But they were not, Peter realized, all good-looking. And he was, not that he would ever be the kind of asshole who said such a thing out loud. Instead he pretended not to know, ducking his head sheepishly when girls talked about his long eyelashes and tight curls, the lone dimple in his left cheek. He pretended not to know, and they pretended not to know that he was pretending not to know. But when he finally got his height, it was almost disingenuous to claim he didn’t recognize the effect he had just walking into a room. It was a weird responsibility of sorts, being good-looking.

That was another thing he could never say without being judged a Grade-A asshole. But it happened to be true. Sometimes, when he was with a girl, just at that moment when things were beginning to cross over to the point where something significant was going to happen-not necessarily intercourse, but definitely some sort of satisfaction-he would catch this look on the girl’s face, something wistful and confused. It made him feel bad, as if he had led her astray somehow. Yet it wasn’t his fault that girls projected things on him because he was handsome, because they had seen him onstage and they thought they were making out with Curly or Tony or the Rainmaker, and he was really just Peter Lasko, and he wasn’t going to sing some ballad to them when it was all said and done, wasn’t even going to spend the night if he could help it.

Kat wasn’t like that, he reminded himself. Yeah, but you never got with Kat, the no-bullshit part of his brain chimed in. Never got below the waist at all.

Well, Christ, she was only fifteen. For all he knew, even the lightweight stuff they had done that summer was illegal. Her father had certainly tried to suggest as much in that scary little heart-to-heart that Mr. Hartigan had claimed was all about his interest in Peter’s future. He had faked being buddy-buddy, but Peter had never doubted that the guy would have come at him if he hadn’t gotten his way.

The Light Rail slid into the Hunt Valley station. It was only seven, the sun still bright and high above the ridged countryside to the west. His family sat down to supper early on Sundays, and his mother had never gotten out of the habit of putting on a huge spread, even after Peter left home. It was great when he was in a production, especially something where he was moving a lot, and he could come home from a Sunday matinee, fall facefirst into his mom’s food. Some Glendale kids had been weird about his mom’s being Cuban-and the fact that she was a green-eyed blonde, one of the hot moms, really messed with their minds. But once they came over and had arroz con pollo, or frijoles negros, not to mention plantains, they wanted to join the family. His dad had met her in Miami, while visiting Peter’s great-grandparents, and she didn’t have an accent or anything. But that Sandoval name had its advantages, especially when he was applying to colleges. He always assumed that lucky little biographical detail had pretty much cinched NYU for him.

It turned out there was no taxi stand at the end of the line, and it took almost forty-five minutes for Hunt Valley Cab company to dispatch anyone, so it was after eight when Peter pulled up in front of the house. His plan was to come through the front door, super casual, and yell “I’m home!” like he was coming back from lifeguard duty or rehearsal. His mom would practically burst from happiness, he figured, despite seeing him at graduation a month ago. And his dad would be on the verge of tears, too, although he would try to hide it. They were cool, his parents. Well, not exactly cool-his father actually wore a pocket protector to work-but warm and loving in a way that Peter no longer took for granted, not after knowing Simone and some even freakier girls at NYU, girls who had grown up in empty mansions and thought the Gossip Girls books were documentaries.

The front door was locked, which was unusual. Maybe people in Glendale were spooked after the shooting, although it wasn’t as if some maniac was at large. No problem. It would be more in keeping for him to go through the garage and into the kitchen, where his mother was probably still puttering with the dishes and his father was trying to read the Sunday paper and watch television at the same time. Peter punched in the garage-door code, grabbed the key that his mother still hid beneath a Frisbee on the utility shelves, and let himself in.

But while both cars were in the garage, no one was inside the house. And something about the stillness-not to mention the air, which was warm and stuffy, the thermostat set unusually high for a June night-told him no one had been here for at least a day or two. There were no newspapers piled on the kitchen counter, no glasses in the sink. (His dad was a bit of a chauvinist, just put his dishes in the sink and figured Peter’s mom would get them into the dishwasher. She did, muttering to herself but not really minding.)

Peter wandered through the house, looking for clues to his parents’ whereabouts. There was no notation on the calendar, and only a few days’ worth of mail had been dropped through the slot. Mail slots had been a huge controversy in Glendale back when Peter was a kid. All the developments had started out with community mailboxes. But no one really wanted to commune by the mailboxes, it turned out. The Glendale Association had finally surrendered, and door companies had done a thriving business in the older sections.

Glancing through his parents’ bedroom window, Peter saw the neighbor to the north, Mr. Milford, come out into his backyard and start his sprinklers. Peter ran downstairs and into the backyard, calling to him over the fence.

“Why, Peter Lasko!” Mr. Milford said. “I understand you’re a college graduate now. What brings you home?”

“I wanted to surprise my parents. But they seem to have surprised me. Did they run away from home? Join the circus?”

“Your dad won a golf trip to Hilton Head in the United Way raffle down at his work. Isn’t that something? Me, I couldn’t win a goldfish at one of those carnivals where everyone wins the goldfish. Four days and three nights. I think they come back Tuesday. You need anything?”

Money, Peter thought. A good meal. But he still had twenty dollars in his pocket, and there was always plenty of stuff in his mother’s freezer. He’d last until Tuesday.

But the freezer, while packed with leftovers, didn’t intrigue him. It was one thing to have your mom bring all the goodies to the table, hot and ready, another to defrost them in the microwave and eat them alone, in front of the television. And his father’s liquor cabinet wasn’t anywhere near as intriguing as it used to be when Peter was underage. Besides, he wasn’t eager to drink again, not after Friday night’s excesses. Saturday had been a bit of a lost day, and alcohol was hell on the complexion. Peter hated having to think that way, but his appearance was his business, no different than his father having to know the tax codes for inventory, or whatever it was that he did know.

He slipped his mother’s key ring from the pegboard next to the refrigerator and helped himself to her Jetta. Even now he wouldn’t dare touch his dad’s car, although it was nothing special, just a Buick. But dad’s car had always been off-limits. When Peter got rich, he was going to buy his dad a car, something so extreme it would make him laugh that he had ever prized the Buick so much. Peter drove aimlessly, thinking he might get a sub at Dicenzo’s, then remembering they weren’t open on Sundays. He went to the Dairy Queen instead, the one on Old York Road. Now, here was something you couldn’t find in New York. He settled at one of the picnic tables with two chili dogs and a Snickers Blizzard, although he’d pay for it all with double workouts tomorrow. In the meantime…heaven. Thomas Wolfe didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Everything was just as Peter remembered it.