Every Vow You Break(2)

Twelve hours later there was no reply.

She told herself that was the last she’d hear from the stranger she’d slept with on her bachelorette weekend.



“How many men have you slept with?”

“Excuse me?” she said. “That’s none of your business.”

“But it’s part of what we’re talking about, right?” he asked, leaning back slightly, reaching for his glass of wine.

They’d been talking about marriage, or, more specifically, Abigail’s upcoming marriage—three weeks away, exactly—and how she could only admit to being ninety-nine percent sure —“ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine, really”—that she was doing the right thing.

“It’s not necessarily part of what we’re talking about,” she said, reaching for her own glass of wine, even though it was empty. He picked up the bottle to refill it.

“Well, that’s like saying that sex isn’t part of marriage,” he said.

“Have you met my parents?” she said. It was more of a joke than an actual observation. Her parents were separated; their version of a separation, anyway, which meant that her dad had moved into the small studio apartment above the garage.

“My guess is you have very little idea about what your parents get up to, or don’t get up to, in the bedroom.”

He’d filled her glass too high, but the wine—a Pinot Noir—was delicious, and she took a long swallow. Slow down, she told herself, although she was also telling herself that it was a bachelorette party (it was her bachelorette party) and even though all her friends had disappeared somewhere in the haze of the previous hours, she was still entitled to drink some wine with the blue-eyed bearded guy wearing the vintage flannel shirt and the wedding ring. He was very Californian, she thought, with his bright white teeth, and some kind of braided leather bracelet with a green stone pendant, but she wasn’t holding that against him. They were in California, after all, on a terraced patio surrounded by an olive grove. Abigail moved her Adirondack chair a little closer to the dying fire.

“That’s probably for the best,” she said.

“What is?”

“Not knowing what my parents get up to in the bedroom.”

The man said, “That’s a good idea.” Abigail didn’t know exactly what he was talking about but then he stood, lifted his own chair, and moved it closer to the firepit. “We’re the only ones left out here,” he said.

“You’re just noticing that now?” she said.

“I can’t take my eyes off of you,” he said, but in a mocking tone.

“I don’t even know your name, do I?” Abigail said, worried, as soon as she’d said it, that he’d already told her.

“If I tell you, will you answer a question?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You already know the question.”

“How many men have I slept with?”

“Right. How many men have you slept with?”





CHAPTER 2

Abigail Baskin lost her virginity to a visiting actor at her parents’

summer theater in Boxgrove, a small town in western Massachusetts. She was seventeen years old, and the actor said that he was twenty-two. A few years later, however, she’d looked him up on IMDb after he’d gotten a couple of small roles on television, and discovered that he’d probably been closer to twenty-six. Not that it mattered much. She’d been ready, and he’d been beautiful.

In fact, the moment that she’d seen him she knew that her longtime plans to lose her virginity to Todd Heron were out the window. She and Todd had been together since they were both fourteen years old, and Abigail had read enough adult contemporary fiction to know that Todd and she had already settled into a teenage version of a passionless marriage. They were best friends, made each other laugh, and had steadily progressed from a year of kissing to the occasional bout of sexual activity that included the proverbial “everything but.” These bouts usually ended in a conversation in which both parties agreed that the timing wasn’t right, or that the location, usually Todd’s parents’

semifinished basement, wasn’t, or that it wasn’t romantic enough.

They began to plan scenarios in which they could each lose their virginity in an actual bed, and with the opportunity to fall asleep together afterward, no parents around. But Todd’s parents, his dad the chief of Boxgrove’s rarely used fire department, his mom a bookkeeper at the Congregational church, were never not around.

And Abigail’s parents, who ran the Boxgrove Summer Theatre, were always around as well, working constantly, even during the months when there were no productions. They said they didn’t have the time to travel, but Abigail had begun to suspect that they also didn’t have the money.

The summer that Abigail turned seventeen she and Todd had resigned themselves to the status quo, Todd working long hours— early mornings—at the local golf course, and Abigail working long hours—the evening ones—as a hostess at the Boxgrove Inn. Their relationship became a series of texts in the rare hours they were both free. And when Abigail wasn’t hostessing, she was helping out, as she always did, at her parents’ theater. Lawrence and Amelia Baskin were putting on five productions that summer, up from their usual three, including a revival of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap.