To his surprise, his father’s door was ajar, the usually roaring television muted. And next to his father on the old plaid sofa, a relic from the family’s earliest years, was Glen, his eyes red-rimmed. Sad or stoned? Dale wanted to ask his brother.

“Glennie just got here five minutes ago,” his father said. “He told me everything.”

“Everything?” Dale felt a curious mix of relief and resentment. How could Glen be in the position to know anything? He was just the uncle, not the father.

“Chloe called me,” Glen said almost apologetically. That made sense. Chloe and Glen were still close, bound by their dislike of Dale. And Glen lived just twenty minutes from here, which was probably why their father had chosen Charlestowne in the first place. To be closer to Glen, to keep an eye on Glen.

“He says Kat was shot at school today, shot and killed. Is this true?”

It shocked Dale that his father could speak of it so directly, so unflinchingly.

“Yes, Dad.”

He expected his father to ask how or why, not that Dale could answer those questions just yet, not that he ever expected to be able to answer such questions. What was a motive, after all, what could truly explain such an act? He wished he could say he had always found Perri suspect, or off in some vague way, but she had been a delightful little girl, funny and voluble. He hadn’t seen her much since the girls entered high school, but that had been at his insistence. When he journeyed out to Glendale, he wanted his time with Kat to be exclusive, not spent with Perri and Josie.

“And the girl who did it-they think she’s going to die?”

“She went to Shock Trauma. That’s all I know.”

“If they don’t save her,” his father asked, “then who will we have to blame?”

Dale assumed the question was rhetorical, an old man’s inappropriate blurting. But then he saw the legal pad on his father’s lap, the one he usually used to take notes on his stocks as they marched by on CNBC’s ticker. A list had been started, in his father’s quavery spidery hand:

The girl

The girl’s family

The school

The gun manufacturer

“Dad-”

“We have to stay on top of this,” his father said. “You can’t expect government to work for you. If I had waited for civil servants to do their jobs, Glendale would still be on wells and septic tanks.”

“But thinking about a lawsuit-”

“I’m thinking about everything. All our options. And you should, too. That was my only grandchild.”

“And my only daughter,” Dale said, then realized his father was trying to help. His father was, in fact, offering him a gift of sorts-a project, a place to focus all his grief and rage. This was how he would survive what seemed impossible. Here his numbness would be an asset.

“You bet. Now, you get on that phone and you call my old friend Bert Pierce. He’s the best criminal attorney in the area.”

“Dad, we don’t need an attorney.”

“We don’t need anyone else to hire Bert either. He’s too good. You call Bert, and you tell him you want to put him on retainer, and the first call you want him to make is to the county executive, who might need to be reminded just how much money we’ve contributed to him and his allies over the years. Then Bert might want to talk to the chief of police, too, make sure they know we’ll be looking over their shoulder every step of the way. Someone’s going to be held accountable, Dale. We’ll make sure of that.”

Glen was still there physically, but his mind had drifted away. Dale felt he could almost see it leave-rising out of Glen’s body, pausing at the muted television, then flying out the window, going wherever Glen’s thoughts went these days. They were fraternal twins, and the likeness was not pronounced, but it was always a bit of a shock to see him, like a glance into some surreal mirror. This is what I would look like if I smoked pot all day every day of my lifefor twenty years and dreamed of making it big, even while Dad’s money was propping me up. Dale sometimes suspected that Glen planned to move in with his father, as soon as he reached Charlestowne’s minimum age of fifty. His father would love it. And Glen could sell pot to the glaucoma patients.

“Dale, are you listening to me? Are you paying attention?”

“Always, Dad. Always.”

“Saving Private Ryan,” Colin said.

“The opening sequence is a nine or a ten,” Peter agreed after careful consideration. “But if you come in after they’ve stormed the beach, not so much.”

“Fight Club.”

“Eight.”

“Happy Gilmore.”

“Seven. No Caddyshack, but solid. ‘The price is wrong, bitch.’”

“ Mystic River.”

“A two.”

“But Mystic River is a great movie,” Simone objected.

“It’s not about good or bad,” Peter explained, and not for the first time. Simone had always been determinedly obtuse about his and Colin’s watchability scale. Or maybe it was just that she got bored when she wasn’t the center of attention. “A watchable film is one that pulls you in, no matter what point you enter. You’re flicking through the channels, and it may be the first minute or the last or any point in between, but you’re hooked. It may not be a great film, the parts may be greater than the whole, but something about it makes it mesmerizing. You can’t take your eyes away.”

Simone furrowed her brow. “Like Fitzcarraldo.”

“Oh, stop being so fucking pretentious, Simone,” Colin said. “Fitzcarraldo is the opposite of watchable. It would have a score of, like, negative one. Which isn’t a knock-Schindler’s List and Raging Bull are low, too, on this scale. Great movies, but not watchable. You want to go with a classic that’s watchable, then-Citizen Kane.”

“The Godfather,” Simone tried.

“Yeah,” Peter mused, “but you always feel a little cheated if you miss the wedding scene. It’s like a movie unto itself.”

“Scarface!” Colin yelled, exchanging a high five with Peter, and they proceeded to chant in unison, “ ‘Say hel-lo to my leetle friend!’”

The three friends almost fell apart laughing over that. It was funnier still if you knew Peter was half Cuban. But then they were finding everything hilarious these days.

Peter Lasko, Colin Boyd, and Simone Simpkins-recent graduates of NYU’s Tisch School, joined at the hip since sophomore year-were sharing what they kept billing as their last night together, starting with the two-for-one happy hour at their favorite downtown bar, a neighborhood joint where the workaday regulars grimly tolerated the high-spirited theater majors who kept discovering it year after year. This celebration was the last of many last nights over the past two weeks, a veritable Ramadan of leave-takings in which the three friends had toasted themselves and their futures over and over again, relived the triumphs of their college days, and pretended, ever so modestly, that they did not expect the world to continue to heap prizes at their feet. Simone was going to Yale-her parents were loaded, so she could afford it, but she still had to get in, and she had, which was no small thing. Colin had landed the part of Mark, the second lead, in a national touring company of Rent.

And Peter…well, Peter still couldn’t quite believe what waited for him in a mere four weeks, the bit of last-minute luck that had transformed him from the underachiever of the three into the undisputed shooting star.

“Did you know there’s another Peter Lasko in SAG?” he asked now, hoping it sounded casual, even a little put-upon. “My agent says I have to change my name.”

“Peter Pringle,” Simone suggested.

“Peter Piper Picked a Pickled Pepper,” Colin said, his diction theater-school perfect.