Franklin forced a laugh. “Oh. Yes. Right.”

  “Whatever bringeth you here?”

  “Oh, my dad’s parents, Izzy and Beileh, they live around here.” Franklin spoke fast. “My dad, he thought he could get them to move to a retirement home, but, man, they’re some pretty stubborn coots. So when dad’s working late, I come over—you know, take out their trash, do their laundry, fix them some grub, make sure they take their pills, that kinda whatnot.”

  “Well, isn’t that noble of you,” Tyrus said.

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Franklin. “But they’re pretty cool cats, Izzy and Beileh, and they have tons of cool stuff at their place. It’s like a museum over there—seventy-eight records, old letters in Yiddish. And they tell some pretty fascinating stories too.”

  “What’s so fascinating?”

  “Pretty much everything, I guess.”

  Tyrus opened his eyes wider as if to say, Tell me more.

  “Well, like the other day I kept asking my grand M about where she grew up, and so she told me about this little village—somewhere in Bessarabia, she said she didn’t remember the name. She used to skate on the frozen river and watch baptisms; these Russian Orthodox priests, they would carve crosses in the river, reach in, sprinkle icy water on the babies. It sounds like it’s from an Isaac Bashevis Singer short story, except it’s actually true.”

  Franklin looked at his watch. “Whoa,” he said, “I’m kinda late. I hope my grand Ps will be okay with just spaghetti and salad. I guess I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow, Mr. D.”

  “Why, yes,” Tyrus said. “Until then.”

  The kid skittered past a schoolyard, then turned into an alley. Tyrus got back in his car and followed the path Franklin had taken, but once he got to the alley, he saw no sign of Franklin. Tyrus coasted past garages and fenced-in backyards with dirty and dusty, upturned toys in them. He squinted into lighted back windows and watched Orthodox Jewish families gathering at dining room tables. No Franklin to be seen there either.

  Tyrus felt a little like a Peeping Tom and a little like a hired killer as he drove from one alley to the next, observing the lives of people who had no idea he was watching. He relished the image. Save for a handful of aggressive stage-combat performances in college and some Thanksgiving football games where his in-laws criticized him for getting too physical, he couldn’t recall having ever actually turned violent. But he liked when others feared he might. He liked the idea that, one day, he might break out of his role and commit some vicious crime and no one would suspect him. Sometimes, on nights when he was out of wine or the wine wasn’t helping, he would put himself to sleep imagining crimes he might commit: assassinating Ronald Reagan, holding up a bank, or planting a bomb, then waiting for the police to come, though they never would. He was a beloved teacher with no motive and a respected wife. Who would ever think he was a criminal?

  If anyone ever hauled him before a court and forced him to make a confession, he’d blame his crimes on his strict Methodist upbringing in Kansas or the brutal treatment he received at the hands of his fellow soldiers in Korea. He could a tale unfold of marrying for wealth and respectability instead of love, of putting all his aspirations into a son who wouldn’t achieve a single one of them, of teaching ungrateful students at a high school where every play he directed felt like an act of unrequited love. But all that would be, at best, half true. When he acted during his younger years, he was cast as leading men, but he always envied the actors who got to play the villain.

  Tyrus proceeded south slowly, replaying the conversation he had had with Franklin. Something was off about the kid’s story; something in it was a lie—the speech too fast, the details superfluous. Franklin’s eyes had shifted as he spoke, as if Tyrus had caught him at something. When Tyrus had first started teaching at North Shore, the school had enrolled riffraff from just about anywhere, but now that its progressive approach had become popular and it admitted kids only from the northern suburbs, the administration had started cracking down on Chicago kids using fake addresses to get in; parents were getting fined thousands of dollars; one had even gone to prison. Tyrus didn’t care much about the rules, but he sensed that, if Franklin was attending North Shore illegally, that sort of information could prove useful.

  He parked his car across the street from the Hild Library and went straight to the reference section. First he checked the phone books, then the Criss Cross Directories, and confirmed what he had suspected: no Izzy or Beileh Light lived on any of the streets in the neighborhood where he had seen Franklin; and, further, at the address that Franklin had listed on his audition sheet, no one was named Light at all.

  *

  The next evening after rehearsal, Tyrus followed Franklin as he walked west on Simpson Street. Once again the kid was walking in the opposite direction of where he supposedly lived. Tyrus lowered his passenger-side window and tooted the horn. “Young Mr. Van Daan!” he called.

  Franklin shook his head slightly, as if trying to get water out of his ear. “Oh, hey, man—I didn’t see you. How’s it goin’?”

  “No bike today?” Tyrus asked.

  “It’s busted,” said Franklin. “Haven’t had a chance to fix it.”

  “I’ll give you a lift.”

  “Nah, thanks, but you don’t need to trouble yourself.”

  “No trouble at all. Might you be visiting your grandparents again, the venerable Izzy and Beileh Light? Or are you heading home?”

  “Just headin’ home.” Franklin got into the car and told Tyrus his address.

  “But that wasn’t the way you were walking,” Tyrus said.

  Franklin was dumbstruck for a moment or two. “Yeah, that’s a little bit weird,” he said. “Sometimes I get so focused on ideas for things I wanna write, I wind up just going places by instinct. I guess I’m so used to taking the bus to visit my grand Ps, sometimes I find myself there even when I should be somewhere else.”

  The boy and the teacher talked a while. Tyrus asked if Franklin had prior theater experience; Franklin was vague. He said he’d spent time in “various places” and had performed in “you know, various plays and things.” Tyrus wouldn’t have heard of any of them, he said; they were school productions, and it had all happened a while ago.

  “Hey,” said Franklin. “You can just drop me off at the corner. I can walk from here.”

  Tyrus stopped his car in front of a church. “You’re hiding out in the rectory, perchance?” he asked.

  Franklin forced a laugh. “No, not here exactly—across the street.”

  Tyrus nodded, though the building Franklin pointed to seemed nearly as unlikely a location. A nondescript, tan brick mid-rise with a FOR RENT: STUDIOS AND 1-BEDROOM APARTMENTS sign out front, it looked like a cross between a retirement home and a dormitory.

  “Home sweet home,” Tyrus said.

  “Not all that sweet. Long story.” Franklin got out of the car. “Hey, thanks for the ride.”

  “Oh, one quick thing, Van Daan,” Tyrus said.

  “Yep?”

  “We’ll be needing to set up that costume fitting for you, sir.”

  “Sure, no problem, whenever.”

  “I like doing my fittings in one-on-one sessions. Sometimes actors, particularly young actors, can feel self-conscious when they’re being fitted in front of the others.”

  “Whatever works for you.”

  “Would you be available, say, Saturday morning, maybe about ten?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good, good. Then let’s meet at my house.” Tyrus took a scrap of paper from his glove compartment and wrote his address on it. “Will your father or grandparents be driving you?”

  “My bike should probably be okay by then,” Franklin said.

  “Even better. Oh, and remember—you start writing in that character diary,” Tyrus called after Franklin. “You seem to keep a lot to yourself, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you say after you’ve opened up a bit.”

  Tyrus drove off but didn’t go far. He circled the block, then parked behind another car so he could get a good view of Franklin’s building. He watched Franklin lurk for the better part of a minute until someone opened the front door. Franklin made a show of fumbling with keys, then slipped inside. Clearly the kid didn’t actually live here.

  *

  On Saturday morning, Tyrus was alone. His wife, Susan, had already left with her parents to visit Tom at Chicago-Read, and Tyrus, as was his habit, chose not to join. He loathed spending time at that place and loathed spending time there with his in-laws even more. They never seemed to regard Tom’s problems as real, viewed the mania and depression that ran on Tyrus’s side of the family as minor complaints that harsh, sensible discipline could cure. They would ask Tom questions like “So, when’re you gettin’ outta this joint?”; they’d look sourly at the other patients on his hall and tell him he wasn’t “like them”; in the cafeteria, they would turn away when he was eating, and when he had one of his fits and the techs came to calm him down, Mr. Chesbro would say it was nothing a belt or a two-by-four couldn’t cure. And so, if Tyrus didn’t want to do something he would regret or have to pretend to regret—like, say, grabbing both Stanley and Jean Chesbro and throwing them out the window of Tom’s room—it was better for Susan to go with them on her own.

  Tyrus had finished his second glass of white wine and was relaxing in his study with the Tempo section of the Tribune when the doorbell rang. He folded his newspaper and walked in his black socks across the carpet that he and his wife had purchased when they were in Turkey—the last trip they had taken with their son. Franklin was at the door wearing a hooded red AMUNDSEN HIGH SCHOOL sweatshirt and jeans.

  “Ahh, young Mr. Van Daan,” Tyrus said. “The bike’s looking much improved.”

  Franklin was a little out of breath from the ride. “Can I put it somewhere?” he asked. “I didn’t bring a lock.”

  “Outside is fine. This isn’t Chicago where things get stolen. Shoes off, though.”

  Franklin took off his shoes, then his sweatshirt, draping it on the back of an armchair. Tyrus demonstratively picked up the sweatshirt, removed two bits of lint—one from the chair, one from the carpet—and hung it up in the front hall closet. “Care for something to drink? Water? Juice? Soda? Wine?”

  “Wine?” Franklin asked.

  “When my wife’s parents are in town, I like to start my drinking early.”

  “Not really thirsty, thanks. How long do you think the fitting will take?”

  “Oh, not long, but let’s chat a bit first.” Tyrus went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, pulled out his half-finished bottle of Chardonnay, filled his glass, and fetched another from a cabinet. Frost was on the kitchen window, sparrows had gathered at the bird feeder outside, and there was a light dusting of snow on the driveway. Tyrus sipped his wine, then proffered the second glass to Franklin and raised an eyebrow. Franklin shook his head. Tyrus sighed, put the wine bottle back in the fridge, and led the way into his den, a dimly lit, carpeted room with a big console television, couches, and armchairs. Against one wall was a shelf full of student writing journals hand-labeled with the names of their authors. On another shelf were rows of alphabetized videocassettes, also hand-labeled, of shows, plays, and films taped from television: episodes of Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery!, and American Playhouse, classic movies from the 1940s and ’50s. On the walls were framed pen-and-ink sketches of set and costume designs, all signed T. DENSMORE.

  Tyrus sat in an armchair, crossed one leg over the other, stretched his arms wide, and, with a broad smile, asked Franklin, “So, why are you attending our hallowed high school illegally?”

  Franklin’s face paled. He blinked rapidly and stammered like—well, like Peter Van Daan when Anne Frank asked if he had ever been kissed.

  Tyrus laughed. “Don’t fret. I would never dream of betraying a confidence. But why the charade and the stories? What’s so special about our high school that makes you have to lie?”

  Franklin looked from side to side but said nothing.

  “Come, come, I’m hardly the Gestapo, and I despise snitches of any sort. You needn’t tell me anything. Still, how draining an experience it must be to concoct stories, to be forced to decide whom you can and cannot trust.”

  “Yeah, I dunno,” said Franklin. “Are we doing this fitting?”

  “Presently.” Tyrus left the room, then returned carrying a wicker basket with his sewing supplies. Franklin had been looking at the journals on the shelves, but upon Tyrus’s entrance he turned to the videocassettes.

  “Finding some favorites?” Tyrus asked.

  “I’ve heard of a lot of them but I haven’t seen as many as I’d like,” Franklin said.

  “Too much time spent taking care of poor Isidore and Beileh?” asked Tyrus.

  “Actually, that story isn’t made up,” Franklin said. “Those are my grand Ps. And I do spend a ton of time with them—chores, cooking, watching movies, all that whatnot. They don’t really like watching movies from after 1939, though; that’s why I haven’t seen a lot of these movies you have.”

  “Well, those are the best sorts of lies,” said Tyrus. “The ones where truths are presented ‘in the clever guise of illusion.’ ” He paused. “That’s from Glass Menagerie.”

  “Never seen it either, sorry.”

  Tyrus smiled grimly. “Blasphemy. Perhaps I can show it to you sometime. I named my son after the narrator of that play; he’s a few years older than you. He has some problems but he’s getting better—at least, that’s what we like to tell ourselves.”

  Tyrus pulled out a tape measure, a pencil, and a notepad. He measured Franklin’s neck, his arms, and his chest, then frowned. He gestured at the untucked flannel shirt Franklin was wearing. “Can you take that damned thing off? It’s hard to get proper measurements when actors wear baggy clothes. I should have told you that before.”

  Franklin unbuttoned the shirt, took it off, and draped it over Tyrus’s ottoman.

  Tyrus snatched the shirt, folded it, and put it back down.

  Franklin stood before Tyrus in his gym socks, beltless blue jeans, and a white T-shirt with a faded yellow Woodstock from the Peanuts comics on it. His arms were pale but strong and wiry.

  Tyrus remeasured Franklin’s chest, then his waist; he crossed out the previous numbers and wrote in new ones. Then he knelt down in front of Franklin. “Well, I seem to be at perfect blowing height, don’t I?” he said.

  “What?”

  Tyrus laughed. “Once you get to know me better, you’ll understand my sense of humor.” He held the top of the tape measure at Franklin’s crotch, then stopped and frowned again. “Do you always wear such baggy trousers?”

  “Yeah, my dad and I share clothes a lot and we don’t pay much attention to sizes.” The more nervous Franklin got, the faster he spoke. “If pants are too long, I just cuff them; if they’re too wide, I wear a belt; it’s not really a problem.”

  “Not a problem for fashion, perhaps, but a problem for accurate measurement. Can you take off the pants?”

  Franklin made a face. “Is that necessary?” he asked, at which point Tyrus flushed angrily. “Exactly how long do you want this to take?” he asked. “Do you want to make my job even more difficult? I’m already teaching four classes as well as directing a show—something I don’t get paid extra for, by the way. I have to design a set and costumes for a cast of ten. Do you think I’ve never seen a kid in his underwear before? Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Franklin took off his jeans.

  Tyrus took a swig of wine and studied Franklin’s legs. Now that Declan was out of the show, Tyrus wondered if Franklin might join him on his New York trip. He normally took upperclassmen, but he could make an exception. He liked taking complicated kids, ones with secrets they trusted he would keep. He introduced them to a new world, made them aware of possibilities they would never have dreamed of, and what he took in return was comparatively trivial. “Do you play sports?” he asked.

  “Biking, that’s pretty much it. Not a lot of time to do anything else.”

  A layer of gooseflesh had risen up on Franklin’s legs. He would grow up to be a strong, handsome man, and Tyrus hated him a little for that. “Too much time doing chores for poor Isidore and Beileh?” he asked.

  Franklin tilted his head one way, then the other. “Those do take up some time.”

  “Well, then,” Tyrus said as he marked down another number, “might you explain why, if Isidore and Beileh Light are so very needy, does no one by that name live on any of the streets where I saw you the other evening? Why does no one by the name Isidore or Beileh Light live anywhere in Chicago or its near north suburbs?”

  “Because their last name isn’t Light,” Franklin said.

  Tyrus raised an eyebrow.

  “Their name is Lichtenstein. And the truth, if you really want to know—and I hope you don’t tell anybody, but whatever; I guess I can’t really control that—is that they live with me and my dad in Chicago. Maybe you’ve heard of my dad? Ted Lichtenstein?”

  “The reporter?” Tyrus asked.

  “For the Tribune, yeah. When my mom was still around, the three of us, we lived over in Budlong Woods—better neighborhood, bigger house, whatever. But after she died—car accident, long story—my pop couldn’t keep house and take care of a kid. So we moved in with his folks: Izzy and Beileh. That was pretty much a mess. Every other family on our block worked for the police or fire department, and you can imagine what they thought of my dad’s articles. It got pretty gruesome: crank calls, graffiti; they messed with our car. My dad changed my name to Light and got an unlisted number, but that didn’t do anything; everybody already knew who we were. My first year at the high school, Amundsen, I could deal with some of the shit—people shoving me, writing ‘Lightstein’ or ‘Lightberg’ on my locker, all that kinda whatnot. The really bad part was the messages people left on our phone machine. My dad was used to it and, after a while, I could deal. But my grand M didn’t deserve all that abuse, especially after what happened to her during the war.”