The Summerhouse Read online

  “Call them. Find them. You know their names and their birth dates. Get on the Internet and find them. No, better yet, give me their names and I will find them. You can have a party together, the three of you. Talk about old times.”

  Ellie gave her therapist a look of disgust. “One was a dancer with the most incredible body you’ve ever seen, and the other was a model.” What Ellie didn’t say was that she couldn’t possibly see them looking as she did now.

  Jeanne gave Ellie a hard look, then pulled a photo album off a shelf behind her and opened it. She passed the album to Ellie.

  Ellie looked at the picture but didn’t understand. It was a photo of a ballet dancer, tall, thin, graceful. Beautiful. It took Ellie minutes before she understood. She looked up at the therapist. “You?”

  “Me,” Jeanne said.

  Ellie gave her a weak smile. Jeanne was now in her sixties and had a body the shape of a potato.

  “A person is more than her body,” Jeanne said. “If they liked you then, they’ll like you now. And, besides, it’s been nineteen years. Have you seen either of these women’s faces or names plastered on billboards?”

  “No . . .” Ellie said softly.

  “Then obviously they didn’t make careers out of dancing and modeling. So who’s to say what they look like now? Maybe they’ve put on a hundred pounds and—”

  “And married the town drunk,” Ellie said, visibly cheering up.

  “Yes,” Jeanne said, smiling. “Think on the bright side. Maybe worse things have happened to them than have happened to you.”

  Ellie thought about that for a moment. “Maybe . . .” she said.

  Jeanne sat there looking at Ellie for a moment; then she pushed the button on her telephone. “Sarah, cancel my luncheon date.” She then turned to her laptop on her desk and opened it. “Ellie, my dear, you and I are going to get on the Net and see what we can find out about these women; then you’re going to invite them to spend your birthday with you.”

  “Is a therapist supposed to be this controlling?”

  “She is when she cares about her clients as much as I care about you. And, besides, I want to read more about Jordan Neale. Hey! I tell you what, you can have my house in Maine for that weekend. There are only two bedrooms, but there’s a sofa bed in the living room, so one of you can use that. Now, what were their names?”

  And that was how Ellie came to be sitting on a plane that was flying toward Bangor, Maine, and why two women she hadn’t seen in nineteen years were going to meet her and the three of them were going to spend their collective birthday together.

  But now that she was actually on the plane and was, eventually, going to land—but, given her luck of the last three years, maybe they wouldn’t land. No! Jeanne had made Ellie take an oath that for one whole weekend she was going to do her best not to be negative.

  Anyway, now that she was actually flying toward the meeting, she couldn’t believe she’d allowed Jeanne to bully her into it. Ellie was sure that the other women were both divinely happy and that she was the only one with a sob story for her life.

  I must stop. I must stop, Ellie chanted to herself. I must force myself to look at the positive and not the negative. If nothing else, doing that will make people stop telling me that idiot story about the half-full and half-empty glass of water, she thought, then told herself to cut out the sarcasm.

  Think of something good, she thought. Think happy thoughts. Think . . .

  Leaning back against the seat, she closed her eyes. Legs and Face, she thought, then smiled in remembrance. “And I was . . .” she whispered aloud, smiling broadly.

  The plane engine seemed to make a cocoon of sound, so that Ellie could hear nothing else but the roar. In the background she could hear a man with a monotone voice droning on and on and on. Glad I’m not married to him! Ellie thought as she began to visualize the first time she’d met the two women.

  It had all started with that nerdy little man at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, Ellie thought with a smile. And she’d never forget his name: Ira Girvin. His name was on a little badge on his chest and it was right at Ellie’s eye level, and considering how short Ellie was, that meant he couldn’t have been more than about five feet four.

  “Sit over there and wait,” the little man said to Ellie, and she could see that he loved having the power to make people wait.

  With a fake smile, she took the forms from under the cage and turned around. There were some people standing between her and the bench along the wall, but when they moved, Ellie saw them. Sitting at opposite ends of a short green bench, looking in opposite directions from each other, were two of the most extraordinary women Ellie had ever seen.

  The one on the left had on a black leotard with a long dark green silk skirt clinging to her legs. With her dark auburn hair pulled tightly back in a knot, she looked as if she was probably a dancer, just off the exercise floor, and she had a body that any sensible woman on earth would kill to have. She was like an illustration of what the human body can look like.

  She had a pretty face, and her long neck curved gracefully down to wide, strong shoulders, then small breasts atop a stomach that looked as though it could flip coins over. Slim, strong hips topped legs that had to be seen to be believed: long, muscular, graceful. Even the way the woman was sitting was as though it had been choreographed, with elegant feet pointed, her hands in liquid repose.

  Astonishing woman! Ellie thought; then she dragged her eyes away to look at the other woman. While the one in the leotard was graceful, this one was beautiful, so beautiful, in fact, that Ellie had to blink a couple of times to be sure she was seeing correctly. The woman was at least six feet tall and she was quite thin, but thin in a way that made you want to look like her. And she was beautiful. No, there had to be a term that didn’t sound so run-of-the-mill. There were lots of women who were beautiful, but this one was . . . was . . . Well, she was perfection.

  She was wearing a simple little summer dress, something with ruffles down the front of it, something that had probably been bought in some tiny Midwestern town and would usually have looked out of place in sophisticated New York. But this woman made the dress look like couture. There was something about her that made that plain, ordinary dress look as though it were grateful to be worn by this divine creature.

  The woman had long, dark blonde hair that fell silkily down her back in big waves. Her face . . . Her face was that of a goddess, Ellie thought as she gaped at the woman. She had high cheekbones, a perfect nose, full lips. Her eyes were almond shaped, with thick black lashes set under brows that were perfect arches. Flawless skin, perfect hands and nails, and encased in little sandals were feet that looked like something off a marble statue.

  For a moment Ellie just stood there looking from one woman to the other. Then, slowly, she turned back to Mr. Nerd, Ira, her eyebrows raised in question, as though to say, Are they for real?

  Ira gave her a little shrug and a smile, then nodded his head toward them as though to tell Ellie she was to take her place between those two.

  Slowly, Ellie walked toward the bench. The two young women had their backs to her and paid no attention when she sat down between them. Ellie tried to place the form on her knee without touching either of the two gorgeous creatures, but it wasn’t easy. She twisted and turned but couldn’t seem to find a way to sit and write at the same time. When she did manage to squeeze herself in tightly and raise her knee to use as a desk, the cheap pen she had wouldn’t write.

  For a moment Ellie raised her eyes skyward. Why, oh why, hadn’t she renewed her driver’s license before she’d left home? But today was her twenty-first birthday and if she didn’t renew her license today, it would expire. It wasn’t as though she were going to need a driver’s license in New York, but if she should ever make it as the world’s greatest painter, she might need to be able to drive, and who wanted to have to take that test over again?

  She looked up at the counter where Ira was marking othe
r people’s applications. If she went to him, she was sure he’d tell her that the New York DMV was not a free-pen-lending institution.

  “Excuse me,” Ellie said weakly to the two backs on either side of her, “but do either of you have a pen I could borrow?”

  There was no reply from either of the backs. “Great,” she said under her breath. “What did I expect, brains behind the beauty?”

  She hadn’t expected anyone to hear her. She’d grown up in a small house with four older brothers, all of whom seemed to be in a permanent contest to see who could make the most noise. Ellie’s only defense against them had been to make snide remarks under her breath. It had always been an exciting game because if any of her brothers happened to hear one of Ellie’s biting little remarks, she’d get an Indian head rub, a twisted-skin-arm, anything her jock brothers could come up with.

  But the women beside her did hear, and it took Ellie a few seconds to realize that they were laughing. She could see ripples in the muscles of the dancer’s back, and the ruffles around the neck of the other one seemed to move in a nonexistent breeze.

  With her head down, Ellie smiled. “Can either of you read?” she said in a tiny voice. Slowly, Ellie felt the dancer turn and when Ellie looked up, the dancer was smiling mischievously.

  “I can read a bit,” she said, smiling, her eyes laughing.

  Ellie smiled back. It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out, Where did you get that body of yours and can I buy one too? but she restrained herself. Before she’d left for New York, her mother had had one of her little talks with her daughter about keeping her mouth shut and thinking before she spoke.

  But before Ellie could say a word, she felt The Gorgeous One on the other side of her turning. The dancer’s head lifted as she looked over Ellie to the blonde creature beside her. When Ellie turned, her breath stopped.

  Was it possible that the woman could be more beautiful up close than from across the room? She didn’t wear any makeup, yet her skin was what makeup was all about. People paid millions to try to get that perfect, creamy texture to their skin, that delicate blush, that—

  Suddenly, the girl smiled, a huge, radiant smile—and Ellie’s eyes opened wide in shock. One of her front teeth was missing! There was a great black hole where her front tooth should have been. That this perfect woman should have such a flaw was . . .

  “Cain’t read. Cain’t write,” the beauty said in a hillbilly accent, then grinned broadly.

  While Ellie was still in shock, she heard the laughter of the dancer seated behind her.

  “Madison Appleby,” said the beautiful thing; then she stretched her hand around Ellie to shake the dancer’s hand.

  Ellie knew that something was going on that she wasn’t in on, but she hadn’t yet caught on.

  The beauty looked down at Ellie, then extended her hand. “Madison Appleby,” she said, but Ellie didn’t move.

  Then, bending, the beauty took something out of her mouth, and smiled at Ellie.

  It was then that Ellie realized that the tall woman had stuck what looked like a black eraser cap over her front tooth to make it look as though one tooth was missing. And, Ellie, ever gullible, hadn’t caught on as fast as the dancer. But when Ellie did understand, she smiled—and she liked the woman instantly. That someone as beautiful as this woman was could make fun of her own pulchritude made her Ellie’s kind of person.

  She shook the woman’s hand. “Too bad about the tooth,” Ellie said, smiling. “But I think everyone should have a flaw.”

  “Brainlessness isn’t a flaw?” Madison asked, eyes laughing.

  “I thought we were just penless,” the dancer said from behind Ellie.

  “Penless and Brainless,” Madison said. “Maybe we should go on the road.”

  Between them, Ellie sat blinking. Usually she was the one making the jokes, but they were beating her. “How about Legs and Face?” Ellie said.

  “And what would you be?” Madison shot back, looking down her perfect nose at Ellie.

  “Talent,” Ellie answered instantly; then the three of them laughed together.

  And that’s how we felt about ourselves, Ellie thought as she snuggled deeper into the airplane seat. She’d pulled the shade down and had propped a pillow against the window so she could close her eyes and give herself over to the memory of that day when she’d first met Madison and Leslie.

  After the dancer had lent her a pen, Ellie had filled out her form and taken it to Ira. “So what brings you two to New York?” Ellie asked when she’d returned to the bench. “Street cleaning?”

  Leslie smiled. “Broadway lights,” she said dreamily. “I left the boy back home at the altar.” After she said the last, her eyes opened wide in shock. “I don’t mean I really left him at the altar, but . . . but it was close enough that I know that it was a dreadful thing for me to do.” She sounded as though she were saying a memorized speech.

  “And you look sorry that you did it,” Madison said solemnly, then the three of them laughed again. “Small town?”

  “Suburb just outside Columbus, Ohio,” Leslie said. “And you?”

  “Erskine, Montana. Ever hear of it?”

  Ellie and Leslie shook their heads no.

  Ellie looked up at Madison. “Should I assume that we’ll be seeing your face on the cover of magazines?”

  “I just got here yesterday, so I haven’t had time to do much of anything. I’m to go today and present my photos and—”

  “Do you have them with you? Could we see them?” Ellie asked eagerly.

  “I guess,” Madison said without much enthusiasm, then she bent down and picked up a large, flat, black plastic zip-around notebook and handed it to Ellie.

  Eagerly, Ellie unzipped the portfolio and opened it, Leslie peering over her shoulder. There were about a dozen photos of Madison, tastefully made up, her hair neat and tidy. There were head shots and a couple of full-length pictures, all of them perfectly composed and perfectly lit. On the side of each photo was the name of a photographer in Erskine, Montana.

  “You’re prettier than this,” Ellie said, frowning as she closed the portfolio. She wasn’t going to say so, but they were a spectacularly boring set of photos.

  Madison just shrugged and looked ahead to where Ira was still stamping people’s papers.

  While they sat there, Ellie became aware of people looking at them. They would come in the entrance door, do a double take, look away, then look back again. Or they’d just plain stop and stare until someone jostled them and made them come out of their stupor and move.

  “I’m beginning to feel like I should charge people for looking at you two.”

  “‘Two?’” Leslie asked, looking at Ellie in astonishment. “I think you mean three.”

  “Right,” Ellie said sarcastically. “I must look like a gnome between you two.” Now that Ellie was growing just a tiny bit used to the beauty of Madison, she realized that there was a calmness about the young woman that made her feel good.

  “Don’t you realize what that little man has done?” Madison asked.

  “Who?” Leslie asked.

  “You mean Ira?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes, him.” Ira glanced up just as Madison looked at him, and for a moment he paused, his hand raised mid-stamp. “He put us here so he could look at us.”

  Ellie gave a little laugh. “You two for sure, but not me.” She expected the two of them to agree, but they didn’t.

  Madison looked down at Ellie in that cool way that Ellie was already becoming used to. “But you’re lovely. Sort of like Goldie Hawn, that kind of soft, adorable loveliness.”

  Ellie blinked for a moment. Having grown up with four older brothers, she hadn’t received many compliments in her life. Mostly her brothers had told her she was a pest and to go away or they’d make her sorry. “Me?” she finally said. Madison just looked at her, so Ellie turned to Leslie.

  “I believe the saying is, Cute as a speckled puppy,” Leslie said, smiling.

 
; “Hmmm,” Ellie said, thinking about this. “But cute doesn’t last. Can you imagine what Goldie Hawn will look like when she’s fifty?”

  Madison was looking at Ira again. “My guess is that he’s going to keep us here awhile. And I’ll bet that he stations women here every day.”

  Ellie started to say something, but at that moment Ira motioned for her to come forward. He was holding up three driver’s licenses. In a way, Ellie was glad that Madison was wrong, but she felt some regret that she couldn’t spend more time with these women. She knew no one in New York, and she was beginning to feel a kinship with these women, as all of them were starting a new life.

  And, besides, she would really like to hear Leslie’s story about leaving a man at the altar. If she loved anything in the world, it was a good story. Ellie felt that Madison’s story was written on her face, but obviously, Leslie had worked long and hard to get that body of hers.

  Ellie was the first to get up. “I’ll get them,” she said, then went to the cage, took all three licenses from Ira, then turned back to the bench. Leslie had a sweater over her arm and a huge black cloth bag, in preparation for leaving with her new license. But Madison hadn’t moved an inch, just sat there looking at Ellie.

  “Here we go,” Ellie said as she looked down at the licenses. The one on top was Madison’s. Even her driver’s license photo was gorgeous.

  But as she handed it to her, Madison said, “Check it.”

  “What?”

  “Check the license. Make sure it says what it should.”

  “Okay,” Ellie said slowly, looking at Madison as though she were a bit off her rocker. “Madison Aimes, born October the ninth, 1960. We have the same birthday.”

  “I have the same birthday too, but not the same last name,” Leslie said. “Aimes is my name.”

  At that Ellie looked down at the licenses and saw that the three names were mixed up. Hers said, “Ellie Appleby,” and Leslie’s read, “Leslie Abbott.”

  Ellie looked at Madison with wide eyes. “How did you know?”

  Madison shrugged. “Happens to me all the time. Any delay, any excuse to keep you there,” she said, then looked away.