“Maybe if I went to school here, I wouldn’t wait to dick around, either,” Wendi said bitterly as we crossed a small blue bridge running over a creek. My window was down. The water warbled. Campus was dark, but a few lights switched on automatically as we drove.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“This is practically already the Ivy League. She’s got a free ticket.”

I stiffened. “Turn right here, I think,” I said, trying to remember the directions Anita had given me. “She said she’s in the old junior high.”

“She’s not going to barf in my car, is she?”

“No,” I said. “And she doesn’t have a free ticket. She works really hard.”

“Didn’t say she didn’t,” Wendi said, and briefly that puckered face loosened. Suddenly, she slammed her horn, hard. We’d nearly hit a train of figures sprinting across the road.

“Wendi!” I said. “They have security on campus!”

“Security? Why are these kids drinking here on a Saturday, then—” but she shut up as I pulled out my phone and dialed the number Anita had called from. Three rings, four, no reply. “You got a cover story ready, superhero? I’m not taking the fall for this chick.”

“You’re supposed to be the fast thinker,” I snapped.

I tried the number once more, and this time a guy’s voice answered. It was deeper than mine, cloaked in a friendly Southern burr. “Are you Anita’s brother?”

“Brother?”

“She said her brother was coming to pick her up?”

I paused. I assented.

The voice directed me where to come. “Hurry,” he said.

The crowd that awaited us, in a parking lot next to a one-story brick building, was wedged against a broad tree. Two figures peeled away: a guy taller than me, and a girl leaning on him. The guy was white and had dark brown hair that fringed above his ears. He looked annoyed.

Anita grinned at me dizzily. “Neil. Happy happy to see you.”

“Is she okay?” I reached out an arm so she could lean on me instead.

“She didn’t drink that much,” the guy said. “But I don’t think she really knows how to handle it.” He sounded sober. “We’re all trying to get gone, though. We would have taken her home, but she wouldn’t say where y’all live.”

“Far,” I said. “Thanks.”

We found a towel in Wendi’s trunk, and I sat in the backseat with a dozing Anita and laid the towel over her lap in case of emergency. We pulled out of the vast compound and Wendi lowered the windows. The air was fresh but cold and smelled like peeled potatoes.

“Can’t she choke on her vomit?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Wendi said. “Better that than spewing.”