Despite his reservations about her – and they were many – Brett had a lot of fun talking with Meredith on the long drive over to the Curlew Creek Winery. They talked about theater a lot, and threw out more possibilities for plays they might do, interspersed with tweaking and teasing each other, of course.

He thought Meredith was actually a lot of fun, so long as he could put up with some of her foibles. Not for the first time he found himself wishing she weren’t a lesbian, because things could easily get beyond the limits that put on both of them. On the other hand, contemplating a straight Meredith wasn’t easy to do; she would not be an easy woman to live with, not that she was always easy to put up with as she was. She’d been businesslike and focused on the theater since he’d picked her up the day before, at least when they were discussing it; when they were off-topic, he’d mostly had her on the defensive. It had worked for a day, but it was going to get old before the summer was over.

Try as he might, he couldn’t quite contemplate a life with a straight Meredith. It would have its good times, of course, but there would be times that would be a serious pain in the ass.

He still hoped he could somehow meet a woman who would appreciate the sacrifices he made for his love of the theater, even if she wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as Meredith. He’d met his share of wannabes and dilettantes, but never anyone who had anything approaching her degree of commitment. After all, it would be a hell of a lot for someone to put up with.

It wasn’t as if it was a lost cause, and as far as that went things could be changing in his life in the next few months, especially if the deal at the winery didn’t work out. So serious contemplation of that issue was on the back burner of his mind, at least for the time being.

Eventually they came up to the large sign for the Curlew Creek Winery, and Brett slowed to make the turn. “Time to be getting your game face on,” he told her. “First impressions, and all that.”

“Just tell me this isn’t going to be another of your cow things.”

“No, nothing like that, but I’d expect to have a wine joke or two sooner or later.”

“I’m having second thoughts about this, Brett. Cool it with the cow jokes for a while, will you?”

Brett could have come up with two or three possible cow joke comebacks to that one, but thought maybe he ought to keep his mouth shut. He had worked that angle a little hard, and now was not the time to be pushing her.

It was still several miles down the narrow and crooked country roads to the winery. “Jesus, is this place out in the sticks, or what?” she asked from the passenger seat.

“It is, and that’s a big part of the problem they’re having,” he replied. “But it’s pretty nice country.”

“Don’t tell me there’s a dairy farm in the back yard.”

“I haven’t noticed any close by,” he played it straight. “The odds are that there must be some around, but apparently not very near. This sort of looks like dairy country to me, but that doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t ask or anything.”

“I sure hope there aren’t,” she replied. “It doesn’t strike me that wine and manure smell would be a very good mix.”

“No way,” he agreed, forgoing an opportunity for another cow tease.

In a few more minutes they were pulling into the parking lot of the picturesque old mill. “This is the place,” he told her. “The tasting room is on the left, and the banquet hall is over on the right.”

“Nice looking place. It kind of looks like someone’s dreams of what country life turned out to be. Ignoring the realities, I mean.”

“I suspect that’s part of the reason the Ammermans bought this in the first place. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering what the deal really is on this.” They got out of the van; even though it was a pretty cool day for April, she took off the “Charlie’s Rig Service” hoodie and tossed it on the seat. “Too bad I didn’t bring something a little nicer or I’d be wearing it.”

“It’ll be warmer inside,” he promised. “Let’s get moving.”

“Was that a cow joke?”

“Not this time.”

“You’re going to drive me nuts with that cow shit.”

Brett couldn’t resist. “It’s called manure, Meredith.”

“It still smells like shit.”

“Because it is.”

They went on into the tasting room. It was indeed warmer inside; Samantha was behind the counter. “So Brett, you made it!” she smiled. “We’ve been wondering what you’d worked out since yesterday.”

“I don’t know that we have much worked out, but there’s things to talk about. Samantha, this is Meredith VanArnhem. She’s most likely going to be working with me on this. Meredith, Samantha is half of the couple who run this place.”

“Pleased to meet you. Marty is out back, doing some bottling.”

“That sounds interesting,” Meredith said. “Brett, please tell me it’s not anything like your milking parlor.”

“As far as I know it isn’t, but I don’t know anything about it.”

“Milking parlor?” Samantha frowned.

“Long story,” Brett shrugged. “And really not that important.”

“Why don’t I take you out back so you can see?” Samantha smiled, obviously wondering a little about the exchange. “There’s not much to it. It needed to be done and Marty decided to work on it for something to do.”

Meredith shook her head. “I guess I’m going to have to, so I don’t have nightmares about it.”

Samantha got a really curious look on her face, but said nothing aside from, “Let’s go back.”

It turned out that the bottling was not exactly the stuff of nightmares, at least as far as Brett could tell. It was clean and quiet, with a radio softly playing some classical music while Marty worked at a machine that filled the bottles from tubes leading to a big oak barrel, then corked and labeled them. There was some repetitive motion involved, and there was a mild and pleasant smell of wine in the room. “Marty, Brett brought someone with him,” Samantha said brightly. “He says she’s going to be working with him on our dinner theater.”

“Good to meet you,” Marty said, glancing up from the machine for a moment. “Let me get this case finished, and I’ll be at a good place to take a break.”

Brett and the others stood quietly watching Marty work. In a few moments, Marty slid the last bottle of wine into a cardboard box, then closed it, taping it shut. “Well, that’s that for now,” he said.

“This is really interesting,” Meredith said. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but after the milking parlor Brett took me to this morning, this isn’t it. It seems a lot more, well, uh, civilized.”

“It has its times,” Marty shrugged. “But mostly those times come in the fall. All in all, I find it beats working in a bank.”

“Let’s go out front,” Samantha suggested. “We can get to know each other over coffee, or, if you’d prefer, over a glass of wine.”

“I think I’m still in coffee mode,” Brett told her. “But Meredith, don’t let that stop you.”

“I think coffee myself,” she said. “But I don’t want to get out of here without trying some of this wine.”

“We can manage that,” Samantha smiled.

They gathered around one of the tables in the tasting room; Samantha brought coffee, then sat down with them. “Meredith,” she asked conversationally, “are you Brett’s girlfriend?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Look, I’d better get this on the table before we get any further. I’m gay, a lesbian, always have been and probably always will be. Brett is just a friend. A good friend, even though he’s got a screwy sense of humor, but just a friend.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Samantha replied. “But I couldn’t help but wonder.”

“Actually,” Brett said, “I asked Meredith to come today, and to be a part of this, because she’s a very good actress. She has a love of theater on par with mine, and she’s very knowledgeable. She can add a lot to the whole thing. In fact, I really doubt that we can make a success of this without her involvement, or the involvement of someone like her, and she’s the only one like her I know. I wouldn’t have asked her in on this if she’d been just a girlfriend.”

“Meredith,” Marty asked. “I’m sure Brett has told you a lot about what we’ve been talking about. From what he’s said, do you think it can be a success?”

“As far as I can tell, from the artistic side there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. We both have been exchanging some interesting ideas. From a business side, I’m not the person to ask. I’ve never had much to do with it. But I’ve worked with Brett a lot in the past; I know him and I trust him, at least as far as the theater end of things goes. Outside of that, he does have that screwy sense of humor I was talking about.”

Marty grinned and said, “I’ve always figured that theater people had to be a little screwy or they wouldn’t be in the theater in the first place.”

“You’re right on that,” Brett smiled, “and assuming we all decide to go ahead with this, you’re probably going to find out just how true it is.”

“I know we haven’t talked very much since we told you we wanted to try doing a full season,” Marty nodded, getting right down to business. “I know that’s pretty quick, but have you had any thoughts on that?”

“Our thoughts are still coming together, and there are still a lot of unknowns,” Brett replied. “For instance, Meredith and I have been talking since this time yesterday about what we want to have on the playbill. We’re about eighty percent on a couple of plays, but beyond that, every time one or the other of us brings something up, we wind up shooting it down for one reason or another. But that’s something we’ll work out.”

“So what have you figured out?” Samantha asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

“We’ve pretty well decided on starting the season with Same Time Next Year,” he replied. “Meredith and I have done it several times in the past so we can get a running start on it while we’re working on other things. You’re familiar with The Odd Couple, right?”

“The TV show?”

“It was a Broadway play before that, and quite a successful one with Walter Matthau and Art Carney. There’s a female version of it that Neil Simon wrote, and we think it would be a good one to have on the bill for the summer. I don’t want to say it would be the next one on the bill, since we’re still working on that. Beyond that, we have some ideas we need to research a little more thoroughly. I have little doubt that we’ll have a much better idea in the next few days.”

“Good enough,” Marty nodded. “Samantha and I have been kicking around our ends of this the last few days, too. In general, we’ve agreed that we’d like to have the dinner theater be more or less self-supporting. Granted, there’s some uncertainty about what kind of audiences we’re going to draw and how large they’re going to be, but the only way to find out is to try it and find out. We did some calling around yesterday and have been talking with a caterer who will give us a good price on a per-meal basis, so long as we can give her some idea of what the size of the audience will be.”

“That could be tough to predict, at the beginning, especially,” Brett pointed out.

“No doubt about it,” Marty agreed. “The only way I can see to try to keep some control on that is to take reservations and allow a little extra for someone who shows up without them. But to do that, we need to start taking reservations pretty soon, which means, of course, we’re going to have to have some idea of what we’re taking reservations for. We’ve got a couple weeks on that, but not much more.”

“I don’t see a way to do it differently, at least not until we have some experience to draw on,” Brett agreed.

“Right,” Marty said. “What that means is that we have to set ticket prices before we can start to advertise and take reservations. We now have a reasonable handle on the meal side of the equation, so what we’re going to need from you, and I guess that means the two of you, is a good estimate of what it’s going to cost to do the artistic side.”

“To be honest,” Brett replied, “I haven’t even tried to generate numbers beyond those we did on the back of a napkin before, or at least I haven’t yet. The reason for that is that the biggest cost will be actor salaries. I can’t even estimate them until I have a rough idea of what we’re going to be doing, or at least how many actors it’s going to take. There’s a wide degree of what it’s going to take in cast and who’s available to fill it required to come up with a solid figure. I expect that Meredith and I will carry a lot of the acting but we can’t do all of it.”

“That’s going to vary from play to play,” Meredith added, the first time she’d said anything since the first few exchanges. “To use the example of the female version of The Odd Couple, we’re going to need at least one more leading actress, some good supporting actresses, and at least one guy in addition to Brett. I haven’t read the play in a while, but it strikes me that there are several minor parts. It’s possible we could have a waitress or someone double up for the few lines involved for one of them.”

“Other plays, well, it’s too early to tell,” Brett continued. “But generally speaking, we’re probably going to need a minimum of one more actor or actress and maybe more, for each show.”

“Where are you going to find them?” Samantha asked.

“That’s still up in the air,” Brett told her. “Both Meredith and I know people, so we’re not too worried about it.”

“We haven’t talked about it much,” Meredith added. “Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t be comfortable if we were to cast a lead part with someone neither of us had worked with before. With people we have worked with, Brett or I would have an idea of what they’re capable of. But supporting casts are a different story. I haven’t talked to Brett about it, but I’ve wondered if it might not be a bad idea to have a casting call early on. That way we could have some local people in those roles. They would be cheaper than pulling in a professional or two like us, and there’s a good chance their being in the play would bring in some audience.”

“I was thinking something like that,” Brett admitted. “I have to admit my thoughts hadn’t gelled quite that far. It would be something we would have to do pretty soon.”

“That might make for good public relations locally,” Samantha replied thoughtfully. “In fact, I might know of a possibility or two. With one exception they wouldn’t have the experience the two of you have, but they wouldn’t be total strangers to a stage, either.”

“That sounds more or less like what we’re looking for,” Brett replied. “So summing up: I can’t give you a hard number just yet, and I won’t be able to for a while. But for right now, if you just want a straw man to shoot at, I think I can say that the average will come out somewhere less than two thousand dollars a week for salaries. Royalties and scripts, a high number of three hundred a week, but there’s a possibility that there will be weeks that will be much less. The rest of it is odds and ends ranging from costume rental through paint for the flats. Just as an off-the-cuff guess, two hundred a week.”

“That’s twenty-five hundred a week,” Marty frowned. “That’s a little higher than I’d expected.”

“That’s intentionally a high figure,” Brett said. “I would be very surprised if we can’t bring it in for less than that, at least on the average. But I don’t want to be accused of low-balling you on this. I want to give you the worst-case scenario and then try to beat my predictions.”

“Do you think two thousand a week might be more realistic?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, and I would hope to beat that, but I don’t want to promise it right now since there are still lots of unanswered questions. This time next week, or maybe a little longer, I should be able to give you a much more refined figure.”

Marty looked over at Samantha; though there were no words being spoken Brett could tell that there was a lot of communicating going on. “Well,” Marty said finally. “Just doing it on a napkin, the ticket price would be a little higher than we had been anticipating but it’s not out of range. That’s assuming our guesstimate of a minimum audience size of fifty per show. If you can come up with some better numbers, maybe we can adjust the ticket price a little downward, which might help with the sales.”

“Of course, if we do better on audiences, even if we don’t fill the house, we’d make out pretty well,” Samantha replied slowly. “Double the audience numbers, and it gets interesting to us.”

“It does indeed,” Marty smiled. “If we do that well, we’ll have to come up with a bonus for the two of you.”

Brett held up his finger. “One thing I didn’t include in that straw-man estimate I just gave you is advertising. Frankly, you probably ought to spend a lot on it. I can’t tell you how much, but you’re going to have to talk in terms of more than people who walk in the front door when they’re looking for wine. I’m thinking, at a minimum, local paper, maybe radio, posters, perhaps special mailings. I’m just guessing, but it could be five hundred, or even a thousand a week.”

“Ouch,” Marty frowned. “I should have thought about that.”

“On the other hand, advertising doesn’t cost, it pays,” Samantha pointed out. “It wouldn’t take a much larger average audience over our assumptions to make up the difference. And besides, we do have a cushion in the wine sales.”

“True,” Marty said, obviously deep in thought. “Look, would you kids like to have your coffee warmed up or a taste of wine while Samantha and I go back and thrash this out?”

“Fine with me,” Brett replied. “I realize it’s a lot of money and I don’t want to stampede you. But I’d add the thought that really, you’re getting this on the cheap. The Heatherwood, the place Meredith and I were going to be working this summer, was planning on having about as ambitious a schedule, admittedly with bigger shows, on what I understand to be about three times the budget and figuring larger audiences. They have expenses you’re not going to have.”

“There is that,” Marty agreed. “Samantha, let’s go talk about this.”

“Fine with me. Do either of you kids need coffee or wine before I go?”

“I’m fine,” Brett told her.

“Same here,” Meredith agreed.

“I hope we won’t be too long,” Samantha told them as she got up.

“Take your time,” Brett told her. “We know it’s a big decision for you.”

Marty and Samantha left the room, heading into the office and closing the door. Meredith leaned over to Brett and whispered, “Jesus, I hope you didn’t scare them off.”

“I didn’t want to scare them off,” he whispered back. “But I didn’t want to bullshit them, either. Better they be disappointed now than later.”

“I couldn’t believe it when you said two thousand a week for talent,” she shook her head, her voice still low. “How much of that is for us?”

“I don’t know yet,” he replied. “That was based on seven hundred a week, but that figure could still float around.”

“That much?”

“It’s not actually all that much in real world terms,” he shrugged. “But it would equal what I’ll get out of substitute teaching over the last school year, or close to it. Meredith, I promised you it would be more than the Heatherwood if it came off,” he said. “And most weeks we’ll have other talent to pay. Some of that may have to come out of what I’d been figuring for our salaries. That’s why it’s still floating around a bit.”

“Still, it would be better than I’ve ever made before, and all summer too.”

“Let’s face it, Meredith. We’re starving artists and we know it, but we deserve to eat once in a while. I like this idea and want to do it, but I’m not going to do it for nothing, either.”

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