant to be. Perhaps you were both meant to be with other people.”

“Perhaps,” Bridget said, and then they rode in silence back to New Falls, her love and her thoughts all tangled together like the brush in the marshes back home in Provence.

“I can't imagine where she was going,” Lauren
whispered to Caroline the next day as she poured lemon water at the table at the club. “I called the house. I woke Randall up. He thanked me for calling, but said everything was fine.”

“And so you did what?”

“I was worried, Caroline. Ever since Vincent's murder a pall has come over this town. I slipped out of the house. I drove past Bridget and Randall's. The front lights were off, as if no one was expected.” She'd wanted to creep up to the garage and peer in the window to see if both the small and the big Mercedes were there. But Randall might have a security system, and how would she have explained if a siren went off in the night?

Caroline shook her head. “Bridget has been acting oddly, that's for sure.”

Lauren nodded, glad that this luncheon had begun on such a melodious note. There was nothing like another friend's troubles to take the edge off your own. “Now,” she said as tenderly as she could, “let's talk about Chloe. It's not permanent, is it?”

“The breakup? Not if I have anything to say about it. If she doesn't get married, what will she do?”

“What was her major in college?”

“I don't remember. It didn't seem important, once she'd met Lee.”

They toyed with their glasses as if they held wine.

“He's been cheating on her, for godssake. There was a time when that sort of thing was handled with tact. Now everyone seems to feel they're entitled to be happy. No matter what they screw up in the process.”

“Or who they hurt,” Lauren said, thinking of the many times she hadn't been thinking about Bob, when she'd been consumed by the fervor of the friction of the sheets in the Helmsley. “Caroline,” Lauren continued, “is there some way I can help?”

Caroline gazed out the expanse of windows toward the first hole. “Well, if Jack can't get him to change his mind, someone will have to send back the engagement presents. I won't have the stomach for it.”

Thankfully most upscale stores now sent only cards and not gifts, which saved so much trouble in case of duplicate or unwanted presents or in situations like this. Lauren had helped Dory navigate nearly three hundred gifts, so she was well-versed in the system.

“Consider it done,” Lauren said. “Though we'll first pray that Jack can set things straight.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said, her amber eyes lowered in rare humility. “At least I have one friend I can count on.”

They fell into silence, Caroline somber, Lauren with thoughts turned to Dana and Bridget. It would be nice if they'd help with the gift returns, if they'd soon grow weary of assisting poor Kitty, if life could go back to the way it was, when what mattered most had been shopping and lunch.

Just then a scuffle erupted at the door.

“She's
lunching
,” the maître d' insisted, his voice rising in a how-dare-you tone.

Then Bob's favorite caddy shoved the maître d' and rushed into the dining room, his forbidden spikes puncturing the high gloss of the hardwood floor. It took a moment for Lauren to realize he was rushing toward her.

“Mrs. Halliday!” he shouted. “Your daughter said you were here! Mr. Halliday collapsed on the seventh green! An ambulance is on the way!”

 

Her life would be better if Bob were dead.

How many times had Lauren pondered that? And was this her penance for such evil thoughts?

She sat in the VIP waiting area off the Emergency Room (Caroline had insisted—how could she say no?) toying with the brass grommets on the teal leather arm of the chair. She knew she should call the children, Bob Jr. and Marcia and Dory and the rest. (Had Dory been the “daughter” the caddy had spoken with? Was she at Lauren and Bob's house with the
new baby, and if so, why?) But Lauren didn't want to think about Dory or any of the broadband of Hallidays right then. She told Caroline she'd wait to notify the others until the doctor brought news, until a diagnosis or prognosis or some kind of
osis
had been delivered.

What Lauren really wanted was time alone to savor the possibility of freedom.

She had a trust fund with money left from her parents (it was rather small—sadly, they'd had more status than money), that Bob had supposedly added to over time. As for him, he had investments and plenty of them. But how much would be hers, how much would go to his offspring if he died? She'd tried asking him once. It was Vincent's idea.

“Sooner or later, the old guy's going to kick it,” Vincent had said. “Are you sure you're protected? Are you sure there's enough?”

Bob laughed when she asked, called her a dim-witted woman, said of course he'd seen to it that she'd be taken care of, that his net worth was sufficient to be spread all around.

Vincent told her she should have asked for specifics.

Vincent
, she thought now. If only Bob had died before Vincent had taken up with Yolanda. Maybe they could have had a chance after all.

Still, she'd be “taken care of”; Bob wouldn't have lied. But what would she do? What would be the point of staying in New Falls if she had no husband? She could buy an apartment in the city, maybe that would be fun. But she'd have no friends there, and the city could be so lonely. She had friends on Nantucket, though they weren't there off-season. They'd
be older, as she was, which would mean peace and quiet. The problem was, the family house had been commandeered by cousin Gracie years ago, and she was not big on welcoming guests. The few times Lauren had convinced Bob to go, they stayed at the Jared Coffin House in the center of town.

Would Bob leave her enough to buy a cottage on the island that had grown so pricey?

Before Lauren finished sorting her options, Caroline returned, bearing a bottle of Pellegrino. “Plastic,” she said, holding up two cups. “Hospital regulation.”

On the way to the hospital, Caroline had said it would be better if Bob had a heart attack than a stroke. “All that rehabilitation,” she'd said. “And even at that, who knows what you're left with?”

So far, no one was saying exactly what happened, exactly what, if anything, Lauren would be left with.

Caroline poured water, handed a cup to Lauren.

“How long will it take?” Lauren asked as if Caroline knew more about the hospital than its fund-raising.

“I've pulled out all the stops. The best team is with him.” The best team no doubt meant the most expensive, the physicians who were indebted to Caroline for her work on the gala, and were surely looking forward to the event this coming Saturday night.

This
Saturday night? Good Lord, would it be appropriate for Lauren to go if Bob were dead or dreadfully infirm?

She sipped her water, swung her feet back and forth under the big leather chair, and tried not to think about the pale peach Karl Lagerfeld hanging in her closet. She'd bought it
last month to wear to the gala and make Vincent regret that he'd chosen Yolanda.

“Bob's always taken such good care of himself,” Caroline said over Lauren's thoughts. “This seems rather unfair.”

Lauren didn't answer. They both, after all, knew there were many more things in the world less fair than Bob Halliday dropping dead.

Suddenly her feet stopped swinging. “I had an affair,” Lauren said abruptly. “I told Dana.”

Caroline was nonplussed. “It's not the end of the earth, Lauren. Plenty of people have affairs.”

“Maybe. But not everyone's ex-lover is shot to death.” She hadn't meant to tell her. Or had she?

“Please don't tell me you're talking about Vincent DeLano.”

Lauren didn't answer.

“Oh God, Lauren. What were you thinking? That man was despicable.”

Before Lauren could explain what she, indeed, had been thinking, a man dressed in green scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Halliday?” he asked. “Your husband is going to be fine.”

Lauren's eyes darted from the man in scrubs to Caroline, then back to the man again. “Fine?”

Caroline stepped forward. “Fine?”

The doctor nodded. “It isn't his heart. It wasn't a stroke. All his vitals are perfect. We'll run a few more tests, but right now it looks as if he had an anxiety attack.”

“An anxiety attack?” Lauren and Caroline asked simultaneously.

Then Caroline added, “Well, that's impossible. What does Bob Halliday have to be anxious about?” Neither woman suggested that perhaps he'd found out about his wife and Vincent.

The doctor smiled and looked back to Lauren. “If you'd like to see him now, he's been asking for you.”