“I was nearly a pro.”

“Really?”

“My mother took me to L.A. when I was ten. I nearly got on a kids’ TV show. Sort of like The Mickey Mouse Club.”

“We used to watch that.” Ted nudged his brother. “Remember, Terr? Remember The Mickey Mouse Club?”

“We had mouse ears. We went to Disney World,” the brother said.

“It wasn’t The Mickey Mouse Club, but that kind of thing. A kids’ variety show. I nearly got on.”

“Wow,” the brothers said.

Grant felt both pride and shame surrounding that audition. Pride that he’d gotten that close to television fame. Shame over the blue earrings. The young actress who had led the pack of children through the auditions asked him to keep them safe while she taught them a dance number. He didn’t even remember that they were in his pocket until he and his mother were on the flight home the next day, long after the crying jag and the banana split that was meant to console him for not making the final cut.

He still had those earrings, wrapped in white tissue and secured with a purple rubber band. He should have gotten rid of them years ago—given them away, thrown them away even, but he couldn’t somehow. They were another mark against him, like the weed in the plastic Baggie in his closet: another piece of evidence that showed him, if not the world, that he wasn’t really cut out to be a lawyer. Not scrupulous enough. Not law-abiding enough.

Ted handed Grant the clipboard with the Petition for Peace on it. “Sign away.”

Grant twirled the pen in his fingers like a miniature baton. He understood Ted’s point of view, but he also understood Cox’s. That was the trouble. He agreed with both of them. He looked over at the people gathering for the fun run, neighbors dressed as movie stars and political candidates. Where was Suzanne? She’d left for the grocery store ages ago. “Looks like the race is about to start . . .” He handed the petition, unsigned, back to Ted.

JILLIAN PICKED UP THE PAPER CUPS THE KIDS IN THE FUN RUN HAD thrown on the ground. She was earning student-service-learning hours, volunteer hours required to graduate from middle school. She and Sofia used to do their hours together, tallying them up in a “do-good” notebook they’d planned to keep adding to till they graduated from high school. It must have been someone’s idea of a joke to assign Lindy Cox to the same job. Lindy stared at her like Jillian was a maid who’d been hired to help out at a party. Every now and then Lindy would shake her head, a mystified expression on her face.