It’s warm and sunny when I step out on Mambrino Street. Across the four lanes of traffic sits the university where my dad works. My dad is a physicist. He works with people who deal in all kinds of weird cosmic shit. String theory. Parallel universes. The viability of time travel. It’s not going to build you a better toaster, but it is trippy stuff that makes you spend all day trying to figure it out.

Actually, what I should say is that my dad works against the cosmic. He’s a semifamous debunker of anything that isn’t old-school physics. He calls all the new theories “The Emperor’s New Clothes of Science.” I’m not kidding. He actually submitted that as a paper for Scientific Masturbation Quarterly. Okay, so it’s not really called that, but trust me when I tell you that it is filled with articles of solo pleasure. The rest of us are bored shitless. “They can’t prove any of that, Cameron,” he always says. “And until there’s proof, it’s not science to me.” That’s my dad for you.

Since I’m so close, I could stop in. A quick cost analysis lists the pros and cons of this move. Pro: I might be able to finagle use of the car for a few hours. Con: I would have to have contact with Dad. It’s a real toss-up, but my jones for the car wins out. It’s one of those amazing early spring days you get in Texas sometimes, the kind with a hint of summer to it, a preview of coming attractions, and driving around with the windows down would be mighty fine.

The Bohr Physics Complex is a dingy prewar building on the outskirts of campus featuring neat, ordered rows of classrooms and offices. A huge bulletin board in the center hall is littered with invites for intramural soccer, projects on alternative fuel sources, and buttloads of discussion groups: “Which Way to Higgs Field: Does the God Particle Exist?” “Feel our vibration! Meet in room 101 to discuss the latest in string theory, multiverse theory, and the theory of everything!” “Hail, Putopia!” “Exploring the unexplored—the mysteries of dark energy. Dulcinea Hall. 7 p.m. There will be a keg, so come early and get your strangelet on.”

Dad’s office is behind the last door of a long corridor that hasn’t seen a paint job since Einstein was alive. The door is open a crack. I hear voices, so I peek through. One of Dad’s TAs is in with him. She’s been to the house before. Her name is Rachel or Raylie, some “R” name. She’s sitting in a chair across from my dad, leaning forward, laughing at something he’s just said. My dad doesn’t seem like my dad. He doesn’t sound angry or annoyed like the dad at home who does the yard work, pays the bills, rotates the tires, and looks like he hates every minute of it. He’s actually smiling, which is just weird. I knock on the half-opened door, and Dad stands up quick.

“Hey there, Cam. What a surprise. You remember Raina, my teaching assistant?”

Raina. She gives a little wave. “Hi.”

“So what brings you over here at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon?”

“I was at Eubie’s. Thought I’d drop by.”

“Great,” Dad says, smiling like he wants to sell me a used car. “Uh, Raina, if you could have those papers ready by Wednesday morning.”

“Sure, Frank.”

Frank? She calls him Frank? What’s wrong with Dr. Smith? Raina and I brush each other on my way in. She has big brown eyes and her hair smells like oranges. For a split second I imagine her naked. But then I think that maybe my dad has done the same thing or even seen her naked and I’m wishing I had a big doobie to take that thought right out of my head.

Dad offers me a seat. “Well, this sure is a surprise.”

“So you said.” I plop down into the no-frills chair on the other side of the desk, the place where his students sit. This is how they see him: Tall, fit guy in a starched white button-down and khaki pants. Big desk. Big chair. Big diplomas on the wall behind his graying-around-the-temples head, making him look like one of those religious icon paintings. A black box with an angel snow globe Jenna and I gave him for Christmas one year. The base broke off a while back, and now the angel leans against the glass with both hands like she’s trying to get out. One of those metal pin sculptures that molds to your hand and holds the shape. Two neat stacks of papers—graded and yet-to-be-graded. Lamp on one side, phone on the other. Order. Symmetry. Authority.

“Raina is a really smart woman. Great physicist. Those freshmen don’t know what they’re up against. She could have gone to MIT if she wanted to.”

“Cool. Hey, can I borrow the car?”

Dad’s smile sags and now he looks familiar—like a birthday balloon four days after the party.