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You’re stinking up the room.”
    I looked around me. A few other students were looking atme. I looked back at her and shrugged. “What’s the big deal? I just had too much to drink last night.”
    “Why were you drinking on a random Tuesday?”
    “Sean and I …”
    “Sean,” she said as if she needed no further explanation. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the class.

    Late that evening my father called me for the first time in months.
    “How are you?” he asked. His voice was tight. Serious.
    “I’m fine,” I answered tentatively. “How are you?”
    “How are you handling the pressure of school?”
    His tone worried me. “I’m doing fine,” I repeated. “Why?”
    “I just got a call from Chuck. He said you were drunk in class this morning.” Chuck was my father’s friend, the one who had helped expedite my admission into Wharton.
    “I wasn’t drunk.”
    “Why would Chuck tell me that?”
    “You have your friend spying on me?”
    “Of course not. He heard it from your professor.”
    “I told you, I wasn’t drunk.”
    “He said the classroom smelled like booze.”
    “That part may be true,” I said. “But I wasn’t drunk. I just had a lot to drink the night before.”
    “What’s going on, Luke?”
    “Nothing’s going on. I just drank too much. It’s not like you don’t drink.”
    “I don’t walk into board meetings stinking of booze. How often are you drinking?”
    “Why are you interrogating me?” I snapped. “I’m old enough to be making my own decisions without you checking up on me.”
    My response seemed to stun him. He was silent for a moment then said, “You’re right. I just care about you.”
    I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m fine.” More silence. Finally I said, “I need to go.”
    “I love you, Luke.”
    “All right,” I said and hung up.
    Things had changed between us even more than I realized. Or maybe I had changed more than I realized. I had never talked to my father like that before. I set down my phone, then dropped my head into my hands.
    Sean had overheard my conversation and walked into the room carrying a can of beer. “Who was that?”
    “My father. Someone at Wharton called him and told him I was drunk in class this morning.”
    “You weren’t drunk,” he said. “A little hungover, but not drunk.”
    “I shouted at my dad.”
    Sean grinned. “Welcome to my world.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. “It’s not my world.”
    “It happens,” he said.
    “Not to me,” I said. “Do you even have any contact with your parents?”
    “My mother,” he said. “She’s the one who keeps me in the green. My father disowned me.”
    “What happened?”
    “Same old story. He was never around when I was growing up. When he was, we fought. A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, we had a big fight in front of like fifty of his guests. I called him a vulture capitalist. He responded by telling me what a disappointment I was to him as a son.
    “I said, ‘You don’t think being your son is a disappointment?’ He said ‘Fine. Have it your way. I wash my hands of you.’”
    I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse. “What did you say to that?”
    He looked at me with dark eyes. “I thanked him.”
    “You thanked him?”
    “I meant it. It was liberating. I was tired of him orchestrating my life, telling me what I was going to do and be. I was tired of the strings that came with his money. I hadn’t sold my soul to the devil, I had leased it.”
    “How did your mother respond?”
    “My mother was his first trophy wife. By then he was on to trophy wife number two, so she shares my enmity.” He took a drink from his beer. “What about you? Daddy’s got it all figured out for you too? Got the master plan?”
    “My father’s not making me do anything,” I said.
    “But he’s kept you close to the business, hasn’t he? Groomed you to be the heir? The next
him”
.
    I didn’t answer.
    “I thought