The Summerhouse

  She looked at the other two women with a puzzled expression on her face. “Sometimes you look back at your life and you see things that you did and you wonder why you did them and, even, how you knew to do them. To this day I can’t figure out how I knew to do this, but I looked in a phone book and found the name of a photographer and asked him to photograph me.”

  For a moment she paused for effect. “But he wasn’t just a photographer, he was Cordova.”

  At this Ellie sucked in her breath; then she looked at Leslie, who was also impressed. Neither woman was involved in the world of photography or high fashion, but they knew this name. It was said that Cordova had single-handedly made modeling into an art form. There were galleries full of his work.

  “Anyway,” Madison continued, “maybe I’d read his name somewhere; I don’t know. He was very young, he’d just graduated from some Midwestern university with a degree in photography, and he planned to spend his life taking pictures of fruit. Can you imagine? A talent like his, and on the day I met him, he was taking pictures of oranges to be put in some trade magazine that only buyers for grocery stores would see. But I went to his studio and I persuaded him to take a picture of me wearing only a snake.”

  At that Ellie blinked a couple of times; then she said, “Poor Nastassja Kinski.”

  “Why would you feel sorry for the actress?” Madison asked as her plate was put in front of her. It was heaped with three kinds of fried seafood on top of a bed of french fries, while Ellie and Leslie were having cold lobster salads.

  “Never mind,” Ellie said. “Go on with your story.”

  Madison smiled as she picked up her fork. “I remember that day as though it happened last week. And I remember the man who got the snake.” She looked up at Ellie and Leslie. “It was a big snake. A really, really big snake.”

  Twenty-eight

  1981

  NEW YORK

  Madison was standing outside the door of the DMV in New York, and for a few seconds she was so disoriented that she didn’t know where she was. But when she turned her head and saw her own reflection in the window of a bakery, she gasped. It had been a long time since she’d seen that face.

  She kept staring at herself, seeing her face as others saw it. When she’d been twenty-one and had lived with that reflection all her life, Madison hadn’t paid much attention to it. In fact, most of the time, she regretted her looks, as they stood in the way of her achieving anything beyond the beauty that so interested other people.

  But now, at nearly forty, Madison had had enough time to know what a gift she’d been given. And she knew that she should have valued that gift.

  Part of her was still that girl, fresh from Montana and feeling homesick and alone. Part of her wanted to go home and wanted an excuse to do so.

  But now, years later, Madison also knew what was out there. She knew what awaited her at home.

  And this time, she was going to change her life.

  There was a wire trash basket on the sidewalk, and propping her heavy tote bag on it, Madison began to look inside the bag. There were candy bars, two little plastic bags filled with cheap makeup, a hospital magazine, a tiny box that she knew contained a necklace her mother had given her when she was five, and there was the portfolio of pictures that had been taken in Montana.

  Opening the portfolio, Madison looked at the photos in disbelief. Nineteen years ago the world at large knew a great deal less about modeling than it did now. Was that good or bad? she wondered, then decided that she didn’t have time to ponder philosophical issues. However she came by the knowledge, she knew that these were not photos that would get her inside the inner sanctum of the people who could get her bookings.

  Thinking back to the first time she’d been here, she remembered the horrible time she’d had in the modeling agency’s office. The receptionist was a little snit of a thing, ugly inside and out, and she took pleasure in making the beautiful girls in the office wait. After she’d looked at Madison, wearing her summer dress with its ruffles down the front, she’d flipped through the book of photos of Madison posing picturesquely by a tree; then she’d made a snort that could be heard three floors away. Every hopeful girl in the office had smiled, for they knew that Madison had probably just lost her chance in the modeling world.

  And now, Madison remembered how angry she’d been at that receptionist. How dare she set herself up as a judge? Madison had thought. Madison’s anger had made her look down her nose at the woman and let her know what she thought of her.

  Big mistake. Later Madison had been told that the receptionists were the first lookers and the agency heads trusted their judgment.

  “You don’t photograph well, do you?” the woman had said, then handed the portfolio back to Madison with a little smirk on her face.

  Now Madison was embarrassed to remember her arrogance, ashamed to remember how she’d stormed out of the office in a rage.

  The same sort of thing happened at two other agencies, but by that time Madison had a chip on her shoulder that was as big as a Montana mountain. All her life she’d been told that she was smashingly beautiful, but to have her features taken apart and commented on . . . It had been too much for her. So when Roger had called, she was glad for the excuse to get out of the city and go back home.

  But this time she was going to do things differently, because now she knew what awaited her at home.

  Looking back in her bag, Madison removed the box that held the necklace from her mother; then she tossed the candy, the makeup and the portfolio into the trash bin. She took out a little bank book that showed how much money she had. There was almost seventeen thousand dollars in the account, and she knew that more than half of it was from her father.

  Looking at the little book, Madison smiled. Nineteen years ago, the fact that her father had handed over ten grand to his illegitimate daughter had made her furious. He didn’t acknowledge her as his, but he did send her his dirty ol’ money.

  But Madison was older and wiser now, and she understood a great deal more about the world. She understood about passion and how you could do things in a moment that you could spend the rest of your life regretting. And Madison knew that there were fathers who wouldn’t have sent money no matter how much they had.

  Now, she looked at the money her father had given her and thought of it as a gift. And she thought about what her hometown had done for her too. Years ago she’d been angered that they had “made” her go somewhere she didn’t want to go and had tried to “force” her to become something that she didn’t want to become.

  All these things had become rage inside Madison, and she’d made sure that she’d repaid everyone by not doing what they wanted her to. She’d spent the town’s money and her father’s money on Roger. And while she was in New York, she made sure that she got no bookings for modeling. Later she’d returned to Montana and she’d told her old high school friends that New York had been a cold, hard place and that she hadn’t wanted to live there. Her friends had wanted to hear that, but the merchants who’d paid her way had sighed and looked away from her. It was no wonder that until after the divorce, Madison rarely visited her hometown. But by the time of the divorce, all the things that had happened to Madison showed on her face and her body, so no one ever again talked to her about modeling.

  So now she had a chance to change things. Now she was a different woman. Now she’d learned the value of an opportunity.

  There was a telephone booth nearby, and there was a battered yellow pages hanging on a chain below it. Quickly thumbing through the pages, Madison found the listings for photographers—and there it was. “Michael Cordova.”

  Years ago someone had asked Madison if she’d ever been photographed by Cordova. Madison had smiled and said that when she’d been in New York, no one had heard of Cordova. It had been a young girl who’d asked—her mother was a high school friend of Madison’s—and she’d looked at Madison as though to say that she was very old.

  Later, while sittin
g at her lunch of a carton of yogurt, Madison had thought about that. Wouldn’t it have been ironic if she had met Cordova and they could have started their careers together?

  She put money in the telephone to call him, but changed her mind and put down the receiver. No, she was going to go see the man. And she was going to do whatever she could to persuade him to photograph her.

  “I don’t do models,” he said as he looked down the viewfinder of his Hasselblad. In front of him was a table piled full of oranges that had been dyed to be more orange. He was a little man, the top of his head hardly coming up to Madison’s shoulder. He had a hooked nose, a lipless mouth, and eyes that were as intense as an eagle’s.

  “I’ve heard of you all the way in Montana,” she said in her most innocent, but most seductive voice. His studio was in an old warehouse, dirty, probably unheated.

  Quickly, he turned and gave her an up-and-down look. “You wanta cut the crap and tell me what you’re after?”

  I could never have done this at twenty-one, Madison thought, but now his tone and attitude were a relief to her. She was having difficulty trying to pretend to be a young girl. “I want you to take pictures of me.”

  “I don’t do fashion,” he said, not bothering to look at her. “Look in the yellow pages. You can find a hundred photographers who’d love to shoot you.”

  Madison wanted to say that she only had three weeks in which to change her entire future, so she didn’t have time to beg. “If you can push the button on a camera, you can take fashion photos,” she said, and more annoyance than she meant to show came out in her voice.

  “You’ve got b—”

  “Determination,” she said quickly. “And obviously more belief in you than you have in yourself. What do you lose if you fail? You go back to taking pictures of fruit? But if you make a star of me, what can happen to you? Did you buy that camera used?”

  For a moment she held her breath. Would he throw her out? He turned the crank on the camera, shot again, then turned the crank again. He didn’t look up at her. “You pay the costs of film and developing.”

  “Deal,” she said instantly.

  She’d taken a cab to his studio so she wouldn’t arrive sweaty, and while in the cab she’d made a sketch. She felt bad that she was copying something that someone more original than she was going to do, but she’d made a simple drawing of a woman lying on her side, with an enormous snake wrapped around her.

  “Someone once told me that he’d like to see a girl wearing nothing but a snake.”

  The photographer didn’t respond to that, just kept on shooting pictures of his oranges. He had an assistant, a mousy little man, who stood on the sidelines and loaded the cameras.

  “A big snake,” Madison said into the silence.

  Turning, he looked at her. “I don’t do porn.”

  At that Madison drew in her breath. “Give me a break, will you? I’m a tall beautiful girl from Montana, but tall, beautiful girls from Montana are on every corner in the modeling world. I need something to make me different. No porn, but art. Shocking art. Can you do it or not? If you can’t, tell me so I can stop wasting my time.”

  For the first time, she saw interest in his eyes, and she held her breath to see what he was going to say. “You have a head on your shoulders, don’t you?”

  “Old head in a young body, but I’m marketing the young part. Nobody pays to look at the old part.”

  When she saw his smile, she knew that she had him. She wanted to dance around in triumph, but she made herself stand still and wait. It was his turn to act now.

  She handed him the sketch she’d made. He looked at it for quite some time, then he took his wallet out of his back pocket, removed a credit card, and handed it to his assistant. “Get me a snake.”

  The young man looked at the plastic card in horror. “Where do I . . . ?” he whispered, unable to finish the sentence.

  “It’s New York, so find me a snake, a big snake. Have it here at nine tomorrow morning.”

  Cordova then turned his attention to Madison and looked at her as though she were a piece of merchandise. “You have fat hips and one eye is larger than the other.”

  Madison smiled. She’d been told this before, but that time it had made her furious. “Then you’ll just have to light me so the flaws don’t show, won’t you?” she said.

  He didn’t answer, but she could see that his eyes were twinkling. I think he likes me, she thought.

  “Who does your makeup?” he asked.

  “Have any friends?” she asked, hope in her voice.

  “Actually, I do. Be here at six tomorrow morning. You’re going to take some work.”

  Again, in the past, a remark like that would have insulted her, but now she just smiled. “Right. Better tell your friend to bring a trowel and a bag of cement. It’s going to take a lot to make me look as good as your oranges.”

  He tried to keep one corner of his mouth from turning upward, but he couldn’t. “Go. Get out of here. Get some sleep. Maybe your eyes will even out. And do something about that dress. It makes me sick just to look at it.”

  Madison turned toward the door and by the time she reached it, he was already back at his camera. “Thanks,” she said, but he didn’t look up at her.

  Once she was outside, she looked in her bag and saw that she had a key and, thankfully, the address of the cheap downtown hotel where she was staying. If she hadn’t written it down, she knew she wouldn’t have remembered the address after all these years.

  When she reached her little hotel room, she pulled all the clothes she’d brought with her out of the closet and the rickety chest of drawers. Mrs. Welch, who owned the only clothing store in Erskine, had donated an entire wardrobe to Madison to take with her to New York. “It’s difficult to get things in your size, but I did it,” she’d told Madison the day before she was to board the plane.

  Now, looking at the clothes, Madison was horrified. Frills and little gold buttons, plaids and flowery prints, were spread out in front of her. If she’d worn any of these clothes to the modeling agency, no wonder the receptionist had smirked at her. But then, Madison seemed to remember that the other hopefuls had been wearing clothes just like hers.

  Leaving the clothes on the bed, Madison walked uptown to Saks.

  Three hours later she returned, exhausted, and flopped down on the bed on top of her clothes-from-home, dropping her heavy shopping bags to the floor.

  In the bags she had nothing but black and white. She’d bought nothing that wasn’t perfect in 1981 as well as the year 2000. Classic. Plain. Simple.

  And unbelievably expensive. She’d bought a pair of black wool trousers that cost twelve hundred dollars new, but she’d purchased them on sale for a “mere” six hundred. A white cotton blouse, from Italy, had cost her, on sale, two hundred and fifty. She’d bought a Hermes belt, with a matching bag and shoes.

  On the way back from the stores, she’d stopped in a shop and had her eyelashes dyed. When she did show up at the modeling agency, she planned to go with a face devoid of makeup. She planned to show off her skin, not hide it under foundation makeup. She would have just the deep black lashes, unclumped by mascara, and her hair would be streaked and in a perfect cut.

  The next morning, Madison was at Cordova’s studio at five-thirty A.M. She’d eaten nothing since noon the day before, and she hoped she lasted the day without food. She had to drop about fifteen pounds as soon as possible.

  To Madison’s surprise—and delight—the photographer seemed to have decided to make a serious try at the shoot, because there were two young men waiting for her. They were young and inexperienced, but eager. And when Madison heard their names, she had to keep from swooning. She knew that one of the young men was going to go to Hollywood and on a future Oscar night his name would be mentioned in answer to the question, “Who did your makeup?” Now he was staring at Madison, a pair of tweezers in his hand, and frowning. “Honey, with those eyebrows I should have brought a lawn mower.” br />
  The other man was a hairdresser, and Madison knew that someday he’d have not only his own salon but also his own line of extremely expensive hair products. “And what am I to do with this?” the hairdresser said as he picked up a handful of Madison’s hair.

  Madison smiled down at the two of them and said, “I hope you boys brought a ladder with you.”

  She made them laugh and, as a result, she made them her friends. She was able to direct the hairdresser to cut her hair in the style of Jennifer Aniston on Friends, a cut that would sweep the country years later, but in 1981 was absolutely new. “Sorry, Jennifer,” Madison mumbled as she looked in the portable mirror that was in front of her.

  At precisely nine A.M., the door to the studio opened and in walked two huge, sweaty men wearing sleeveless T-shirts and carrying a snake that was as big around as Madison was.

  What the hell have I done? she thought; then Cordova whispered in her ear, “Turning coward?”

  Madison swallowed.

  The two sweaty men were looking at Madison as they put the snake on the floor. She was made up, her hair was soft and framing her face, and she was wearing only a thin kimono.

  “I want fifty copies of the picture,” one of the men said, leering at Madison.

  Turning away, Madison grimaced. It was one thing to disrobe in front of the photographer and the other men—they certainly weren’t interested in her—but these men . . .

  “I hope he puts the pictures on the Internet,” she mumbled.

  “The what?” the hairdresser asked.

  “Never mind,” Madison said; then she took a deep breath and untied her robe, but held it closed.

  But then she smiled. What the hell? she thought. When you’re twenty, you want to keep covered, but when you’re forty, you’re glad when someone asks. Naked, she turned around and looked at the snake. “Let’s do it,” she said.