“Hi, Mrs. Berringer. I mean, Ms. Fields,” Levi corrects, and I have to fight a giggle. His eyes are round, and it looks like he thinks my mom might chase him off the premises. They’ve met before, obviously, but always under more neutral conditions—back-to-school barbecues, dropping me off at the Grove with Shola, middle school graduation.

“Call me Joy, Levi. We’re practically family, after all,” she says with a devilish grin, and I want to kill her.

“Funny,” I say.

“Listen, you can’t spend hours fooling around in the screening room and expect me not to tease you a little.”

“We…we were watching—” Levi says, and gestures inanely toward the television. “It was about…” But he loses all words as my dad comes down the stairs and stands behind my mom. My father, if you only get to see him like this—immaculate suit, face puffy from what I would guess are a couple of cocktails, his body enormous next to my petite mother—can be intimidating. He looks like a movie star from the ’40s. He’s slick and rough featured, and seems tougher than the life he currently lives. The crooked nose on his face, broken by a punch and unfixed, remains like a badge of honor from his hardscrabble childhood in Detroit. So does the small scar on his left cheek.

“Hello, Levi.” I swear my dad drops his voice an octave to mess with Levi. “I see you’ve been having a pleasant evening with my daughter.”

I roll my eyes.

“Sir,” Levi says, and nervously rubs the back of his head. Levi has no way of knowing that I’d already planned to give my mom a detailed account of my night. Earlier, on her way out the door, my mother blew me a kiss, winked, and said, “Enjoy yourself, sweet pea.”

“Please call me Richard. Sir makes me feel ancient.” Levi will never call my dad Richard, of course, and so what has happened here is that Levi will call my dad nothing at all. Which is fine by me.

“Well, this was a fun chat. You guys can go upstairs.” I do a shooing motion. “We’ll be up in a sec.”

My mom ignores me.

“How’s the college search going?” she asks Levi. She’s wearing a black cocktail dress and her hair is pulled up Audrey Hepburn style. An oversized teardrop diamond necklace rests delicately in her cleavage. She’s stunning. What does Levi think when he looks at her? That it’s a shame the apple fell so far from the tree?

“We’ll see soon. I applied early to Harvard. Fingers crossed,” Levi says.