Chapter One

"You're absolutely sure about this?" my father asked, helping himself to some more breadsticks from the basket in the middle of the table. He squinted at me through his horn-rimmed glasses. "I mean, it's not too late to change your mind. I could make a few calls—"

My mother smacked his hand, giving me a warm smile. "Terry, we've been over this a thousand times." She rolled her eyes at me. "He wants to have a normal college experience before he goes to Harvard." She emphasized normal, making me smile a little to myself. She'd been against my decision much more vehemently than Dad in the beginning, but once she came around she was firmly on my side.

We were sitting in a booth in the Olive Garden on Shaw Avenue, about five blocks from the campus of California State University–Polk. The place was largely deserted, which was probably the norm for three in the afternoon. Our waitress, a pretty young girl whose name tag read COLLEEN, refilled our iced tea glasses. She had no idea she was about to get the biggest tip of her serving career—Dad always tipped several hundred dollars, no matter where he ate. He'd worked his way through MIT as a waiter and never forgot what it was like to bust your ass for a few bucks. I smiled at her, and she smiled back.

Dad certainly didn't look like he was capable of tipping that much. He was wearing a red CSU-Polk T-shirt over a pair of worn-looking jeans. He was balding, and he had pale pink skin that turned tomato red with any exposure to the