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think a thousand or two more would have made a difference?”
    â€œProbably not.”
    â€œCertainly not. Money isn’t the point here. The point is that a job teacheshumility in a way books can’t, at least that’s what we trumpet all over the brochures. But I don’t see how we get there by having kids on financial aid serve food to their rich classmates. If anything, the lesson is more needed the other way around.”
    This was a new angle for me. I had always accepted as a given that there would be rich students at Princeton, and that I wouldn’t feel equal to them. At least not in terms of wealth.
    â€œAnyway, I’ll see what I can do. Unfortunately, the semester is starting and the Financial Aid Office will probably give me a hard time. But by spring at the latest we should have this fixed.” She sounded so confident that I wondered if there was anything she couldn’t fix, once she put her mind to it. “How do you like the sea bass?”
    The food had just arrived and I was taking my first bite. “Delicious, reminds me of my mother’s cooking. Except for a flavor I don’t recognize. Not exactly thyme.”
    â€œIt’s rosemary.” She savored the dish, eyes closing in approval. “I have a garden at my house, and the one herb I always want fresh is rosemary.”
    Rosemary. Or thyme. We all had an herb that could take us home.
    â€œNow, let’s talk classes. We should reshuffle quite a bit.” She took a chart out of her purse and a red pen flew through the page, circling a few boxes. “You don’t need this literature class. They read a book a week and it will eat up too much of your time.” A quick X in three of the boxes got rid of the excessive reading. “Definitely keep Composition, but one music class is not enough. I’d say two, even three—to beef up your résumé early on. Which means that either Greek Art or French 101 has to go.”
    The tip of the pen froze over Monday’s schedule, ready to strike either class as soon as I made my choice.
    â€œProfessor Donnelly, I’m not sure about the trade-off.”
    She shrugged. “Everything is a trade-off. You’ll get more use out of the language than the art history. But you already have Bulgarian and . . . what was your other language? Russian, right? So if you want to take art instead, go ahead.”
    â€œI meant the trade-off between that and music.”
    The pen dropped on the table. “Not sure I understand.”
    â€œThere are other things I’d like to explore.”
    â€œExploring is fine. But I can’t let you jeopardize the piano.”
    â€œHow would this jeopardize it?”
    â€œEasily. Music doesn’t tolerate being pushed to the side—either you drop everything for it or it drops you. So, while endless sampling of the liberal arts may work for anybody else, for you things are different.”
    Things had always been different for me, and I loved it that way. Yet it wasn’t the kind of “different” Donnelly had in mind. Had I stayed in Bulgaria, my entire future would have been mapped out for me: competitions and concerts all through high school, then admission to the National Academy of Music, then more competitions and concerts, endlessly. It was a great future if you loved music (which I did). But I had come to America to choose my own future. And this time the piano wasn’t enough; I wanted everything. Whatever I had been missing out on, all my life.
    When I tried to explain, Donnelly wouldn’t let me finish. “Thea, I get all that. I’ve been through it myself, believe me. What I don’t get is how exactly you propose to do it.”
    â€œDo what?”
    â€œFulfill the prerequisites for the major on time, qualify for the Performance Certificate, keep your stage appearances, while all along scattering yourself across the board like this. I don’t think