“School would have to be on uppers to be a drag.” She produced the cigarette pack, bounced it on a shiny knee. “When I was little they tested my IQ. I'm supposed to be supersmart. They say I should be studying more. I say I'm smart enough to know it's a waste of time.”

“No interest in any subject?” I said.

“Nutrition— love that garlic bread. Is today when we talk about sex?”

That caught me off guard. “I don't recall our scheduling that.”

“They scheduled it. I've been instructed to talk to you about it.”

“By your parents?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It's mostly Lyle's idea. He's positive I'm doing the dirty, gonna get pregnant, stick him with a ‘little nigger grandkid.’ Like if I was, talking to you about it would help. Like just because I don't talk to them, I'm going to throw up my insides to some outsider.”

“Sometimes talking to an outsider can be safer.”

“Maybe for some people,” she said. “But explain me this: When you're young everyone's always knocking into your head never talk to strangers, beware of strangers, watch out for strangers. So now they're paying for me to tell my secrets to a stranger?”

She ran a fingernail under the seal of the pack, slit it open, played with the foil flap. “What bullshit.”

“Maybe they're hoping eventually you won't consider me a stranger.”

“They can hope all they want.” Low, tight laugh. “Hey, I'm not trying to be rude, it's just coming out that way— Sorry, you seem like a nice guy. It's just that I shouldn't have to be here, okay? Face it: They're just using you to punish me— like grounding me or threatening not to let me get my license next year. None of that worked, and this won't either. You have to care to be controlled, and I don't do caring.”

“What are they punishing you for, Lauren?”

“They say it's my attitude,” she said, “but you know what I think? I think they're jealous.”

“Of what?”

“My happiness.”

“You're happy and they're not.”

“They're making themselves out to be all . . . in control. Especially him.” She lowered her voice to a hostile baritone parody: “‘Lauren, you're screwing up your life. This therapy crap is goddamn expensive. I want you to go in there and spill your guts.'”

Last week she'd talked about spitting out secrets. The emetic approach to insight.

“So,” I said, “your parents aren't happy, they're taking it out on you, and I'm the weapon.”

“They're stuck where they are and I'm cool, free, enjoying my life, and that bugs them. Soon as I get my own money, I'm out of there, bye-bye, Lyle and Jane.”

“Do you have a plan to get money?”

She shrugged. “I'll figure something out— I'm not talking right now. I'm not impractical, I know even McDonald's won't hire me without their permission. But someday.”

“Did you try to work at McDonald's?”