“No, I’m just worried, I guess.”
“What are you worried about? She’s on her honeymoon, too.
She’s probably just spending the day inside with Alec.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Abigail’s main course was a vegetable tart, now all gone, and she was nervously scraping up the remnants with her fork.
“And don’t forget. They’ll bring you your dinner to your room if you want. That’s probably what they did.”
“Right,” Abigail said. “That’s probably what they did.”
Abigail saw Eric Newman in the dining room, eating by himself at one of the corner tables. He’d brought a book with him, and there was something pathetic about the way he was sitting alone at the table, the book propped open in front of him, but with his eyes nervously scanning the room. After their encounter on the beach Abigail felt a little better about the possibility that he would simply stop bothering her. He clearly hadn’t been prepared for being called by his real name, or for being questioned about his wife. Maybe he really was just a pathetic delusional man who believed that he’d found his soul mate. Maybe, by challenging him the way she had, Abigail had destroyed some of his illusions about her.
“I’m tired tonight,” Abigail said as they ate their dessert. She didn’t want to linger in the hall after dinner, even though she was still hoping to see Jill and find out what had caused her to miss their swimming date.
“Me, too. Straight to the bunk after this?”
“That would be nice.”
The air was cool as they made their way down the sloping lawn toward their bunk, holding their fake lanterns. When they were near their door something rattled in a nearby shrub and Abigail jumped.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Probably a raccoon, or maybe a fox,” Bruce said. He approached the shrub and they both heard something slink away.
“It’s strange to think there are animals on this island,” Abigail said as she entered the bunk.
“Why?”
“Because they’d be stuck here. I mean, how’d they even get here in the first place? Birds I understand, because they can fly away, but where did the foxes come from?”
“They came from other foxes. Do you need me to explain it to you?”
Inside the bunk the fire had been lit. Abigail went to the hidden refrigerator and pulled out a wine-sized bottle that turned out to be a beer called King Titus. “Wanna split this?” she asked.
“Sure,” Bruce said, and they drank the dark beer together on the couch near the fire, playing a game of backgammon. It was the closest to normal Abigail had felt since before Eric Newman had approached her in the lodge two nights earlier. After playing four games, and each winning twice, they agreed to go to bed, even though it felt early.
Bruce fell asleep first, curled up in the fetal position, breathing deeply. Abigail lay naked under the covers, still awake, thinking about everything that had happened over the past few days. The fire was dying, but it still cast soft flutters of light across the walls and ceiling, and the occasional crackle broke up the oppressive silence of the bunk. She closed her eyes but found she wasn’t tired. She had a trick when she wasn’t sleepy. She didn’t count sheep, but she did count all the productions she could remember from Boxgrove Theatre’s history. It almost always worked. The first play she usually thought of was Deathtrap, then she went through the rest of that entire season: The Merchant of Venice, Blithe Spirit, Conviction, an early play by Eve Ensler, and there was one more that Abigail couldn’t remember. She knew it wasn’t another Shakespeare—they only ever did one Shakespeare over the summer—then she remembered that they’d actually done Into the Woods, a rare, and unsuccessful, foray into musical theater, or at least that’s what her parents had concluded.
Abigail went back over several other seasons, then began to tire, and just as she was on the edge of slipping into sleep, she heard what sounded like a branch scraping against the window. It stopped, and she wondered if she’d been dreaming it, but just as she was about to fall asleep again, it started up.
She slid out of the bed, pulled on her nightgown, which had been bunched up on the floor, then pulled her robe from the back of the chair. The fire had died out entirely and the bunk was cold and dark. She went to the window that faced the open lawn in front of the lodge and peered out. She didn’t immediately see anything and wondered if it really had been a branch moving in the wind, when she noticed a figure crouched in one of the low shrubs that ringed the bunk. She caught a glimpse of blond hair and pale skin, and realized it was Jill, hunkered down, squatting. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky and Abigail could see the fear in her face, the wide eyes and set jaw. Abigail waved to her before realizing that she wouldn’t be able to see through the window, then went to the front door and opened it as quietly as she could. It was windy outside, and her robe flapped open as she stepped onto the threshold. She pulled the door closed behind her.