She wrote back: Fine. About to go to sleep. CU at breakfast?
There was a hotel right on the vineyard, twelve rooms, and that’s where the members of Abigail’s bachelorette party were staying. She had her own suite; Kyra was staying with Rachel, and Zoe was staying with her sister, Pam, who’d come down from Seattle.
“Why are you here, again?” Abigail asked, realizing as soon as she’d said it that she’d already asked him that question, maybe twice. She ran her tongue along her teeth, always a good test to see just how drunk she was.
“I’m at a ‘still a bachelor’ party for my friend Ron,” he said, making air quotes. “His engagement just broke off, and I’m here celebrating with him. He passed out about five hours ago.”
“Right. You told me that. And you’re from San Francisco and you’re an actor. See, I remember everything.”
“I’m an amateur actor, at a community theater, but I’m really a carpenter. That’s how I make my money.”
“Furniture-making,” Abigail said triumphantly.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Stick with that,” Abigail said. “There’s no future in the theater.”
She’d almost said furniture in the theater. She really was drunk.
“Why do you say that?”
“My parents ran a regional theater for twenty years, and it nearly broke them. It did break them, I mean … financially, for sure, and also emotionally. They went out of business two years ago and now they’ll be in debt for the rest of their lives. My father works at an AMC Theatre, and even though they still sort of live together, both of them tell me that they’re separating.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We’ll see if it takes,” Abigail said, aware that she sounded flippant, despite the fact she felt anything but. She’d been to her parents’ house recently, and they did seem to be living separate lives, her father having moved out, and her mother putting all her energy toward starting an art gallery with her best friend Patricia.
“But twenty years isn’t nothing. Running a business or being in a marriage. They did something they loved, or that I assume they loved, and they created art. It’s not … all about success or money.”
“No, it was never about money with them, but then it became all about the money, only because they didn’t have any. And maybe I’m just getting cynical, but I think of all those plays they produced each summer, and they’re just gone now, just some photographs and maybe a few hazy memories. It all added up to nothing. It makes me sad.”
“So, what do you do?”
“I’m in publishing, another dying industry.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I work for an independent press that primarily publishes poetry, so, in my case, it’s definitely dying.”
“Probably,” he said. Then added, “Are you a poetry fan?”
Abigail laughed, probably because of the construction of that phrase, as though poetry had fans in the same way that sports teams did, or television series. “I read poetry,” she said. “If that’s what you’re asking. And not just for my job.”
“Who do you read?”
Whom do you read, she said in her head. Out loud, she said, “Lately I’ve been into Jenny Zhang. But Poe is my favorite.”
The man looked upward, as though trying to remember something, then said, “‘For the moon never beams without making me dream of the beautiful Annabel Lee.’”
Abigail laughed. “Oh, look at you, quoting poetry in the firelight.”
She didn’t mention that he’d gotten the quote wrong.
“I got lucky. That’s one of the few poems I know.”
“Well, trust me. Any opportunity you get to quote a poem, you’ve got to take it these days. It’s a dying art.”
“Says the person who works at a poetry publisher.”
“I’m hanging on for dear life. It’s a good place to work, actually.”
The man smiled, more of a smirk. He really was handsome, despite the new agey bracelet and the whitened teeth. “When I asked you what you did for a living, I thought you were going to say you were a hedge fund manager or something, the way you talked about your parents.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, only that you seemed cynical about trying to make a living in the arts. I figured you’d have gone into something more stable.”