Six Miles From Nashville Read Free Page A

Surely, if she thought hard enough, she could get her life back on track.
    Betty was always careful and never caused any trouble. Everyone except her closest friends thought that she was boring. She was a homebody. She had a fear that she would always live in that little house with her parents watching TV until she was an old woman, but she liked being with them.
    One of her friends from the youth group told her about a Bible college that let students pay tuition, room and board by the month. The payments were low enough that Betty could pay the first semester out with the money she made from working at her daddy’s grocery store. She sent off the paperwork and they accepted her application. She moved four hundred miles away from her folk’s living room.
    She was one of those girls who were committed to Jesus. Her devotion put some of the other students at her small high school at a distance. They never asked her to join them in a beer bust or a house party.  When she got to Bible school, she felt that she would be with like-minded people who were striving to get to know God better. She thought it would be like heaven on earth.
    She had friends at home in the youth group, but was afraid of meeting new people. She was so nervous that she and her mama had sewed many stylish clothes so that she would fit in with the other girls. They looked at the Sears Roebuck catalogue and chose the clothes they thought were best for her new life. Her mama got out the old newspaper and cut patterns to make the outfits herself. She was good at that.
    The clothes were done so well that the girls at high school that ordered from the catalogue thought that they had been cheated in the quality of the fabric. Her mama always watched for sales on pretty and strong yard goods.
    Betty opened the windows of her ’73 Buick Century Luxus to smell the fresh crisp autumn air. She wanted to get a close look at the huge maple trees. They wore their brilliant leaf coats for her to admire.
    She found the address for the large Bible school and wandered up and down the streets of the campus trying to get her bearings. Tall buildings loomed over her as she searched for the main building where registrations were to take place.
    Finally, she found it in the center of the campus and parked in the street across from it. Students milled around in and out of the building. She entered the large room with cold marble floors and stood in line next to a poster board sign reading ‘freshman’.
    Her mouth was dry and h er heart pounded at the thought of meeting so many new people. This is my chance to reinvent myself. I don’t have to be the shy, stupid girl I was in high school.
    When her turn came , a middle-aged woman with auburn hair sprinkled with gray asked in a bored voice, “Name?”
    “Betty Barnes”
    She fingered the folders within the ‘b’ section of the box before her. “Here it is. You will find your class schedule in here as well as your dorm building, floor number, and room number. There is a notation on the outside of your file that you are to be employed in the cafeteria to take care of part of your tuition. Read the forms and fill them out and return them to the cafeteria as soon as possible. Do not return them here. They are staffed to take care of those matters.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Next!”
    Betty moved aside to give the next student time with the emotionless woman. She was uneasy as she looked in the faces of the others in the freshman line.
    The girl who had stood behind her passed her and walked with confidence to a large map of the campus that hung in a prominent spot on the wall. Betty watched her with interest as she took her schedule and traced  her finger on the map legend on the lower right and found a spot on the map. After she left, Betty searched her schedule for the name of her dorm building and then found it and the cafeteria on the map.
    She decided to go to the cafeteria first. It was closer to the main administration