Smiling, Ellie looked at Leslie and thought, She’s a romantic. All the way through, she’s a romantic.
“More or less,” Ellie said, smiling. “My mom and I say we have to stick together against the boys.”
Madison was looking at Ellie intently. “There wasn’t one boy you were interested in? All the way through high school and college?”
“I’m not a, you-know-what, if that’s what you mean,” Ellie said. “I’ve been out on dates, but the men I liked physically couldn’t tell a Renoir from a Van Gogh. They thought Rubens played for the Dallas Cowboys. And the guys in the art department . . .” She raised her hands, palm up, and grimaced. “Half of them liked each other, and the other half looked like they’d never had a bath.”
Madison leaned back against the bench. “I can’t imagine not being with a man,” she said softly. “Maybe it was seeing how hard life was on my mother, but I grabbed on to Roger and never let go. Even when he broke up with me, I—” She broke off, then looked at the other two. “I asked him not to,” Madison said with a little smile, and again Ellie saw that pain in her eyes.
Ellie wanted to get Madison’s mind away from her past. “But now we’re here and all that’s behind us.” She turned from Leslie to Madison. “You got away from Alan, and you got away from Roger. And good riddance to both of them.”
“She’s going to be the first of us to fall for some man and leave her art behind,” Madison said solemnly. “Three years from now she’ll be living in a tiny house somewhere and have half a dozen kids.”
“If not more,” Leslie said.
“Ha!” Ellie said. “The only man who could win me is one who had a thousand times more talent than I do. So . . . Unless I meet the reincarnation of Michelangelo, I’m safe.”
“Wasn’t Michelangelo gay?” Madison said to Leslie.
“Or was he the crazy one who cut off his ear?” Leslie replied.
“Okay, okay, you two. You can give me all the grief you want, but now we’re on equal terms.”
“Wait a minute!” Leslie said. “Speaking of equal, isn’t today our birthday? I know it’s mine, and isn’t it—”
“Mine too,” Ellie said, and Madison echoed her.
“We have to have a cake,” Leslie said firmly.
“She’s going to make a great mother,” Ellie said to Madison, deadpan.
Leslie ignored them. “I’m going to ask little rat-fink Ira where the nearest bakery is, and I’m going to buy us a birthday cake.”
At that she got up, and the words that Ellie and Madison were about to say stopped on their lips, for to watch Leslie walk was to watch beauty in motion. She moved as though she were floating, the sheer skirt clinging to her long, shapely legs.
“Wow,” Ellie said under her breath when Leslie reached Ira’s window. “Wow.”
“Exactly,” Madison said, her eyes wide.
Leslie waved as she walked out the door; then Ellie and Madison were left alone. And when they were, they found that they hadn’t much to say to each other. For all that Leslie was the quietest of the three, there was something about her that enabled the three of them to talk. There was something warm, some easiness within Leslie that created an atmosphere that made it okay to reveal secrets.
The silence made Ellie nervous, but Madison just leaned back against the bench and closed her eyes. Ellie was all kinetic energy, while Madison seemed to have the patience of the ages.
When Ellie looked up a few minutes later and saw Leslie coming toward them with a white box, she was surprised. It certainly hadn’t taken her long.
“You’ll never believe this,” Leslie said as she sat down beside Ellie and opened the box. Inside was a small cake with fluffy white frosting; their names were written on the top in pink icing.
“That was fast,” Ellie said, looking up.
Leslie’s eyes were laughing. “There’s a bakery next door, and every day they make a cake for ‘Ira’s Girls.’”
Ellie blinked at her. “You mean us? We are now called ‘Ira’s Girls’?”
Leslie was laughing. “You were right, Madison; the little twerp chooses two to three young women every day and makes them sit here on this bench while he makes a thousand mistakes on their licenses so they have to wait. Since so many people go to the DMV on their birthdays, it seems that a lot of them come up with the idea of sharing a cake.”
“Does he get a kickback from the bakery?” Ellie asked. “And why does the City of New York let him get away with it?”
Leslie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “That’s what I asked them. Not about the kickback, but why he’s allowed to do it. See that little window up there?” she said, turning her head and looking up at the wall behind Ira.