Every Vow You Break(9)

The bachelorette party was his idea. He was having his own bachelor party back in California, flying all his friends to an island in the Puget Sound. (“This place run by Chip Ramsay. You’ll meet him—he’s legendary.”) “Legendary” and “life-changing” were two of Bruce’s favorite adjectives, a fault she chalked up to too many years on the West Coast. Abigail told him that she thought she’d just have a night out with friends in New York for her bachelorette party, but he told her they should do a weekend away, and he offered to pay, of course. She mentioned that she’d always wanted to go to Northern California, and an hour of web-browsing later he’d found the perfect place, Piety Hills, a Spanish-style vineyard that boasted its own hotel and restaurant. He booked it, and paid for the rooms, although she talked him into getting just three rooms for the five of them. “We can share,” she’d said.

She was grateful, plus a little bit annoyed, that he’d gotten so involved with the planning. And she was equally annoyed when they arrived at Piety Hills and were told that there would be a special dinner for all of them—a seven-course meal—in the wine cellar, already paid for. It was generous, and sweet, but it wasn’t what she had pictured, exactly, for her bachelorette night. She told her friends this during dinner.

“I don’t know, Ab,” Zoe said. “This is pretty amazing.”

“I guess I was just picturing us all in the bar upstairs, getting a little rowdy.”

“We can do that after dinner,” Zoe’s sister, Pam, said. “They’re open late.”

“Okay. I feel better. It’s just that sometimes Bruce is … too attentive, I guess.”

“Yeah, that must suck.”

“I know, I know. I’m not complaining.”

After dinner they all did go to the bar, drinking several more bottles of the amazing wine, and eventually spilling out onto the patio area, with its firepit and a sky full of stars. Abigail, who’d been tired earlier, found herself fairly drunk and wide awake by midnight, then time suddenly sped up and her friends had disappeared one by one, and the fire was dying down, and she was wearing a stranger’s sweater.





CHAPTER 5

Frankly,” she said, staring at the half inch of wine at the bottom of her glass, “it’s getting a little creepy how much you seem to care about my sex life.”

The man held up both hands. “Okay, I’ll stop. I am being creepy. I just … you seem a little hesitant about this impending marriage, and as someone who’s not in a particularly happy marriage myself, I guess I’m projecting a little.”

“Because you wished you’d slept with more women when you were single.”

“I’ve slept with plenty of women. I think my problem was that I hadn’t been in a serious emotional relationship with another person before I got married. I don’t think either of us had been.

And when we couldn’t have kids, it just took too much out of us, and now it just feels joyless.”

“Do you think you’ll get divorced?”

“Probably. I think she’s already involved with someone else, this guy she works with, although I’m guessing it’s more of an emotional affair right now. Honestly, when I think about it, I worry more about who’s going to get the dog. And I worry about my parents, because they both love her, love my wife. More than me, I think.”

“But if you’re not happy …”

“Right,” he said, straightening his back but staying seated.

“Enough about this, though. Let’s get back to you.” He held up his glass. “To the bride-to-be. May you have better luck than the rest of us.”

Abigail took the last sip of her wine. “Your hand is trembling,”

she said. “Are you cold?”

“I’m fucking freezing to death,” he said, smiling.

“Oh my God. Take your sweater back.”

He reached across and placed his hand on Abigail’s arm to stop her from taking the sweater off. “No, then you’ll be cold.”

“Let’s go inside, then.”

“I’d rather stay cold. If we get up and go inside, you’re suddenly going to realize how late it is, and how tired you are, and then you’re going to go to your room and I’ll never see you again.”

“How late is it?” Abigail asked, looking at her wrist where she normally wore her Fitbit before realizing she’d taken it off for the night.

“I’m not telling you,” the man said, digging into the front pocket of his pants, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He extracted one, putting it between his lips, and said, “I hope you don’t mind. I limit myself to one a day, usually around this time of night.”

“How do you do that? I only smoked in college, but I was up to a pack a day in less than a month.”

“You want one now?” He held out the blue pack of cigarettes, a French brand, and Abigail took one.

“Why not?” she said.

“They’re unfiltered, so go easy. I figure if I’m only going to have one a day it might as well pack a punch.”

He lit her cigarette first, then his, using matches that had been tucked inside the pack.

Abigail slid back along her seat and blew a plume of smoke into the night. The taste of smoke in her mouth made her feel younger than she was, younger and drunker. The whole evening was reminding her of something, and she realized that it felt like that first night she’d spent with Ben Perez in college, like she’d met a stranger and suddenly anything was possible. And even though she didn’t want to admit it, she didn’t want the night to end, either.