“Sharing,” Thomas called after her. “People should share. The world would be a better place if people shared their toys.”
Madison’s laugh echoed off the overhanging rocks.
Eleven
“I like him,” Leslie said as she finished the last of the pizza.
Ellie was staring at the ceiling and thinking. “I could see how it would have been easier after the two of you acknowledged that you had the hots for each other,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yes,” Madison agreed as she lit another cigarette. “It did. But we also seemed to have made a rule between us that we weren’t to act on our inclinations.”
“That must have been difficult,” Leslie said, looking over her glass of cola at Madison. “I’d think that in a setting like that, alone as you were, that it would have been nearly impossible to keep your hands off each other.”
“Probably,” Madison said. “Actually, I don’t think we could have. If we’d stayed alone, that is. We spent that first night in the tent together, and I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t fallen asleep as soon as I closed my eyes. I’m sure I would have stayed awake all night lusting after Thomas.”
“I would have,” Ellie said. “But you fell asleep? What kind of heroine are you?”
“At that time I was a very tired one,” Madison said. “You can’t imagine what it was like nursing Roger around-the-clock.”
“I’ve had two kids,” Leslie said. “And my daughter—” She cut herself off. “Trust me, Roger couldn’t have been more demanding than Rebecca was—and is.”
“You said ‘if we’d stayed alone.’” Ellie said. “You didn’t?”
“No. The next morning we met some friends of Thomas’s on the river. His family had lived in the area for generations, so I should have expected that he knew everyone.” Madison stubbed out her cigarette. “But, you know, I think I had a better time when the others were around than Thomas and I would have had alone.”
“Right,” Ellie said.
“No, I mean it. What were Thomas and I to do? After just a few hours alone together we had trouble keeping our hands off each other, so did we go to bed together and later—if something emotional did happen between us—did we have adultery hanging over our heads?”
“Montana is in the U.S., isn’t it?” Ellie asked Leslie. “This whole country is in bed with everyone else, but you had a husband you couldn’t stand, you were alone with a man you were mad about, yet you worried about having sex with him.”
Looking at Ellie through a cloud of smoke, Madison said, “Now, tell me again how many times you were unfaithful to your husband? The one you couldn’t sta
nd?”
Ellie gave her a one-sided grin. “Okay. But I never—”
“If you say that you never looked like me, I’ll hit you with this ashtray,” Madison said seriously.
“Okay, point taken.”
“So what happened after you met Thomas’s friends?” Leslie asked, getting the two of them back on the story.
Madison took a while to answer as she thought back to those many years before. “Thomas and I sort of . . . well, we lied. When we saw the people in the other raft, they assumed that Thomas and I were ‘together,’ you know, a couple. I started to tell them that we weren’t, but Thomas stopped me. Later I thought about how it would have sounded if he’d told them that he was in the woods alone with another man’s wife. There would have been questions about my husband, and if I’d told them that Roger was recovering from having been run over by a car . . . well, it could have made Thomas and me look quite bad.”
“And Roger look great. I’ve been there,” Ellie said bitterly. “My ex-husband was a master at getting sympathy from people. I was working day and night to support him while he was out having lunch—at my expense, of course—whining that all he wanted was ‘a wife.’”
After Ellie finished this little tirade, the other two were looking at her in silence. “Sorry,” Ellie said. “Go on with your story.”
“But you’re next,” Madison said, pointing her cigarette at Ellie.
“No, I know my story. Leslie is next.”
“Would you two mind!” Leslie said. “What happened, Madison?”
“In a way, I guess you could say that for two days Thomas and I played house. Or at least we played at being part of the real world.” Madison took a breath, closed her eyes in memory for a moment, then opened them again. “My mother always said that I had no idea what a ‘normal’ relationship between a man and a woman was. She said that since she’d been a single mother, I hadn’t learned anything at home about men and women. Then Roger . . . Well, my mother never really liked him.”
“I can’t understand that, can you, Leslie?” Ellie asked sarcastically. “Tell me, Madison, if you had a daughter and she was dating a guy like Roger, the man you can see him as now that you’ve had some experience in the world, would you like him?”