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Peter waited for her to respond but she didn’t. That there was a burning hole in her chest was all she could have told him. He walked ahead of her and Walt, his gaze following the smoke rising from chimneys, following people as they flickered past their windows. He peered hopefully into every house, as if he were looking for someone he knew.

SIX

THE PARTY WAS OUT IN SUTTON, A FORTY-MINUTE DRIVE NORTH. IT WAS the first senior party Peter had ever been invited to. The entire upper school had been invited — Scott Laraby’s parents had gone to St. Croix for a week.

Jason’s sister Carla drove them. She was back from college and had brought her roommate with her. They were listening to the worst music Peter had ever heard, more breathing and talking than singing, with one screeching instrument in the background. When Peter looked up front to see what radio station would play such awful music, he saw that the two girls were holding hands.

Jason told Carla to drop them off at the end of the Larabys’ long driveway. As they walked toward the light flickering through the trees, Peter asked about Carla and the roommate.

“Neither of them have boyfriends,” Jason said, “so they practice with each other. That’s what my dad says.”

They continued in silence up the road. Peter could smell the stain on his hands, and he was glad. He’d spent most of the afternoon with Tom in the garage, helping him work on a table he was making for one of his assistants who’d recently gotten engaged. Peter had taken shop at school; he’d made a napkin holder and a stool the shape of a turtle. He’d never found any pleasure in the dry noisy room with Mr. McCaffy. He didn’t like being around wailing machines that could cut off fingers or fighting with his classmates over the best scraps of sandpaper. He felt like stuff was always in his eyes. But with Tom it was different; it was peaceful. Fresh air came in freely through the open garage doors. People driving by saw them working together and waved. The brand-new sandpaper came in large sheets. They started with the coarse brown squares and finished with the soft black ones. The whole table felt warm and velvety smooth when they were done, more like skin than wood.

Tom threw out the used pieces of sandpaper and brought out the stain. He pried open the can, stirred it with a wooden stick, and placed two brushes beside it. There was a certain tenderness to each gesture, and Peter understood that he was in the presence of someone doing something he loved. He wasn’t sure he’d witnessed that before. Most of his teachers had probably once loved their subjects, but their passion was hidden under layers of frustration, years of repetition.

Staining, it turned out, was even more satisfying than sanding. Stain had none of the stress of paint, which Peter remembered glopped and streaked and never went on as evenly as you hoped. It was hard to make a mistake with stain. Sometimes they talked; sometimes there was just the sound of their brushes. He’d never really been comfortable with a grown man before. Nothing was worse than being stuck alone with Jason’s father, who stood with arms crossed over his broad chest and stiff black hair coming out of his nose as he assaulted Peter with questions. He felt awkward around all his male teachers and coaches; perhaps it was his less than stellar performances, or perhaps it was their knowledge of the absence of his father, their fear that he was looking for a substitute, or Peter’s fear that they had this fear. He even felt uncomfortable in the presence of his great-grandfather’s bronzed head in the vestibule. But with Tom after a while he just felt himself, the self he was when he was alone. Things just came out of his mouth; he didn’t rehearse his lines first, as he often did with Stuart or before speaking in class.

“Peter,” Tom said into one of their comfortable silences. “Did you ever meet your grandparents? You know,” he added hastily, “your mother’s parents?”

“No.”

“Has she ever told you about them, or told you about her childhood?”

“She didn’t like them much. They moved around a lot and my mother read in the backseat of the car. That’s all I know.”

Tom waited a while, then asked, “What was your mother like when you were little? Do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” he stalled. He knew Tom wanted him to say she was different somehow. “She played more games, maybe.” He wished they didn’t have to talk about her. He wished he just lived with the Belous without her getting in the way.

“Has she always had a few drinks at night?”

“No, not always. I think it was more on weekends, if she went out.”

“Did she go out a lot?”

“Probably once a month.” Peter kept staining, watching how quickly the wood absorbed the color.

Tom nodded, then asked softly, “And would she come home drunk?”

“Not drunk. Not like she couldn’t walk or talk. Just kind of happy. She’s actually a lot nicer that way.” Ever since that fight in the kitchen, he’d wanted to tell Tom this.

“My father drank himself into his grave before he was fifty.” Tom’s voice was slow and hard and his mouth had fallen down into his chin. “I won’t let that happen to anyone else I love.”

The front door and all the first-story windows of the Larabys’ house were open. As he and Jason crossed a circle of wet grass, the machinelike hum they’d hardly been aware of broke into separate human voices. Kristina. Kristina would be here. His heart thumped heavily. Peter could see people holding beers.

“Aren’t they worried about the neighbors telling?” he said.

“What neighbors?”

It was true. The property was encased in woods; the last house Peter had seen was miles back.

“I’m going to get laid tonight,” Jason said.

“Yeah, right.” But Jason’s confidence made him uneasy, and Peter worried that that was how you had to be to get a girl, even just to kiss a girl.

They stepped into the front hall, where a group of seniors leaned against paintings on the wall.

“Hey, J-man,” Kent Scully said. “Keg’s in the kitchen.”

“Cool.”

Peter wasn’t exactly sure what a keg looked like. Jason was starting to know a lot more than he did. Peter watched him lead the way, greeting juniors and seniors, being greeted. There was no mockery in it anymore for him. Peter got the same twisted smiles and the funny voices he got in the hallways at school. “Does your mommy-mommy know where you are?” he heard someone say behind him. Peter had learned to block it out. Kristina was his only thought. It was the only thought he’d ever had since he’d started going to parties. And so useless. He’d heard that week at school that she’d broken up with Brian again, but even that, if he was really honest with himself, would never matter.

They passed a small den filled with kids from his grade holding plastic cups and trying to act like they’d been to senior parties before. Kristina, who certainly didn’t have to fake that, would never be among them.

Scott Laraby, the host, lay spread-eagle and fast asleep on the kitchen table. A girl with a few of Scott’s features, the same stunned eyes and pushed-in nose, was in the corner, operating what Peter guessed was the keg. It didn’t need an operator — all you had to do was press a little button at the end of a hose — but she had put herself on a stool with the cups stacked between her knees just to be able to talk to everybody. It was the kind of thing Peter would do if he had the chance, and it made him instantly dislike her.

He and Jason got in line.

“Easy does it this round, sailor,” she said to a guy in a blue-and-white-striped shirt.

When it was their turn Jason asked if she was Scott’s sister.