EXCERPT (from Chapter One)

I.

Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are.

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du gout, 1825

Chapter 1.

Mariah

“Hallelujah,” Mariah Moon said as the endless line of cars began moving forward. Twenty-feet away, the Monterey exit shimmered like a desert mirage. She flipped on her blinker and waited impatiently to turn into traffic, brave the tunnel, and make her way to Lighthouse Avenue, where her mother was no doubt already preparing for the lunch crowd. Her grandmother, bless her heart for trying, was either filling saltshakers or replacing sugar packets, stopping to rest when her legs ached. If the café was slow, she might be saying novenas for Simon, the gay cook she was certain she could get to defect to the other side. To Gammy, success hinged on bolstering his spiritual life. God, and beauty products were what she believed in, which was why creams and abandoned potions cluttered the upstairs apartment. She wanted to turn back the clock, not just on her face, but the varicose veins that plagued her legs as well. To say it was hard watching someone you loved grow old didn’t begin to cover it.

Traffic stopped again. Mariah rested her forehead on the steering wheel and sighed. Highway One, the two-lane scenic byway on California’s Monterey coast, was two lanes too narrow to accommodate the tourists and commuters. A person could waste a whole morning here, breathing exhaust fumes and getting exposed to god-knows-what. And time was money. From now on every tick of the clock would remind her of that. This morning at six-forty-five, she had awakened as a thirty-three-year-old term assistant professor of Sociology about to start Fall quarter. She had her Master’s, and fully intended to finish her dissertation, as soon as a chunk of time came her way—coinciding with a blue moon, or a four-leaf clover, or a flying pig. By ten-fifteen A.M. she was another unemployment statistic due to budget cuts. Her checking account was in the dismally low three figures. Of course it was. All summer she waitressed at her mother’s café, and she lived on tips. When fall rolled around, the coffers were low.

And then this morning the dean had called her in and explained that the term post she’d held for eight years was being phased out. Michael Howarth, Ph. D., freshly graduated from Louisiana State University, would now cover her classes. He was twenty-eight years old and had already published a book. After eight years of promises that her job would be made permanent as soon as they got more funding, Mariah wanted to call Michael up and tell him, don’t get cozy. Don’t hang any pictures on the walls until you’ve gotten tenure.

If Mariah were to make the monthly car payment on the Subaru, the condo she and her daughter Lindsay rented would have to go. She could COBRA their insurance benefits, that is, if she could find a way to pay for them. At the heart of her worries was Lindsay’s tuition for Country Day Academy for Girls.

Her twelve-year-old daughter’s IQ tested at 175. That kind of intelligence was as much a burden as a gift. Mariah was determined to provide the right environment for her daughter’s intelligence to flourish, meaning public school was not an option. The stress would be traumatic, and such a drastic change had the potential to seal Lindsay’s fate as the too-smart geek girl to be avoided at all costs. Mariah knew that popularity was based on nothing more than the callow whim of youth. She saw how other twelve-year-olds went to the movies, played soccer, slathered on fruit-scented lip-gloss, and begged for trendy clothes. Not her daughter. Lindsay lived, breathed and ate science. Quantum theory science. Bioethics science. Science fiction. Scientific essays with words longer than most sentences. The kinds of science a normal Joe could go a whole life without understanding and get along just fine.