Jorden Bickham

Across the parking lot at the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center, Gracie Abrams is kneeling in the grass next to her long-haired dachshund, Weenie. It’s a quiet Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, and we’re the only two people in the lot, so she’s easy to spot. She hurries toward me in cargo pants, a sweatshirt that says “BUG” in block letters, and a navy Red Sox cap covering her dark brown pixie cut.

We meet, at Amanda Seyfried’s suggestion, in the middle of nowhere. That’s to say, we meet at a discreet and casually elegant upstate restaurant. On an eminence at the heart of the sprawling property, the restaurant overlooks a painter’s delight of fields, woods, and distant hills, a mosaic of brown and gold on this cloudy late-fall day.

Lo que ves es lo que hay.