His laugh carried over the night air—grainy, deep and as “too much” as his body and eyes. She began to jog to her car. She wanted to be in her VW with Billy Joel’s latest eight-track turned up as loud as it would go, with the car’s cloth seats absorbing this vibration she knew as her body’s signal of danger. At that moment, she couldn’t have been more thankful to her mother for winning the fight with her daddy about having a car in college. Her mother had finally convinced him that it was actually safer for Amy to have her own transportation than to be at the mercy of other students. So her daddy had given in, but he had bought her the cheapest stick-shift station wagon he could find in Darby, Georgia. She was allowed to have a car, but she wasn’t allowed to be a show-off about it.

The cool air began to seep down her neck, drying the sweat. Although she knew she shouldn’t leave Carol Anne unescorted at the party, she longed only for what she thought of as the me-filled dorm room. Carol Anne was the one who got her invited to this party, Carol Anne could find a way home—this would not be a difficult task for her.

Amy wanted to bury her head in the pillow that smelled like mother’s laundry at home—an aroma Amy hadn’t been able to duplicate in the dorm quad’s clanging laundry even when she used the same detergent. Now she brought the sheets home every other week. She thought of it as the magic smell of home—a potion Mother wouldn’t give her the recipe for, as it kept her returning with her overflowing pink laundry basket.

Her parents lived only two hours away and Amy had the freedom to escape when college life overwhelmed her. Of course, she would never admit to the need for escape; she was only coming home to get her laundry done. She felt sad for the girls from farther away, the ones who were relegated to holiday visits with family. Their muffled cries of homesickness and the whispered calls on the hall phone to parents they pretended were boyfriends saddened her, made her appreciate how lucky she was.