Free Good Little Wives by Abby Drake

up the damn phone .”
    Dana watched as Bridget drained what was left in her glass and in Dana’s, too.
    â€œOy vey,” Bridget said then, having morphed into Golda Meir. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
    When Thomas did not, Bridget said, “Listen, this is important. The police weel ask you about me. Tell them I was at your place the morning Vincent DeLano was keeled , that I was there from eleven to twelve. If you don’t, I weel have your balls for my dinner.”
    She hung up, stared at Dana, and said, “That little bastard better remember I gave him five hundred for Christmas.”
    â€œBridget,” Dana said, “what are you doing? Did you lie to the police?”
    â€œMais oui ,” she said. “What else could I do? Tell them I was at my doctor’s? That I was arranging for my chemotherapy?”
    Dana reached for her wineglass, realized it was empty. “Make some sense, please.”
    With a casual shrug, Bridget said, “Chemotherapy. For my cancer. Didn’t I tell you about that?”
    Â 
    Half a bottle of wine later Bridget had decanted the details and dumped the sediment in Dana’s lap: She had cervicalcancer. She’d had surgery. She’d had radiation. And now they wanted to inject her with poison, mon dieu , quel ennui —what a nuisance—that will be.
    Dana was as stunned as when she’d learned Vincent had been murdered and Kitty had been arrested and Lauren had slept with him, too. “Bridget,” she said, “how can I help? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    Then Bridget explained that she’d told no one, not even Randall, not Aimée.
    â€œThey should know,” Dana said.
    Bridget threw her a mind-your-own-beeswax kind of look.
    â€œBridget,” Dana protested, then Bridget held up her hand.
    â€œStop harassing me,” Bridget said. “Stop before I call the police.”
    It wasn’t very funny, but Dana laughed anyway, then asked, “What are you going to do?”
    â€œFirst, I am making you promise to keep my secret.”
    Dana supposed if she promised, she could ask for more wine, so she did both. It was, after all, not an appropriate time to comment that her mother had died of cancer, not cervical, but ovarian, “in that woman’s place,” her father had told her when Dana was eighteen and she was living on Long Island and hadn’t been told until her mother was dead.
    She supposed she hadn’t forgiven him for that, either.
    Bridget poured and Dana drank.
    â€œI’ll have chemo soon. When Aimée has gone back to school after her holiday.”
    â€œBut that’s two weeks from now.”
    She shrugged again. “I don’t think it will kill me.”
    It was a poor choice of a word, whether accented by English or French.
    â€œBesides,” Bridget added, “I don’t want to miss Caroline’s partie magnifique .”
    Partie magnifique . Well, that was one way of describing the hospital gala. “I think the whole thing will be awkward,” Dana said. She set down her glass because she was drunk.
    Bridget sipped again, then said, “But everyone will be there. Maybe even the person who really killed Vincent.”
    â€œDon’t change the subject. I want to talk about your cancer.”
    â€œAnd I, s’il vous plait , do not.”

Eleven
    Dana should have called the Hudson Valley Red Cab to drive her home, but her house was only a few blocks away, and it was still daylight, and she wasn’t totally wasted as her boys called it. She’d wait, however, until she was safely home before calling Lauren.
    â€œThe police want to question everyone,” she would warn her. “They know Vincent had an affair, but they have no way of knowing with whom.”
    It seemed plausible, she thought as she turned into her driveway, lost control of her car, and promptly drove up on the lawn and through the euonymus that Mario