Peggy, December, the previous year – day one
Peggy Lawson is a first-semester sophomore at NYU. She shares a basement dormitory apartment at Washington Square East with two other girls, also sophomores. A tiny girl, barely five feet tall, with straight, strawberry blond hair, worn shoulder-length, with bangs, she is majoring in political science, and has her eye on a career with the State Department. She figures if she can successfully complete her undergrad degree, she will enroll at Georgetown to pursue a Masters.
Today is a Friday, and the last school day of the calendar year, and also the final school day before the long holiday break. She is looking forward to spending time with her family in Cortland, in Upstate New York. To save money, she is considering saving the bus fare her parents sent her, and hitchhiking home instead. The bright, sunny day is like an invitation for adventure.
Bidding her two roommates goodbye, she shoulders her heavy knapsack and heads out the door. She figures she’ll take the subway up to the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal at 178th Street, grab a bus across the bridge to Fort Lee on the other side of the Hudson River in New Jersey, and begin hitchhiking home from there.
Riding the A train uptown toward her destination, Peggy can barely contain her excitement at the thought of seeing her family and friends again. Her two roommates, Janet and Arlene are nice enough, but they are both “big city” girls, and don’t represent the traditional family values and customs that Peggy is accustomed to, having grown up in Cortland. She longs to hang onto its relative innocence and sense of community for as long as possible, before eventually making a permanent break and adopting the more cosmopolitan lifestyle that her career will necessitate.
The underground ride uptown takes approximately thirty minutes, and she virtually leaps from the plastic seat as the train pulls into the station, deep beneath the bus terminal. As with all young people of college age, Peggy has no sense of fear, and displays a carefree attitude that serves her well. Were she more aware of her surroundings and possessed of a more keenly-honed sense of survival, she would notice the intense stare coming from the dark-skinned Latino man lurking behind the tile-covered column, and watching her every movement.