All Chapters of Mi Amor: Chapter 31 - Chapter 35

I got to the Miami airport with plenty of time to spare before my flight, but by the time I had made it through the serpentine security line, I had to hurry to the gate. The best Margaret had been able to do was a middle seat at the back of the plane; my fellow passengers were returning snowbirds, partying college kids celebrating the last few hours of spring break, and a sprinkling of business types on their way to early meetings in the city the next day.It was an uncomfortable couple of hours, scrunched into the narrow seat, listening to people having fun all around me. I couldn’t concentrate on the mystery novel I had brought, about a gay detective in Honolulu, and I refused to think about Javier and worry about how things were going with his parents. I had my own family issues to deal with.The man in the window seat was a Sikh, with dark skin and a red turban. “You are going back to college from spring break?” he asked me.“You’re flattering me. I graduated from college a few ye

“Your mother and I aren’t comfortable with the track your career is taking,” he continued. I knew it wouldn’t do any good to protest, so I kept my mouth shut. “It’s time you stopped fooling around in Miami and made some sense out of your life. By the time I was your age, I was clerking for the chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At your age, your grandfather had started his own law practice. And your great-grandfather, well, he came to this country with nothing, started shoveling horseshit, and ended up selling hay and feed to the top racetracks in the country.”Horseshit was one of my father’s favorite words, though usually it was used to denote how little he thought of something Richard or I said. “Your mother and I can’t sit back any longer and watch you waste your time. You need to train that intelligence of yours in the best way you can. It’s time you grew up and got yourself to law school.”My first reaction was horseshit. I am my father’s son, after all. But I did

I made arrangements to take the GMAT at a center back in Florida, then started considering business schools. The ones my father had suggested -- Columbia and Harvard -- were givens, though I didn’t have the kind of stellar grades you probably needed. A lot would depend on my scores. I pulled down the application for the University of Miami too as well as a couple of other schools in South Florida.By the time my parents came back from their event, I was prepared. After dinner, my father and I sat down in his study and I showed him the list of schools I was considering.He didn’t say anything about my use of his computer, though I did mention that I had done most of the research online. Score one for Adam.He added and subtracted schools until we had a group we were both happy with. “You’re going to have to do very well on your GMAT if you want to get into Harvard,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make your business sound like a lot more than just a way to spend your time in nigh