Bridget wore a ruby red silk camisole and matching capri pants with geisha girls hand-painted in rich, vibrant colors. Her outfit was accented by black marabou feathered slip-ons and topped with a black burnout velvet shawl. She camouflaged everything under a long belted trench coat in case she ran into Randall or Aimée while coming or going, then gave Dana a peek when she climbed into the car.
“If I have to have chemotherapy,” she said, “I might as well do it in style.” She didn’t add that her attire was most conducive to managing hot flashes that plagued her on the hour, every hour. She didn’t add that being a bit silly helped take her mind off Luc.
It wasn’t until they were in the treatment room (infusion room, the nurse corrected, to which Bridget said, Quoi que, whatever), and Bridget was in the recliner with an IV needle stuck in her hand, that she said, “I was thinking I could use a pedicure.”
Dana laughed. “A pedicure?”
“Yes. Now.”
“Now? Ah, excuse me, but you’re rather busy at the moment.”
“Actually, I’m not. All I have to do is sit here for what will seem like days. Which is why I brought my cuticle oil and my creams and my clippers and my polish.”
Dana smiled with one side of her mouth. “And…?”
“And do you feel like giving a pedicure to a cancer patient?”
Dana laughed again. “I guess it would be better than reading an old People.”
“Great. Everything is in my bag. It will divert me from picturing my head without hair, or from the fact that I’m scared to death.”
Dana closed her eyes. “Bridget…” she began, but sudden tears clogged her throat, so all she said was, “Yeah, well, I would be, too.” Then she moved to Bridget’s bag, dug out a clear vinyl pouch filled with pedicure things, and tried not to wonder about her mother, and whether she’d been scared, too.
It was hard to believe that just eight days ago Caroline had been welcoming those who were her friends (and those who wanted to be) to her rite-of-spring luncheon. Now Lauren was right—ever since Vincent’s murder, a pall had dropped over the town.
Before leaving the hospital Caroline decided to stop by the community relations office and check on last-minute reservations: She had to give the final head count on Wednesday, even though the gala now seemed rather trivial.
Trivial?
Totally, she was mortified to admit to herself.
Taking the elevator to the third floor, she began to navigate the maze of corridors with the confidence of a person who’d never feared hospitals, never winced at illness, never fainted when she’d seen blood. Fainting shows weakness, she’d once said to Chloe, though now she wondered if Chloe ever listened to anything her mother told her, and if so, how on earth she’d lost Lee.
Bypassing radiology, Caroline sidestepped a nurses’ station and took a short cut through oncology. She might not have noticed Bridget if the ruby red pajamas had not caught her eye. But there she was, in Infusion Room Six, with a tube snaking from her left hand.
Caroline halted. “Bridget?” she asked. “What are you doing here?” As she stepped inside the doorway she saw Dana, frozen in what looked like a clumsy curtsy, crouched at Bridget’s feet. But Dana wasn’t curtsying, she was painting Bridget’s toenails. “Good Lord,” Caroline exclaimed, “what are both of you doing here?”
A quick pause elapsed, then Bridget said, “Hell of a place for a pedicure, n’est-ce pas?”
Like the rest of them, however, Caroline hadn’t been born yesterday. It took her only a few seconds to figure it out. “Cancer!” she suddenly cried without an effort at nonchalance.
“Cervical,” Bridget replied.
“So much for HIPAA,” Dana added, a remark that Caroline did not find amusing.
“Well, good heavens, Bridget, why didn’t you tell anyone?” Then she looked at Dana. “Well,” she added, “I guess you did.”
The foursome that had once been a fivesome, when Kitty was still married to Vincent, now seemed to have been cut to a twosome, a pair, which annoyed Caroline as much as the fact that she hadn’t been told.
She supposed she should ask if Bridget was all right, so she did.
“I will be,” she answered. “Dr. Wolfe is my doctor.”
He was a Manhattan oncologist with privileges at New Falls. He was a generous donor, so Caroline said, “Well, you’re in good hands then. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be at the gala, if you’re concerned about that.”
Naturally it had crossed her mind, but she said, “Oh, Bridget, the only thing that matters is that you get well.”
“I intend to. For one thing, I want to be around to help Dana solve the mystery of Vincent.”
“Mystery? Between us girls, I find the matter already quite tedious.”
Then Dana said, “Speaking of which, Caroline, did you give Vincent money before he died? A loan perhaps?”
The IV pump beeped.
Caroline laughed. “Give Vincent money? Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. But your daughter mentioned something to my son…”
Straightening the shoulder chain that held her Dior bag neatly in place, Caroline said, “Oh, that.” Was that why she’d been slighted? “Well, yes,” she began with the story she’d concocted. “Vincent had asked Jack to invest in a new venture, but Jack turned him down. I didn’t think that was fair. With or without Kitty, Vincent had been a friend many years, hadn’t he? And now he had Yolanda, and I thought it was important to be supportive. It was also why I invited her to my luncheon, an act which none of you commented on, but I now gather several weren’t pleased.”
“It was your party,” Dana said.
“You could cry if you wanted to,” Bridget added, but Caroline sloughed off the remark.
“I hope I’ve answered your question,” she said to Dana, narrowing her eyes in a slight glare. “Now I must get back downstairs. Bob Halliday is in Emergency. He had an anxiety attack. Good heavens, it seems as if everyone is falling apart.” She wished Bridget good luck, then scurried out to the hall, away from the women who had once been her friends.
Dana didn’t get home until late afternoon. As soon as she entered the house, she remembered that Steven would be home for dinner, and she hadn’t planned a thing.
Sam greeted her with a smug smile.
“Please tell me you’ve whipped up a casserole and put it in the oven,” Dana said. When the boys were young she’d had help. But now Dana ate most meals alone and did not need a cook to nuke a Lean Cuisine.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “We can order pizza. How were things at the hospital?” he asked. Dana had told him about Bridget. In the absence of her husband, Sam had become a confidant.
“Fine.” Then she related what Caroline had said about the money she’d given Vincent. “I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what she said. Now tell me, what have you been up to?”
“Me?”
“You.” She dropped her bag and headed for the tea kettle, deciding to wait for wine until Steven arrived.
“Oh, nothing much.”
He stood and watched as she filled the water, picked out a mug, dropped a tea bag in.
“Mrs. DeLano called,” he said.
“Kitty?”
“She wants you to go with her tomorrow to visit her mother in Hyde Park.”
“Well, I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was away most of today and tomorrow is Wednesday and your father will be home tonight and I don’t know his schedule and besides, I’d really like to spend time with you before you go back to school.”
“So we can solve the murder.”
“No,” she said with a mother’s smile, “so I can spend time with you.”
“Maybe I have other plans.”
“Like?”
“Like it’s going to be a nice day and I’m planning to ask Chloe Meacham if she’d like to go for a walk.”
“Chloe?” She did not ask what happened to his fantasy about Elise.
“Strictly business, Mom. Maybe she’ll be more inclined to tell me stuff her mother won’t.”
“Such as?”
“Such as…well, come into the family room and see what I’ve done.”
She turned off the burner under the kettle because she knew with Sam this could be an ordeal. Secretly, however, she’d rather have him home than doing the things his twin brother was no doubt doing in Cozumel.
With warm, motherly thoughts, she followed Sam into the family room, then quickly saw why his smile had been smug.