The Summerhouse Read online

  Ellie had to take another breath before she could go on. “In the end, to keep control of my books, I agreed to give Martin all the money I’d earned, everything that had been purchased with the money from the books, and I have to support him forever. Lavishly support him.”

  “You’re kidding,” Madison said.

  “No. That is not something I joke about. He gets his first. I even have to carry a huge insurance policy on my life so that if I die—or go bankrupt—he gets paid.”

  When Ellie said no more, neither Leslie nor Madison could think of a reply. Didn’t people who had made as much money as Ellie have all the power in a divorce? Wasn’t it the money that always won?

  It was Leslie who broke into the gloom that had descended on the three of them. “How about if we forget about our troubles for a couple of hours and go look at this town? Maybe we can buy each other birthday gifts. Anybody know what she’d like to have for the big four-o?”

  “A new start?” Madison asked.

  “Hmph!” Ellie said. “I’d just like revenge. No! I’d like to have justice!”

  “I think I saw both those items in the little store on the corner. You know, the one by the fishmonger?”

  For a second both Madison and Ellie blinked at her; then they smiled.

  “Okay,” Ellie said, “I know when I’m losing my audience. Actually, I think I saw a little lamp shaped like an alligator in one window. I’d like to investigate that because my editor collects alligator things.”

  “In that case, I met a guy from Fort Lauderdale she might like,” Madison said, smiling as she got up, then pushed the chair back.

  “Sounds like the plot of the last book my editor didn’t buy,” Ellie said as she, too, got up. Then, as she turned and looked out the kitchen window, she thought that she felt oddly lighter. Maybe the telling of what had been done to her had released some of the bitterness that filled her because of the injustice of the court system. Of course she’d told every detail to Jeanne, but, somehow, telling someone you were paying a hundred and fifty bucks an hour wasn’t as satisfying as telling these two old friends.

  “I’ll go shopping with you two, but on one condition,” Leslie said. When Madison and Ellie turned to look at her, she was standing with her hands on her hips and glaring at them.

  “What condition?” both Madison and Ellie asked.

  “That no one—and I mean that, no one—asks me to make an intimate, soul-searching exposé of my marriage.”

  At that Ellie looked at Madison. “She always has to win, doesn’t she?”

  “Mmmmm,” Madison said, then smiled at Leslie. “So what did you say when your husband took over the summerhouse you had restored?”

  “While she was pregnant,” Ellie said to Madison. “Don’t forget that part.”

  Leslie narrowed her eyes at them. “The next one to talk about me gets to wash dishes tonight.”

  “Alligators!” Ellie said. “That’s the only thing that’s going to be on my mind.”

  “Is there anything to do in this town?” Madison asked. “I mean, you’ve heard my story and now we’ve heard Ellie’s and if Betty Crocker here won’t reveal anything about her life, what are we going to do with these remaining two days?”

  Smiling, Leslie took both women by the arm and led them toward the front door. “How about if we find three sea captains named Josiah and have mad affairs with them?”

  “Count me in!” Ellie said instantly, then heard herself laugh. It was the first time she’d had a lighthearted thought about sex in three whole years.

  “I’m with you!” Madison said, and they left the house laughing together.

  Part Two

  Sixteen

  In the end, they decided to separate for a little exploring and to get together again for lunch. “That way, maybe we’ll have something to talk about besides the rotten part of our lives,” Leslie said.

  Of course each woman agreed because she wanted to have time alone to buy birthday gifts for the other two. They decided to meet at one at The Wharf, and laughing, they challenged each other to eat some of the stranger types of seafood offered in Maine.

  Leslie headed toward the used-book store that she’d seen down a tiny alleyway, and she hoped that Ellie hadn’t seen it. So what gift did you buy for an internationally famous person? she thought with a sigh.

  She was still wondering as she entered the bookstore. As she closed the door behind her, she felt as though she’d entered another time and place. The walls were lined with packed bookcases, and books were everywhere else, on chairs, on the floor, on and under little tables. The shades had been pulled down to protect the books piled high in front of the windows. There were a few ceiling lights and a couple of wall lights that, unless Leslie’s eye was wrong, were antiques and quite valuable.

  “May I help you?” came a voice that sounded ancient.

  It took Leslie’s eyes a moment to adjust to the low light, and when they did, she saw a little old man, thin to the point of emaciation, but with thick white hair and such an erect carriage that Leslie knew that he’d once been a heart stopper. Something about him made her feel . . . well, pretty. And, compared to him, she was very young.

  She gave him a radiant smile. “I’m looking for gifts for two women friends of mine. They both have birthdays tomorrow.”

  He was shorter than Leslie, but she had an idea that no woman had ever felt shorter than he. “Could you tell me something about the women? What do they like?”

  “I don’t really know them that—” She broke off. Was she going to say that she didn’t know Madison and Ellie very well? After what she’d heard in the last twenty-four hours? Not quite.

  “Healing,” she said, the word popping out of her mouth. “One of them is interested in all things to do with medicine. And the other one . . .” Leslie hesitated. What was Ellie interested in? If it had been for someone other than Ellie, Leslie would have bought her a book on “meditations for women,” something calming, something to take the anger out of her. But Leslie could imagine Ellie scoffing at such a book.

  Leslie gave the man a small smile. “You don’t have anything for someone who wants revenge, do you?”

  The man smiled in return, as though her request weren’t in the least unusual. “Perhaps,” he said, then turned and walked through the stacks to the back of the store. When she reached him, he was standing in front of a small bookcase that Leslie was sure was Chippendale—real, not reproduction—and holding out a book to her.

  Taking it, she looked down at the title. “A Life of Romance,” the title read. Puzzled, Leslie looked at the book. What did this have to do with either revenge or medicine? she wondered. But when she looked up, the man was gone and she was alone in the back corner of the bookshop.

  “A Life of Romance,” she read aloud as she held the little book in her hands. It had a green cover, no dust jacket, and it felt old. The shade on the window behind her had been lifted a bit, so there was a ray of sunshine coming through. She could see dust motes dancing in the air.

  The title of the book made Leslie think about her own life and whether or not her husband was having an affair with his young assistant. And she thought about what she was going to be forced to do if she did face the issue of his affair. Was she going to have to leave him? Or was the proper thing to do to throw him out of the house he’d come to love as much as she did? Rebecca’s words that the family was going to lose everything because Leslie wouldn’t fight came back to her.

  Right now Leslie wished she’d stayed with the other women. At least listening to their problems made her forget her own. Or, if not forget, then at least shelve them for a while.

  Maybe it was selfish of her, but Leslie thought that her problems were worse than theirs. They weren’t bound by the chains of love. They were haunted by what had been done to them by two truly horrible men, but they weren’t still pinned to the men by that much-over-used word, love. Ellie certainly wasn’t still in love with her ex, nor was Madison.