The Rehearsal

emptied the bottle into his own glass. “No. It’s more of a… no. I just want to have fun.”
    “Good man,” said Stanley’s father. “I’ve got a joke you might like.”
    “Yeah?” Stanley said. This was his least favorite part of the evening. He tried to read his father’s wristwatch from across the table. They had already ordered dessert, tiny splashes of cream and color on vast white plates, and soon his father would be hailing a pair of taxis and slipping fifty dollars into his breast pocket and clapping him on the shoulder and walking away. Outside the street was slick and oily with rain.
    “What’s the most common cause of pedophilia in this country?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Sexy kids.”
    “That’s funny.”
    “It’s good, eh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I got it off a client. Have I told you about him? The one with the angel voices. You’ll love this, Stanley. This guy is honestly something else.”
    Stanley sometimes tried to imagine what it would be like to live in the same house as his father, to see him every day, to walk past him dozing on the couch or brushing his teeth or squinting into the fridge. Their yearly outing was always at a different restaurant, and Stanley could catalog his relationship with his father in a string of names: The Empire Room, The Setting Sun, Federico’s, La Vista. Sometimes his father rang him on the telephone, but the two-second delay of the international line made him sound distant and distracted and Stanley always worried he was talking too little or too much.
    “You were an accident,” was how his father explained it many restaurants ago. “Our relationship was casual, respectful, and very brief. She found out she was pregnant and decided to keep you, even though my practice was moving to England and it was likely I’d never come back. I said I would keep in touch and help out wherever I could. And I saved your life—she was going to call you Gerald. I stepped in.”
    “Thanks,” Stanley said.
    “No problem,” said his father, waving a piece of squid. “But believe me, sperm is a serious business.”
    Stanley looked at him now, drunk and flamboyant and mischievous and laughing at his own story. He was a little afraid of his father. He was afraid of the way the man delivered his opinion, afraid of the crafty watchful antagonism that left Stanley uncertain whether he was meant to argue or agree. His million-dollar insurance policy idea was a typical trap, a raw slice of bloody bait laid out with a flourish and a double-crossing smile. Did his father expect him to second-guess the idea? Was he supposed to follow through with it, or admonish his father for being macabre and coarse? Stanley didn’t know. He reached into his pocket and touched the edge of the glossy brochure from the Institute.
    “Well, I think that’s us,” his father said, returning his glass to the table and reaching up to smooth his lapel with his hand. “This time next year, my boy, you will have become a sensitive and feeling soul.”
    November
    “Tell us about yourself, Stanley,” said the Head of Acting. He made an abrupt gesture with his hand. “Anything. Doesn’t have to be relevant.”
    Stanley shifted his weight to the other leg. His heart was thumping in his rib cage. The panel was sitting against a wall of high windows so their faces were all in shadow and Stanley had to squint against the glare.
    “I don’t know whether I’m any good at feeling things,” he said. His voice was tiny in the vast space. “Nothing big has happened to me yet. Nobody has died, nothing terrible has happened, I’ve never really been in love or anything. In a funny way I’m kind of looking forward to something terrible happening, just so I can see what it’s like.”
    “Go on,” said the Head of Acting when Stanley faltered.
    “I was always a bit jealous of people who had real tragedy in their lives,” he said. “It gave them something to feed on. I felt like I had nothing. It’s not like I want anyone in my family to die, I just want something to overcome. I want a challenge. I think I’m ready for it.”
    He was trying to look at them all equally.
    “In high school I kind of tried things on,” he said, “just to see what it was like. Even when I got mad or upset or had a fight with someone, it was like I was just trying it on, just to see how far I could push it. There’s always this little part of me that’s not mad, that stays sort of calm and interested and