Good Little Wives Read Free Page B

Michael was next. “What’s going on?” He was between meetings, had heard the news on Wall Street.
    Steven did not call. Apparently the Kitty/Vincent saga hadn’t made USA Today yet.
    She had just finished assuring Michael that Mrs. DeLano was fine when the doorbell rang. It was Bridget.
    â€œYou went there?” she accused as she pushed past Dana and moved into the living room without being invited. She wore a pink jogging suit that accented her round boobs—“all-natural, no implants, merci beaucoup,” Bridget was fond of saying. (Unlike Lauren, Dana, and Caroline, who wore sizes four, six, and eight respectively and had heights according to that, Bridget, at five-five, was a twelve on the top, six on the bottom; so much for French women being scrawny.) She also wore too much Chanel for this time of day, not even lunchtime. She went to the twin love seats by the fireplace and made herself at home.
    â€œCoffee?” Dana asked.
    Bridget shook her head. Her black curls danced and bounced. “Answers. I want answers. How is our dear Kitty?” She pronounced “is” like “ees” and “Kitty” like “Keety.” Sometimes her accent was more than annoying.
    Dana dropped onto the sofa across from her. “She didn’t do it,” she said.
    The phone rang again. That time it was Lauren.
    â€œWhatever has happened?” Lauren cried in tiny, childlike sounds.
    â€œI’ll tell you both at the same time,” Dana said. With her eyes on Bridget and the phone to one ear, she drew in a long breath and said how she’d gone to see Kitty and how she’d given her the jacket and how Kitty said she didn’t do it. She did not tell them how terrible Kitty had looked. That fact seemed too much like the gossip that Dana detested.
    When she was finished, she handed the phone to Bridget. “Talk to Lauren if you want. I’m going upstairs to get ready for the arraignment.”
    Neither Bridget nor Lauren offered to go with her.
    Â 
    Caroline sat at her vanity table, pulling her short, sun-colored, painted hair under a terry headband. She studied her reflection, pleased at the absence of the finest lines around her amber eyes, her now-full, coral lips. She wondered if she’d need another facelift when she turned sixty-four. Would twelve years be too much time between her second and her third?
    â€œEveryone is different,” Dr. Gregg had said. “You have exceptional skin tone. You may be able to wait fifteen years.”
    It wasn’t as if he needed to drum up more business. Though his waiting room was like a therapist’s—with an entranceand an exit positioned so patients did not see one another—Caroline knew that, in addition to the women of New Falls, Dr. Gregg had amassed a clientele of men who wanted to be nipped and tucked, too, who were desperate to avert the onrushing train of that hideous thing called time.
    One would think we lived in L.A. , Caroline mused as she picked up the silver pot of face powder and dabbed the sable brush.
    â€œDo you think New Falls will make the evening news?” her husband, Jack, said as he entered her dressing room, the New Falls Journal in his hand.
    â€œDoubtful,” she said, curving the brush from nose to ear with a swift, circular sweep. “It’s not as if Vincent was an up-and-coming player.”
    She knew, because Jack had told her in confidence, that Vincent’s client list had begun to shrivel a year or so ago, that his edge had lost its sharpness, his drive had slowed its pace—a lethal combination when money was at stake. It had happened around the time that he’d met Yolanda and, according to Kitty, his brain was lobotomized by his dick.
    Still, Vincent DeLano had found a way to survive until now.
    Setting down the pot of powder, she picked up a light brown eye pencil and started to enhance the half moons above her eyes. In the mirror, she