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rules that I sometimes wasn’t even aware of. I could write a ten-page, footnoted, A-plus paper on the causes and effects of my particular brand of anxiety. But being able to explain it isn’t the same as being able to control it.
    I knocked again, a little louder. Dr. Streeter’s deep voice came from the other side of the door. “It’s unlocked!”
    Dr. Streeter, dressed in the shapeless brown sweater-vest he wears no matter the season, sat bent over his desk with the end of a pencil wedged between his teeth, chewing on the eraser and reading an essay. He held his hand up when I entered, so I stood still and silent, waiting for him to finish. He shook his white head and scribbled a note in the margin of the paper before looking up, first with a frown and then with a delighted smile, which made me feel much better.
    â€œIvy!” he boomed, throwing out his arms as if he expected me to run into them.
    Dr. Streeter acts in plays at the local theater. He talks as if he’s trying to make sure they hear him in the cheap seats and uses a lot of sweeping hand gestures.
    â€œSit! Sit! Sit! Just clear those papers off the chair—move them anywhere. That’s right. What can I do for you?”
    â€œDr. Verstandig said you wanted to see me?”
    â€œI did? Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, his face brightening. “I did! I wanted to talk to you about something.”
    Dr. Streeter is probably pushing seventy-five, but I don’t think his forgetfulness has anything to do with age. I’m sure he was as much the absentminded academic at thirty as he is now, his office littered with papers, probably wearing that same ugly sweater-vest, and perfectly content with his life.
    He turned to face me, and his ancient leather and wood swivel chair squeaked in protest. “How are your classes going?”
    â€œClass,” I corrected. “I can only take one per semester, remember? So far, I’ve got a ninety-two average in Dr. Verstandig’s class.”
    â€œGood. Very good. Not that I’m surprised,” he said, snatching a piece of paper from under a glass paperweight and holding it at arm’s length so he could read it without his glasses. “I was looking over your transcript. Algebra was a bit of a bumpy road, but you’ve earned high marks in every other course. Well done, Ivy. Very well done.”
    He was such a nice man. Why had I been so worried about meeting with him? One of these days I simply had to grow up and get over it.
    â€œThanks. As of next semester, I’ll be a sophomore. Only took three years. I’ll probably be a grandmother before I’m a graduate, but I’ll get there eventually.”
    He made his hands into a chapel and rested his chin on the steeple of his fingers. “What if you were able to graduate in two years? Or even a little sooner?”
    â€œHow could I do that?”
    He began patting his pockets, then burrowing through the papers on his desk until he located a bright blue brochure with a picture on the front of a man and a woman dressed in business suits and carrying textbooks under their arms.
    â€œThis appeared in my in-box last week. Carrillon College is starting a new accelerated degree program in nonprofit management and leadership. It’s designed for people like you, adults who have spent some time in the workforce but have not yet finished their undergraduate work. The head of the program happens to be an old friend; she assured me that all your credits would transfer. They would also award you credit for your work experience, an entire semester’s worth.”
    A whole semester of college credit for work I’d already done? No books, no tests, no tuition? And best of all, no time? At my current rate, it would take me a year and a half to complete one semester’s worth of classes. There had to be a catch.
    I took the brochure from the professor’s outstretched hand. “How does that