Applying for college was fraught with more difficulties than Anne Joy had ever considered or even expected when she had made her deal with Eric and Alexis Layton. She was still extremely sheltered despite having been a nova for the better part of a year and completing her GED; being the 'naked glowing Bible chick' whose eruption had been captured on a digital camera and uploaded to a certain adult film site didn't help her either. In her more reflective moments, Anne admitted to herself that she as pliant as a reed in a world where novas were known for their iron wills, and extraordinarily innocent compared to almost everybody else with a node. That she was of best average intelligence made her feel inadequate around novas like her brother Tobias - and she had no illusions about her ability to compete with any of the 'hypergeniuses' touted by Project Utopia or DeVries.

She stood outside the admissions office at NYU, black folder containing her meagre educational history and letters of support under her arm, and tried not to tremble. Past, present and future students looked askance at the softly glowing woman who stared at the glass doors. Finally, somebody came over and asked if she needed help. Anne shook her head, screwed up her pathetic excuse for courage, and entered the building.

The staffer she wound up with was dumpy, lumpy and generally unpleasant with the most strident nasal voice ever produced by God (or the Devil). As if there was a sense of cosmic irony, the woman handed over a Chick Tract after taking down Anne's admission details; she merely took it and threw it in the bin after leaving the office.

Walking through the grounds, Anne was surprised to find out that there was a group called Campus Crusade for Christ. She was equally surprised to find herself cringing at the sermonising that a couple young men were doing. When one approached her, he actually paled in recognition and blurted out, "You flew naked in Brooklyn, right?"

She decided to ignore the question and walk on by, though her face was red as the Whore of Babylon's robe. Catcalls from what could only be frat boys followed in her wake as she walked quickly to the bus stop. College was going to be a very long period of her life if she was going to be subjected to this all the time.

The bus came and took her to the Brooklyn address she was living in. Small, overpriced apartment in a building which was probably fit only for a kennel; she had refused the Laytons' offer of better accommodation as she owed them too much. Not coincidentally, it was close to her old home... and where Carlos lived.

Joyous Harvest and New Purpose Ministries looked older and dingier than she recalled, the rose-coloured glasses of a more naive self removed when she erupted and later broke up with Carlos. She saw her mother sweeping the front step of Joyous Harvest, more wrinkled and stooped than six months ago, and two female parishioners from New Purpose handing out Chick Tracts to bored passers-by. Anne reflected on how she'd been performing both tasks once, her only source of further education a possible diploma at Hyles Anderson College (which, according to one of her community college classmates, was not a proper one). Marriage and motherhood, supporting her husband while he preached the Word of the Lord, doing a hundred jobs... It would have been her lot in life, and one she would have been content with.

Carlos was out on the street as the bus rolled by. Still darkly handsome and solicitous - but with a pretty Hispanic girl on his arm, hanging on his every word like Anne had once.

He got over it quickly, she thought sadly. But in their circles, a married man had a better chance of becoming head pastor somewhere, which was what Carlos was aiming at. Since Anne's decision to go into the world and work had fractured their relationship beyond repair, he obviously decided to move on.

She got off her bus and walked up to her apartment in the gathering blue dusk. Once she'd opened a door repainted so many times it was flush with the frame, she stepped into a different place. Anne was a competent sewer with some knowledge of patchwork, so she had covered the yellowish walls of her apartment with quilts made from a motley of bright fabric scrapes. A knitted blanket lay over the battered couch and the furniture was all scratched wood veneer. But it was her home.

Anne realised, some time after dinner and washing up, that she was sitting down and watching a sitcom. Not one on the Christian Network or other evangelical channel, but an ordinary one on cable. It wasn't even funny. But she wasn't working into the night (though that would change in college) nor was she praying or doing anything like that.

Sometimes bad things are blessings in disguise, she suddenly thought. There was no man telling her what to do, or fetch his beer, or type up letters for him... She was surprised to discover that she liked this quiet time before the TV.

Though the rejection of Carlos and her family still hurt, perhaps there was still hope for her to have a productive life. As for the tenets of faith... she'd worry about that later.