Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (19 page)

Monique frowned. She sensed a trap, long set and utterly unavoidable.

“I have,” Judy said, “the most wonderful idea.”

A
n itinerary blown to pieces? Judy knew all about those.

There was the time when Bob had finagled a ski trip to a Vermont resort, taking over a coworker’s time-share for a five-day
holiday for the whole family. In anticipation Santa generously left new snowboards, parkas, ski boots, and insulated gloves
under the Christmas tree. Judy had bribed a teenager to care for the dogs, the rabbits, the birds, and the hermit crabs; she’d
stopped the papers and the milk delivery; had the car tuned up; bought a storage container for the roof-rack; hounded her
children to finish projects and homework well ahead of time; and packed each suitcase so tightly they could be mortared like
bricks.

But on the morning she packed the car Audrey and Maddy—who’d been particularly cranky the night before—woke up vomiting.

She’d given Bob a long, sorry look. They’d both known what had to be done. This was not the first time their best-laid plans
went awry. So Bob took the boys snowboarding in Vermont just as planned. And she stayed home with two daughters who sobbed
and wailed and all but tore their pajamas in distress.

Out of the attic stash Judy then dug out a video game the girls had been anticipating. When they could eat she served chocolate
milkshakes and homemade soup on trays in front of the TV. As they started to feel human Judy fetched every pillow, blanket,
and cushion to the living room so they could construct a fort in which they spent the nights sleeping, sprawled like pups.
She decreed every day “Messy Day,” absolving all three of them of house duties and toy pick-up responsibilities and bedtimes.
As the “silly French cook” she took orders for hamburgers for breakfast and bananas in cereal for dinner. The dining room
table became a staging point for a Risk board game marathon where the girls ganged up on her to take over the world.

When the boys came home the girls rushed to them, scattering toys and game pieces and books and pillows, jumping up and down
and shouting that they’d just had the best week
ever.

Children got sick. Cars broke down. Friends lost their way. When life was unpredictable, Judy embraced the chaos. And that’s
just what she intended to do as a sporty, European-size taxi pulled up in front of their Interlaken hotel.

Judy hustled out into the chill Swiss evening and shuttled her friends into the cab. “All right, ladies,” she said as she
told the driver where to take them. “Are you ready for a ritzy night at a European casino?”

 Monique shrugged, still moody.

“All I can say is don’t expect Atlantic City.” Becky’s slinky, emerald-green dress had risen up to reveal enviable knees.
“I read up about this place during my pedicure this afternoon. The guidebook said that this casino has slots, roulette, blackjack,
and Texas hold ’em. That’s it.”

“No craps tables?” Judy exclaimed. “How disappointing. I was looking forward to blowing on some guy’s dice.”

Monique sidled a look toward Becky. “You got the first watch, right?”

“Just pray that the light isn’t too dim.”

Monique raised the flat of her palm. “I’m not waking up in a flophouse with a snake again.”

Judy arched a brow. “Hey, it wasn’t me calling for belly-button shots at three in the morning.”

Becky narrowed her eyes. “You are totally making that up.”

Judy barked a little laugh. “Boy, you really don’t remember any of your criminal behavior last night.”

“Absinthe is legal in Switzerland,” Monique said. “I checked.”

 “Maybe I wasn’t talking about the absinthe.”

Two heads cocked in suspicion. So, all right, maybe she was teasing them too much. It was just so easy. The poor women had
spent the day gasping at odd moments as the fog of the alcohol cleared. Judy had jogged their memories along by dropping little
facts. Like when Karl followed Monique to the bathroom, and Monique had returned later than expected with a wild look in her
eyes and slightly swollen lips.

 “Becky,” Monique mused, “I think I liked Judy better when she was a neurotic empty-nester resisting her own midlife crisis.”

 “I object,” Judy said, “to the term ‘neurotic.’”

“When a woman’s hormones go wild,” Monique continued, “it’s just like being a reckless teenager again.”

“No brakes at all,” Becky said. “No consideration of consequences.”

“If she’s not careful,” Monique added, “she’ll end up shacked up on the Adriatic coast with an Italian lover.”

Judy felt that familiar prickly heat rise. So, yeah, maybe she did feel like a wild woman. She was feeling powerfully attractive
tonight. Earlier today, after a restorative nap, Judy had hustled Monie and Becky to the Kosmetiksalon Beauty Création for
manicures and pedicures. A German-speaking Helga had spent an hour styling her hair into perfection. After, she joined Monique
shopping, where for a hundred and seventy Swiss francs Judy bought a new dress at the department store Schild. It was a slimming
A-line confection of black lace over a chocolate sheath that fell with thrilling ease over a figure that had lost five or
six pounds.

She felt strong and determined in the sexiest of ways—a creature both freshly born yet mature, too, swimming in physical and
intellectual confidence. The feeling was electrifying. She was determined to hold on to it for as long as possible.

“So,” Judy said, moving right along, “the only tables this casino has are blackjack, roulette, and Texas hold ’em. I’ve always
preferred poker and I never understood Texas hold ’em. Either of you know it?”

“Marco plays it with his brothers at their annual poker party. It’s easy,” Becky said. “I’ll teach you.”

“That’s fine,” Judy said. “And we can watch for a while. No reason to jump right into things. We’ve got the whole night ahead
of us, as long as you lightweights can make it past your ten p.m. bedtime.” She nudged Monique. “Lenny did want you to make
that stash of yours last for as long as possible.”

Judy focused her attention on Monique’s little purse. Monique crushed the clutch between her elbow and her side. It currently
contained one thousand dollars’ worth of crisp Swiss francs.

“I wouldn’t hazard to guess what Lenny would want me to do with this stash of his.” Monique’s lips twitched, and not in a
happy way. “That man kept a whole heap of things to himself, didn’t he?”

Uh-oh.
She’d hit the trigger again. She and Becky had nearly worn that trigger out at breakfast, trying to nudge a stubbornly defiant
Monique into re-embracing the list. They’d gently prodded her into thinking about what Lenny had really meant with each item.
Sure, number seven specified that they go to a casino in Monaco to see how long a thousand bucks would last…but was it Monaco
that formed the heart of that wish? Monaco, which hogged hours and hours of the itinerary in transportation time? Or did Lenny
just want his fiscally responsible wife to experience the primal thrill of blowing a thousand bucks?

If that were the case they could honestly check that item off the list right here in Interlaken, at the casino the taxi was
now pulling up to.

The casino itself was a large, open room. Slot machines lined the walls, rattling and ringing, crazy with lights. It was not
yet seven o’clock in the evening, but the casino hummed with the low chatter of men in business suits with their ties pulled
loose. Those who’d shed their jackets sported name tag stickers on their shirt pockets. The usual gambling junkies were fixed
in place, reserving the stools on either side of them in order to run three slot machines at once, drinks, chips, and snacks
within easy reach. Judy thought that if it weren’t for the casino’s distinctly European décor that hovered somewhere between
decadent Old World and cheesy bordello, they could be gambling in Peoria.

She flicked her wrist to look at her watch and asked, “Do either of you know what time our reservations are for the Swiss
folklore dinner theater?”

Becky said, “Seven thirty. Dear God I hope there’s no yodeling. I don’t think my head can take yodeling.”

“We’ve got some time then.” Judy caught sight of the cashier’s booth. “Let’s get that wad of cash transferred into chips.
It might take a whole evening to work through that much money.”

The cashier spoke fluent English as Judy exchanged a hundred francs into ten-franc chips. Becky exchanged what remained of
her “mad money” into tokens. Then, with Judy and Becky behaving as furtively as Secret Service agents, Monique approached
and pulled out her cache.

When Monique finished her business Judy glanced at the small pile of chips with alarm. “Monie, you’ve only got a handful of
tokens.”

“They’re worth the equivalent of about a hundred bucks each.” Monique clinked the plastic disks against one another. “Amazing
how light they are. They could fall out of my pocket, and I’d hardly notice.”

“You should exchange them for twenty-five-franc or even ten-franc pieces. If you play such high stakes, the fun will be over
before it’s begun.”

Monique breezed by, the long column of her Nefertiti neck corded and taut. “Let’s pass by the tables, shall we?”

Judy exchanged a worried glance with Becky as the two of them followed Monique through the room. They passed by a roulette
wheel, a blackjack table, and then another for Texas hold ’em, and then they took another circuit. Judy nudged Monique when
they reached the blackjack table again. “There are a few open chairs.”

“I’m too lucky at love to have any luck at cards,” Monique said. “If I try to shuck this thousand here, it’ll be like death
by pinpricks.”

“Watch me for a while.” Judy sat down and was dealt in on the next round and Becky joined her.

Monique shifted restlessly behind them as they continued to play. “What’s ‘boule’?’”

“ ‘Boule?’ It means ‘ball’ in French,” Judy said, “but it usually means a type of bread that looks like a ball. Why do you
ask?” As the dealer loaded a new set of cards, Judy followed Monique’s glance to the boule table in the middle of the room.
“Well,
that
looks like a roulette wheel, so clearly the word has multiple meanings.”

“Boule’s a little different from American roulette.” Becky eyed the card that landed in front of her. “It’s an old French
type of roulette wheel, harder to win.”

Judy tapped to split her two tens. “Do you have a secret gambling problem, Beck? Because I can’t think of any other reason
why you’d know that.”

Becky shrugged, squinting as if she were calculating odds before asking the dealer to hit her again. “There was an Indian
casino about forty miles from my grandparents’ farm. My boyfriend and I used fake IDs to sneak in there. The room in the back,
the half-empty one we hung out in so no one would bother us, had weird games. Faro, baccarat, trente et quarante. One table
was called boule, and it looked like that.”

“Slow down,” Judy said, “I didn’t hear anything after ‘fake IDs.’”

“There are more things to do in rural Minnesota than just tip cows.”

“Did you really tip cows?”

Becky rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t bother with boule, Monie. The odds are bad, and it’s all luck, no skill.”

Monique twisted on one heel and headed straight toward the boule table. Judy and Becky startled, quickly finished the game,
and then swept up their tokens to follow. Monique stood by the boule table with her arms crossed, watching the large rubber
ball set loose on the wheel bounce around until it landed on a five. The dealer dragged piles of chips off the board with
a little squeegee.

Judy asked, “Have you played?”

“Not yet.” Monique clinked her chips, frowning. “How does this work?”

“You put your tokens on any one of those boxes.” Becky pointed to various marks on the green baize. “You can bet odds or evens,
or red or black, or low or high, and the odds are a bit less than fifty-fifty. You can also bet a specific number on the wheel,
but that’s a long shot.”

“Bet black,” Judy muttered. “I read somewhere that that gives the best odds.”

Monique waited until everyone else in the circle started slipping tokens onto the baize, and then she set her tokens down
with a clatter.

Judy started. “Monie, you don’t mean to—”

“Yes I do.” Monique shot out an arm to prevent Judy from reaching for the column of tokens. “I’m putting all of it on red
number nine.”

 “Monie,” Becky warned, “the odds for winning are less than ten—”

“My wedding anniversary was the ninth of September. The ninth day of the ninth month.”

Judy strained against Monique’s arm. “Darling, this isn’t what Lenny meant.”

 “I know what Lenny meant. He wanted to loosen me up.” Monique’s throat flexed as if she were swallowing something whole.
“He wanted me to not worry about money so much. He didn’t want me to keep stuffing every penny of our disposable income into
Kiera’s college fund or our retirement account or into our slush fund for house repairs and future car purchases—”

“Monie,” Judy interrupted, “just think about this for a minute.”

“—He wanted me to blow a good chunk of it doing something crazy, something utterly irresponsible.” She gestured to the tokens,
teetering on red nine. “Like this.”

Becky said softly, “I think he wanted you to have fun.”

“Well, that he doesn’t get.” A muscle twitched by the corner of Monique’s eye. “He doesn’t get that because he doesn’t know
what a relief it was, after he died, to have saved so diligently. He doesn’t know how many problems were solved by the whole
life insurance policy that I insisted we invest in, just after he finished his residency. How could I have done this,” she
said, raising her palms to the high ceiling, “if I hadn’t saved like a madwoman for the fifteen years of our marriage?”

Judy’s glance danced over the table and the dealer, knowing that time was running out to pull those tokens off the number.
“I’m sliding it over to red.”

“Judy—”

“The odds are you’re still going to lose. Right, Beck?”

“Fifty-two percent.”

“At least give winning a sporting chance.”

Monique’s lips tightened but she didn’t object as Judy reached in and slid the column of tokens into the box for red.