Every Vow You Break(10)

She liked this guy. Or at least she liked the feeling of being with this guy. She liked his insistent questions, and his honesty. And she liked his sweater. It was a yellow cardigan with corduroy elbow patches. It smelled old, but in a nice way—mothballs and aftershave.

Tilting her head back, she stared across at the man. “You never told me your name. Remember, it was part of the deal. I tell you my entire sexual history and you tell me your name.”

“Maybe, at this point, we shouldn’t tell each other our names.”

“We could make them up,” Abigail said.

“Sure. How about I make up your name and you make up mine?” He tapped his cigarette, and ash dropped onto the patio.

She wondered if smoking was even allowed at this vineyard.

“Okay. You go first.”

“Um, I’ll call you Madeleine.”

Abigail thought about it for a moment. “I can live with that, I guess. Why Madeleine?”

“I don’t know. It just popped into my head, like it’s the name that you should have. I’ll call you Maddy for short. What’s my name?”

“Scottie,” Abigail said.

“Scottie? Why Scottie? It makes me sound like a dog.”

“It’s a movie reference,” Abigail said. “If I’m Madeleine, then you’re Scottie.”

The man pursed his lips, then said, “Vertigo.”

Abigail smiled. “Yes.”

“If I recall, that particular relationship didn’t end very well.”

“Look, you started this, Scottie, when you named me Madeleine, so don’t blame me.”

“You’re too young,” the man said, “to know about movies like Vertigo.”

Abigail took a long drag on her cigarette, her throat burning, then picked a shred of tobacco from her tongue. “My father gave me my movie education, and my mother gave me my book education. I was an only child, so I was also their project.”

“What are you going to do with all those skills after you get married?”

“Oh, let’s not talk about that right now.”

“Is that because it’s a boring subject or because you’re not going to work after you get married?”

“Why do you say that?”

The man stretched an arm above his head and rotated his wrist.

“Because your fiancé is rich.”

“Him being rich has nothing to do with whether I’ll keep working. And, no, it’s not the reason I’m marrying him, but it is a part of him that I find attractive. I won’t lie. It will be very nice to never have to think about money again, because, honestly, that’s all that my parents seemed to do before they separated, and I worry it’s wrecking them. You’re really overly concerned that I’m marrying the wrong guy.” During this short speech, another internal speech was going through Abigail’s head, one in which she told herself that she sounded haughty and defensive. She stared at the cigarette in her hand, realized it was making her dizzy, and flicked it into the fire.

“Point taken,” the man said. “I’m only overly concerned because of jealousy. But you’ve convinced me. He sounds like a catch. I just think that, knowing you for all of two hours, you’re an amazing person, and I don’t think you should sell yourself short for someone less than amazing. It is the rest of your life, after all.”

That phrase “the rest of your life” had actually been going through Abigail’s head a little bit during the course of the weekend, a thread of worry that Bruce’s overprotectiveness, his undying love for her, was going to wear thin over time.

The man stood up. “And with that final obnoxious comment I think I’m going to quit while I’m still ahead.” He dropped the cigarette onto the patio and ground it out under his foot. She thought he was going to leave it there, but he picked it up and put it in his jeans pocket.

Abigail stood as well. “It was only a little obnoxious.”

“If I have one more glass of wine, I’m going to beg you not to marry him, and to run away with me.”

Abigail laughed. “When it rains, it pours. Oh, your sweater.”

She pulled it off, the fabric crackling a little with static electricity, and handed it back to him. Then the man held out his hand, as if to shake hers, and said, “Madeleine, nice meeting you.”

She shook his hand and their eyes met, and a part of her took two steps back and watched this stranger and herself in their circle of firelight. It felt like watching the last spontaneous romantic moment of her life. There was a hitch in her breath, and for an awful moment she thought she was going to cry. “How about a hug?” she asked, and he pulled her in toward him, and because she was cold, she let the hug go on too long. He smelled of smoke, but not in a bad way.

Abigail thought: Don’t do it. Don’t kiss this man.

After they separated, he said, “Do you believe there are little pockets of time and space that exist outside of the rest of our lives? Like maybe this is one of them, and anything that happens right now doesn’t count? It will just be forgotten, a secret only between us.”

A phrase ran through Abigail’s head. One last fling. Rachel had said it to her earlier that evening, just after Abigail had first spotted the man in the flannel shirt across the U-shaped bar in the restaurant. Rachel had noticed her staring, and said, “One last fling?”