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“What do you think would be a better simulation?” I asked as he poured from the second bottle of Sauvignon Blanc we’d opened so far.
“One with no wars, no hunger, no guns, no police brutality, and no mosquitoes.” He slapped at his neck, spilling some wine onto my shorts. “Oh damn, sorry. Miserable bugs.”
“No worries,” I replied as I took a sip of wine while patting the wet mark on my thigh. Gibson got up to light some citronella candles sitting on the ground in tiny metal buckets.
“There, the bastards.” He sat beside me again, wiggling around to tuck a leg under his ass so he could look at me. “Now, what would you like to see for a better simulation?”
I drew in a long breath through my nose to think. “You listed the main ones. I’d like my simulation to be free of bigotry, hate, and divisiveness. In my perfect simulation, no one would care if someone else went to bed with someone of a different race. They’d give no shits if a man bedded a man or if those men were wearing frilly tights or makeup. I’d like to live in a world where people just accepted each other.”
Gibson held up his wineglass. “Here’s to that.” I tapped my glass to his, the light clink of glass kissing glass ringing out. “Oh! Speaking of something to drink to. Cheers to the new owner of the Kesside Bay Theater.” We tapped glasses once more and took small sips. The wine was so dry I puckered slightly. “I’m so relieved to hear that a native bought it and one with some classic theater training.”
I nearly choked on my wine. “No, no, I’m not at all classically trained.”
“You did an off-Broadway rendition ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream, did you not?”
I gave him an amused look. “Did you Google me?”
He fluffed it off. “If I did, it was only after meeting you. You intrigued me. Still do.”
“Ah, okay then. Well,” I sat back, my leg cocked up so that I could look into his face as the night slowly began to claim the island, “I did do one summer of Shakespeare when I was nineteen. It was a small theater off-off-off-off-off-Broadway.”
“Yes, Pasadena is quite off Broadway,” he teased, reaching out to pat my knee. His hand settled there, and I willingly allowed it.
“Quite. But I did enjoy it. The pay was dismal, but I was young and hungry to act.”
“Mm, I can see you as a young man filled with the fervor of youth. Lean and whippet strong, driven to tread the boards as the Bard’s words flowed from your honeyed lips. Favor me with a passage?”
I blinked and then sipped my wine. The man could sure wax poetic. I’d never had anyone say my lips were honeyed. I thought to say no but then asked myself why. Why not recite lines by a master of words? Why not speak of things grander than revenge or bloodlust?
I rose, faced the darkening sky, and pulled up a passage from so long ago when I’d played Lysander.
“Or if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream:
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.”
He breathed in the prose as if it were sweet, scented tea. With his eyes still closed, he rose and fed me the next passage from Hermia.
“If then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
