The Summerhouse Read online

  “Sounds easy enough,” Leslie said, “as long as no one will be judging me.”

  “No one,” Millie said, smiling. “Unless you enjoy it enough that you want to share lessons with me. It would be nice to have someone to encourage me.”

  “I think it might have to be the other way around,” Leslie said; then taking the pad of paper, Leslie put it on her lap, eschewing the easel, dipped her brush into the water, then dabbed it into the red paint. In front of them was a girl in a red bikini, and a boy in baggy blue trunks was trying to grab her to throw her into the pool.

  In spite of Millie’s statement that she wanted to spend time with Leslie to get to know her, once the paints were wet, she gave her attention to the paper. And Leslie saw immediately that for all Millie’s protests that she wasn’t any good, she was able to capture the bathers in a few quick brushstrokes. And while she was working, Millie didn’t say a word.

  Following her lead, Leslie gave her hands over to the paints and her mind over to the thoughts that raced through her head. She liked Hal, liked him much more than she’d ever thought she would. In the many articles that she’d read over the years she’d guessed that he was good at keeping his inner core hidden from the world.

  She could love him, she thought as she whipped her brush across the page, trying to copy what she saw as the boys and girls—as she thought of them—splashed about in the pool.

  She could love him, and she felt that he was already half in love with her. And with that age-old instinct that women have, she knew that, if she wanted him, she could have him. But what would her life with him be like? It’s one thing to joke about being First Lady, but she knew that in twenty years he would be close to attaining the presidency. She didn’t know if he’d get it or not, but he had a good chance.

  And if she took that road, then she wouldn’t have her life with Alan and Rebecca and Joe. She’d have different children, as well as a different husband.

  But the psychic had said that they could choose to forget their lives that they’d had. Leslie could choose to have a life with Hal and not remember the family she had now. She could forget all about having gone to New York to try to be a dancer and having failed, that thing that had hung over her all her life. She could forget that she’d spent a lifetime feeling guilty about having run away from a wedding with her childhood sweetheart. And she could forget her daughter, Rebecca, who was always complaining that her mother was a wimp. And Leslie could forget her son, Joe, who hid from any controversy, who was like his mother and would do most anything for peace and quiet.

  But what kind of life would Leslie have with Hal? Riches beyond her wildest imagination. She wouldn’t have to paint a house herself. And she wouldn’t have to put up with Hal filling her house with untouchable antiques. No, they’d hire a decorator who would . . .

  “Fill the house with untouchable antiques,” Leslie muttered to herself as she cut the brush across the paper, then tore the sheet off and dropped it onto the stone terrace; then she started on a clean sheet. She was unaware that Millie was watching her with interest. No, Leslie was in her own world, trying to make the biggest decision of her life—and the paintbrush in her hand was an extension of what was in her mind.

  “There he is now,” Millie said, at last breaking Leslie’s trance.

  When Leslie looked up, she was surprised to see that Millie had closed her paint box and was now sipping iced tea and munching one of the little sandwiches from a tray sitting next to her. When had someone brought the food? Also, there were half a dozen girls standing around in their swimsuits, giving glances at Leslie and whispering.

  When she looked at her watch, she saw that she’d been sitting in one spot for three hours. Beside her, on the stone terrace, was a wide spread of her watercolors. Someone had moved them from being piled on top of each other and had fanned them out across the stones and the surrounding lawn.

  Leslie was embarrassed at having been in such deep thought that she had forgotten where she was. “I lost track of time,” she said, smiling a bit. Why in the world were those girls whispering and looking at her? It was on the tip of her tongue to tell them that they were being rude, but she didn’t want to sound like the mother she was.

  “That’s quite all right,” Millie said. “In fact, here’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Leslie looked up to see a tall man with gray hair and dark blue eyes approach them, and, judging from the way he looked at Millie, Leslie thought that he was in love with her. Was some family secret about to be revealed to her?

  “Leslie, dear,” Millie said, “I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Geoffrey Marsdon.”

  Politely, Leslie held out her hand to shake his, but he didn’t shake her hand. Instead, he walked behind Leslie and picked up one of the watercolors she’d just done.

  “Where have you studied?” he asked.

  These people are so polite, Leslie thought. “At my father’s construction business,” she said, joking.

  But Mr. Marsdon didn’t smile in return. “Give me three days of your life and I’ll tell you what you have.”

  At first Leslie had no idea what he was talking about, but Millie was smiling at her. “He knows what he’s talking about. Those paintings of yours are quite good.”

  Leslie looked at Mr. Marsdon. “Raw. Crude, of course, but there’s talent there,” he said, picking up another painting and squinting at it.

  “Raw?” Millie said. “Come on, Geoffrey, dear, you just asked where she’d trained.”

  “Do you think that I could . . . do something with . . . that I have . . .” Leslie said hesitantly.

  Before Mr. Marsdon could reply, Millie said, “Geoffrey, dear, why don’t you stay in the blue room, I know how you love it, and why don’t you spend the rest of the week here with us? Maybe you and Leslie could work together and she could find out if she actually has talent or if today’s paintings are just a fluke.”

  “What a gracious offer, Millicent,” Geoffrey said. “And I accept.”

  They then both turned to look at Leslie.

  “If you agree, that is,” Millie said.

  Leslie took a deep breath because she had an idea that the answer to this question was going to change her life forever. “Yes, I’d like that,” she said at last. “I think I’d like to find out if there’s more to me than just joining committees.”

  This answer seemed to puzzle Millie, but she smiled anyway. “And what about your dancing?”

  “My jumps aren’t high enough, and my—Well, let’s just say that Broadway is safe.”

  Millie took Leslie’s arm in hers. “Painting is much more . . . well, usable anyway.”

  Leslie knew that she meant that in a woman’s true profession of being a wife and mother, painting was more “genteel” than leaping about in front of people wearing little clothing. And privately, Leslie thought that painting would be something she could do while spending her days on the campaign trail.

  “All right,” Leslie said, “when do I start?”

  Part Three

  Twenty-seven

  The three women were standing in Madame Zoya’s little room, and each of them was dizzy from the quick change in time. But Madame Zoya’s smiling face steadied them as they looked at her.

  “And what have you decided?” she asked, looking at Leslie.

  But Leslie was too disoriented to reply; she could only blink at the woman.

  “I want the new life,” Ellie said because her writer’s mind knew what the psychic was asking. It was a question that she’d thought about a great deal in the last weeks. “But I want to remember everything. I don’t want to forget what happened to me in the past.” Her voice lowered and she gave a bit of a smile. “Or what was done for me.”

  Madame Zoya nodded, then looked at Leslie again. “And you?”

  “I want the life I have,” she said softly, “but I, too, want to remember it all. There is something I need to remember.”

  “A man,” Ellie said, smili