“You think I want to go to school with a bunch of rich white boys?” he asked. “Besides, who’s gonna pay for that? You rich now, Charlie? Last time I checked, you still lived in the hood like the rest of us.”

I felt my face flush hot with both shame and indignation.

“I don’t know,” I stammered.

“You tell me when you figure it out,” he said.

When I asked my mother about it, she let out a long sigh.

“Have you ever heard of need-based scholarships, Charlie?”

I hadn’t.

“Well, you qualify for one,” she said. “So would Terrence. He’d probably get a better deal than you. Maybe he’d like to apply.”

I said nothing. Terrence had made his feelings about the Yeatman School very clear.

“You let me worry about money,” my mother said. “You just work hard and do well, okay?”

A week before the beginning of school, my mother and I returned to Yeatman to attend a reception for new high school students and their parents, which revolved around an audience with the headmaster and the introduction of each new freshman to a sophomore designated to be his “big brother.” We gathered in the lobby outside the headmaster’s office, around a pair of long tables loaded with cookies, and pitchers of orange juice and ice water. Most of the rising freshman class had come through the Yeatman junior school; hence, there were only twenty new students. The boys who were familiar with one another all had tousled hair, Sperry Top-Siders or Clarks Wallabees, web belts from Brooks Brothers and L. L. Bean, and the tanned, healthy look that comes from tennis and swimming lessons and summer camps. The other group was smaller and motley: boys with cheaper clothes and shoes and buzz cuts; a few Asian and black boys to satisfy the recently implemented diversity quota. My mother and I stood at the front of the room, afraid to part from each other. I wanted to join the larger group of tanned, tousled boys and be absorbed into their ranks. But I knew that I belonged with the other group.

I was rescued by the headmaster’s assistant, Mrs. Barnett, who led me up the hallway. Through a door to my left, I heard the chatter of voices—the sophomore big brothers, lounging in the chairs around the boardroom table.

“Go on in, honey,” Mrs. Barnett said. “They’re waiting for you.”

Inside the frosted doors, Dr. Dodd, the headmaster, leaned against the front edge of his desk. To his left sat a large man in pressed chinos, an open-collared white shirt, and a navy blazer. Dr. Dodd stood and extended his hand. The other man remained seated.

“Hello, Mr. Boykin,” Dr. Dodd said.

I grasped his hand and shook it.

“This is a friend of mine, Mr. Haltom,” Dr. Dodd said.

“Hi,” I said.

Mr. Haltom smiled. “Hello, Charlie.”