the city actually came up in order to review the play; “A Revival in the Berkshires Warrants the Drive” was the headline.
Halfway through the production Abigail was sitting on her front porch, in the swinging chair, rereading Red Dragon, when Zachary wandered by along the sidewalk. She checked her phone, realizing it was later than she thought, and shouted out a hello that made him turn in obvious surprise. At least he wasn’t purposefully walking by my house in hopes of seeing me, she thought, as she came down the front porch steps. Although why that would make a difference, she didn’t know. They walked together at least two miles that night, the night getting cooler, Zachary talking about all the parts he’d almost gotten in TV shows and commercials. When he dropped her off, Abigail swung quickly into his arms and kissed him. He kissed back, and with his arms lifted her almost entirely off her feet.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“I do,” Abigail said, and half ran to her front door, not wanting to give him a chance to talk them out of what was happening.
The wrap party, like all of Boxgrove’s wrap parties, was held in the basement tavern at the Boxgrove Inn. Abigail got there early to help Marie, the bartender, set up the platters of snacks, and in return, Marie poured Abigail what looked like just a Sprite, but with vodka in it. The night before, after the second-to-last performance, Zachary and Abigail had fooled around once again, in his dressing room. At one point, Abigail thought they were going to have sex, and she broached the topic of condoms.
“You want to do this right here, right now, in my dressing room?” he’d asked. He already knew Abigail was a virgin because they’d discussed it.
“I don’t care where we do it, I just want it to be with you,” Abigail said.
“Let’s talk just a little bit more about this, okay?” Zachary said. “Are you a hundred percent sure? I’m going back to New York in three days, and you and I—”
“You want written consent?” Abigail said, and laughed. Sexual harassment was all over the news, and she appreciated Zachary wanting to make sure, but she was ready.
“I’m considering it,” he said, but laughed as well.
After the wrap party Abigail had been planning on going home with her parents, then doubling back to meet Zachary in his room at the inn, but both her parents had left the party on the early side. “I’m exhausted, honestly, Abigail,” her mother had said. “But you stay here. You’re young.” Abigail, who didn’t want to get too close to her parents in case they smelled the vodka on her breath, waved goodbye as they climbed the stairs to the street level. Then she returned to the booth where Martin Pilkingham was holding court and drinking scotch. She’d known him her whole life, and he felt more like an uncle to her than her actual uncles.
Toward closing time, the bar mostly empty, Zachary, gripping a pint of Guinness, pulled Abigail into a dark corner of the pub. She could smell the alcohol on his breath as he touched her face. “It feels so wrong, but it feels so right,” he said.
It was his hand on her face, and not the words, that made what he’d said sound like he’d memorized a script, that caused her knees to go temporarily weak. He took her arm and they walked through the winding hallways of the inn to his room.
She never saw Zachary again, except in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and a terrible indie horror film called The Ghosting. The day after the wrap party Abigail went for a run with her friend Zoe and told her all about it. But what she really wanted to do was tell Todd; he was her friend, after all, and it seemed wrong that she couldn’t tell him about this momentous occasion.
She made a date with Todd to get lunch the following day, after his shift at the golf course, and she broke up with him, telling him she thought they should be single for their senior year of high school. He seemed somehow relieved.
CHAPTER 3
I’ve slept with four men,” Abigail said to the bearded guy whose name she still didn’t know. “And one woman. Does that count?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Not a huge number, I know,” she said.
“Probably about average.” He was pulling on a cardigan sweater, and Abigail wished