The Summerhouse

  Leslie was trying hard to collect herself so she could speak, but Ellie beat her to it. “Too bad we didn’t offer a prize for which of us looks the worst,” Ellie said with great cheerfulness.

  “I’d win,” Madison said. She was sitting on a chair, the cigarette between her fingers, her long legs extended before her, and she smiled at Ellie. And when she did, Ellie could see part of the original Madison, the one who could outshine the sun with her smile.

  “I don’t know about that,” Ellie said as she sat on the chair next to Leslie. There was a third glass on the table and she filled it with lemonade. “I think fat is pretty shocking. It shows a lack of discipline.”

  “At least you’ve made a success of your life,” Madison said. “You’re a big-deal writer. The whole world buys your books, but I work in a vet’s office. If a dog is sick, I’m the one who cleans it up. No husband, no kids. Zip.”

  Her words were dreadful, but they were said with such cheerfulness that they made Ellie smile. It was good to hear that someone else had problems. In the last years it seemed that everyone she met had a wonderful life with no problems at all. They were all probably lying, but even that thought hadn’t penetrated Ellie’s misery.

  But now she could smile about it. “You think that’s bad? I’m a has-been. Dried up. Haven’t written a word in three years. I had nearly everything I’d earned in ten years of writing taken away from me in a divorce court, all of it given to an ex-husband who did nothing all day.”

  “At least you had something to take away,” Madison said happily. “I never did anything to earn a lot of money. I never had anything that anyone could take away.”

  “But isn’t that better?” Ellie asked. “You don’t have a world asking about what you used to be.”

  “Oh, no,” Madison said seriously. “It’s better to have been than never to have been at all. I think Nietzsche said that.”

  “Plato,” Ellie said firmly. “It was Plato who said that, but I agree with Socrates. He said that—”

  While Ellie was making up something, she thought, I love this. I love this back-and-forth, teasing dialogue. And I have missed it. And it was so, so, oh, so very, very good not to see pity in someone’s eyes. There was nothing in Madison’s eyes that said she felt sorry for the Ellie she used to know, the slim one, the one who didn’t have eyes full of pain. In fact, seeing herself reflected in Madison’s eyes, Ellie could almost believe that she was still that girl who had her life before her.

  “Excuse me,” Leslie said.

  Ellie and Madison stopped their dialogue about whose life was in worse shape to turn and look at Leslie.

  Leslie gave the two of them a very sweet smile. “I married the boy next door and had two kids. Now most of the town is telling me that he’s having an affair with his new assistant whose name is Bambi. I live in a huge Victorian house that my husband fills with untouchable antiques. Last year he tore out my kitchen and made it into a work of art. My mother wants me to divorce him. My daughter wants me to ‘fight back,’ whatever that means. And my son runs away and hides at the mere hint of conflict—which means that I rarely see him. And as for what I do now, I dedicate my life to the three of them, and if I left, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to get a job, much less keep one. And . . .” She paused, as though waiting for a drum roll. “I am on three fund-raising committees.”

  For a moment Madison and Ellie sat there and blinked at Leslie. Then Ellie turned to Madison, then back to Leslie.

  “You win,” Madison said.

  “Or lose. Depends on how you look at it,” Ellie said.

  “So how about dinner?” Madison said. “I’m starved.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes at her. “If you tell me you’re one of those women who eats everything and never gains weight, I will kill you.”

  “Get out your gun, sweetie,” Madison said with a big smile.

  Before another word could be said, Leslie stood up. “Come on, you two, and stop trying to outdo each other. My country club is giving a charity dance next month and I need a theme for it. You two can help me come up with some ideas.”

  As Ellie stood up, she again looked at Madison. “Definitely the worst,” Ellie said.

  “Yes, definitely.” Madison looked at Leslie. “A country club? Please tell me that you at least give dancing lessons to children. Something!”

  Leslie smiled. “My big Victorian house came with a beautiful, romantic summerhouse. It was falling apart, but years ago I fixed it up. While I was pregnant. But my husband moved a TV in there. Then he—”

  “Stop! Stop!” Ellie said, putting her hands over her face as though to shield herself from arrows. “I can’t stand any more. What do you say to our going out and getting drunk? Unless one of you has become an alcoholic, that is.”

  Madison held up her cigarette. “These are my only vice.”

  Ellie put her hand on her hip. “Chocolate.”

  The two of them turned to Leslie. “No vices at all. None,” she said, smiling.

  Both Madison and Ellie groaned. “She always has to win, doesn’t she?” Ellie said.

  Leslie stuck both her arms out, elbows bent. “Shall we go find someplace to paint the town red?”

  Ellie and Madison linked their arms with Leslie’s; then the three of them headed toward the little gate by the side of the house to make their way to the street.

  Four

  They’d had dinner, lobster of course, at a restaurant with the word “main” in the name. And after dinner they had walked about the tiny town and looked at the wharf, at the boats in the harbor, and read the signs on the buildings that proclaimed they had been owned by so-and-so sea captain.

  “Were they all named Josiah?” Ellie asked.

  After having made such intimate contact before dinner, once they were in the company of others, they’d seemed to lose that feeling of knowing each other well. It had started when they’d entered the restaurant and some woman had squinted at Ellie and said, “Aren’t you—?”

  Ellie had cut her off sharply. “No,” she’d said firmly, then walked ahead of Leslie and Madison to follow the hostess to a table. But the woman had been seated near them and she’d kept staring so hard at her that Ellie’d not been able to enjoy her meal or the company of the others.

  And the presence of the people in the restaurant and the woman’s staring seemed to take away the feeling that they were just old friends. The truth was that one of them was a celebrity.

  “So tell us about your children,” Madison said to Leslie in a formal voice.

  The easy camaraderie was gone. They were strangers to each other now, each woman with a very different life from that of the others. Leslie, with her life of church and schools and committee meetings, was very different from Madison, with her life of dating and looking for Mr. Right. And Ellie’s life was the most removed from either of theirs. Neither of them had ever been asked for her autograph.

  “Shall we get out of here?” Ellie asked after a short time.

  Since neither of the other women wanted to be reminded of Ellie’s mega-success, they agreed readily. How could you relax with a woman who the First Lady had said was her favorite author?

  Once they were outside, the tension didn’t relax, and as they wandered around, looking in the store windows, both Ellie and Madison grew silent.

  It was Leslie who was the peacemaker, the one who smoothed over the situation. “I thought we were going to get drunk,” Leslie said.

  Neither Madison nor Ellie answered her, but just gave little smiles, then turned back to the windows. They both seemed to be fascinated with a shop that carried wooden birds.

  “Ellie, you’re the celebrity, so you pay for the booze,” Leslie said, and that made Ellie smile.

  “Maybe she could pay for it with an autograph,” Madison said, and there was a hint of something not very nice under her voice.

  “Only if it’s on a credit card slip,” Ellie shot back, then looked at Madison with some defiance. br />
  “If you two get into a cat fight, who do you think I should bet on?” Leslie asked, and that relieved the tension in the air.

  “I’m hungry,” Ellie said. “That woman made me so nervous I couldn’t eat.”

  Smiling, Leslie pointed to a little grocery store that was still open and a liquor store across the street. Thirty minutes later, the three women, their arms laden with food and a bag of bottles, were laughing as they made their way back to the little gingerbread house.

  Once inside the house, their good mood returned. Outside the house, they were aware that they didn’t know each other, that they’d led very different lives that had ended up in different ways. But inside the house they were once again those three girls—Ira’s Girls, they’d reminded themselves—and they were equal. Their futures had yet to be made.

  Ellie unpacked a couple of plastic containers of dip and three bags of chips while Leslie rummaged in the kitchen for a corkscrew. Madison threw pillows on the floor in front of the couch, pulled out a couple of packs of cigarettes, then plopped down on the pillows.

  Ellie took one look at the cigarettes and opened a window near Madison. Leslie returned from the kitchen with glasses and an opened bottle of white wine.

  “Okay, who’s first?” Leslie asked as she, too, tossed pillows on the floor then sat on them. Ellie stretched out on the couch behind Madison.

  “Who’s first with what?” Ellie asked.

  Leslie’s eyes twinkled. “As though you aren’t dying to hear all about everything.”

  Ellie smiled and scooped up a big glob of a cheesy dip. “What happened to your dancing?”

  Before Leslie could reply, Madison looked through a cloud of smoke and said, “Why don’t we get down to it and talk about men?”

  “Nothing to tell on my part,” Ellie said as she ate more dip.

  “Me neither,” Leslie said. “I married Alan and that’s it. I’ve been absolutely faithful to him all these years.”

  That announcement seemed to bring the conversation to a halt.

  Ellie turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “Did you ever think about the one who got away? About the man you could have hooked up with and didn’t?”

  When neither woman spoke, Ellie turned onto her side and looked at them. Both Leslie and Madison were studiously looking at their hands and not meeting each other’s eyes.

  “Am I good or what?” Ellie said, smiling as she picked up her glass. “I’ve already found a story and I’ve only been here a matter of hours. So who’s first?”

  “How about you going first?” Madison said, narrowing her eyes at Ellie.

  Ellie opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it, so she turned to Leslie. “What about you? Do you have lots of regrets?”

  Leslie smiled complacently. “Not really. I’m happy with my life. Sure, my husband and kids pay no attention to me and I sometimes wonder if they’d step over my body if I fell dead in the kitchen, but—” She stopped to laugh at the looks of horror the other two were giving her. “Okay, so I’m a doormat. I admit it, but I really do love them.”

  “There isn’t anything you’d like to change?” Ellie asked, obviously not believing her.

  “No, not change . . .” Leslie said.

  “But what?”

  “Alan is the only man I’ve ever been to bed with.”

  “I won’t even comment on that,” Madison said as she stubbed out her cigarette.

  “There was a boy in college who was interested in me, but . . . Well, he was rich.”

  “Is there a downside to this?” Madison asked.

  “Not rich like a computer nerd but old-money rich,” Leslie said. “Kennedy rich. Truthfully, his family frightened me so much that I turned down his invitation to spend spring break at his family home.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He’s a senator now. Some say he’s a president in the making.”

  “My goodness. Well, Mrs. President . . .” Madison said, lighting another cigarette.

  Ellie was looking at Leslie intently. “What else?” she asked.

  Leslie took a long drink of her wine. “That’s it. Nothing happened. After I turned down his invitation, he lost interest in me and I never thought about it again. Except . . . In the last year, every time Alan mentions Bambi, I wonder what would have happened if I’d taken that young man up on his invitation. If nothing else, I think it would have been good for Alan to have had some competition.”

  “He didn’t? Not ever?” Madison asked.

  “None,” Leslie said; then her eyes lost that faraway look and she smiled again. “So how many men have you two had?”

  “Thousands,” Ellie answered instantly. “Oh, yes. Thousands at least. Celebrities have access, you know.”

  Laughing, Leslie turned to Madison. “And you?”

  “Same with me. Thousands.”

  “I see. You know, you two aren’t very good liars.”

  Both Ellie and Madison laughed.

  “Okay, so maybe it’s really two,” Ellie said. “My ex-husband and a guy in high school.”

  “Three,” Madison said. “I was married for a few years and there were a couple of others.”

  “We aren’t exactly advertisements for the sexual revolution, are we?” Leslie said.

  “What about you?” Madison asked Ellie. “What about the man who got away in your life?”

  “There wasn’t one.”

  Both women scoffed at this. “Sure, sure. You’re just not telling,” Madison said.

  “No, really, I’m still waiting for my Jessie,” Ellie said.

  “And who was he?”

  “No one yet. In the movie Romancing the Stone, the Kathleen Turner character writes romances and the hero of all of them is named Jessie. She says that she’s waiting for him to appear. And so am I.”

  “There wasn’t one man in your past, other than the man you married, who . . .?” Madison wiggled her eyebrows at Ellie.

  “Nope,” Ellie answered, and they could hear the sincerity in her voice. “All the men in my life are in my head. And I write them down and sell them. I share all my fantasies with the entire U.S. With the world if I’m lucky.”

  “So why do I feel that you’re hiding something?” Leslie said, staring at Ellie in the same way that she had been stared at.

  Ellie picked up her wineglass, and when she spoke, her mouth was a hard line. “Actually, there was a man once who interested me. I liked him a lot, admired him a great deal. He was married with two small daughters and when he asked his wife for a divorce, everyone vilified him. They couldn’t believe he’d do such a rotten thing to his darling wife. But I defended him. I told him that I understood. And I defended him to people who cut him down. I think I had fantasies about his telling me what a great person I was, then he’d whisk me away from my unhappy marriage and . . .”

  Ellie put the glass down and shrugged. “Didn’t happen. He married someone else and moved to another state.”

  Leslie looked at Madison. “You must have turned down a million men.”

  “I wish,” Madison said, as though what they were saying was a joke.

  But Ellie and Leslie didn’t laugh. Instead, they stared at her.

  “Okay, so I’ve had a lot of offers, mostly indecent ones, but there weren’t any that appealed to me.” Madison looked down at her cigarette, then back up at the women. They were looking at her without a shred of belief on their faces.

  “All right, there was one man,” Madison said as she lit another cigarette, “but it was a long, long time ago, and I think it was the circumstances more than the actual events. I don’t think he would have paid any attention to someone like me if we hadn’t been thrown together that summer.”

  Ellie jumped on that statement. “What does that mean? ‘Someone like me’? Do you mean, someone beautiful enough to make the stars jealous?”

  Madison laughed. “I can see how you make your living. No, I don’t mean that. I mean, s
omeone uneducated. He had just finished his third year of medical school, and I was . . . Oh, well, it’s a boring story.”

  “Doesn’t sound boring to me,” Ellie said as she picked up a handful of corn chips. “Sound boring to you, Leslie?”

  “Not in the least. In fact, compared to the alternatives, an empty bed or the TV, I think this story sounds downright fascinating.”

  Again Madison laughed. “You two are good for my ego. All right, it was right after I miscarried and—”

  “What?!” both women yelped together.

  Madison took a long, deep drag off her cigarette. Both women noticed that there was a bit of a tremor to her hand as she lifted the cigarette to her lips, but neither said anything. Madison drew in the smoke, then leaned back her head and exhaled slowly. “I’ve never been to therapy—not that I didn’t need it, mind you, I just couldn’t afford it—but I think maybe being with you two is like a group therapy session.”

  “So tell us everything,” Ellie said eagerly.

  “All right,” Madison said as she pointed her cigarette at Ellie, “but if I read one word of this in one of your books, I’m suing you.”

  Ellie looked away for a moment, as if she had to think about that, and when she looked back, both Leslie and Madison were holding in their laughter. “Okay, I agree,” Ellie said, pretending reluctance, but she loved to hear a story as much as she loved to tell one.

  “The miscarriage really has nothing to do with the story, but—” Madison put up her hand when both Leslie and Ellie opened their mouths to protest.

  Madison took a deep breath, then an even deeper drag on her cigarette. “It was an accident, just one of those things that happens. Roger was still in a wheelchair, and—”

  “Wait a minute!” Ellie said. “Wheelchair? Roger? Is this Roger the same guy who you did all his homework for and who dumped you for a college girl?”

  Madison smiled into the smoke. “You make me forget an entire nineteen years. I might as well be sitting on that bench back at the DMV. Yes, this is the same man. Not long after I got to New York, Roger was in an accident. He was riding a bicycle and was hit by a car. It ran over his pelvis and crushed all the bones.”