The Summerhouse Read online

  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.