I know you’re not supposed to judge people when you first meet them—but sometimes they give you lots of material to work with. For example, she kept looking sideways at my uniform. It would have been so easy for her to say, “Take a second and change,” but she hadn’t done that. I guess I could have demanded it, but I was cowed by her head girl status. Also, halfway down the stairs, she told me she was going to apply to Cambridge. Anyone who tells you their fancy college plans before they tell you their last name . . . these are people to watch out for. I once met a girl in line at Walmart who told me she was going to be on America’s Next Top Model. When I next saw that girl, she was crashing a shopping cart into an old lady’s car out in the parking lot. Signs. You have to read them.

I was terrified for a few minutes that they would all be like this, but reassured myself that it probably took a certain type to become head girl. I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.

“New Orleans,” I said. “Well, not New Orleans, but right outside of. Well, like an hour outside of. My town is really small. It’s a swamp, actually. They drained a swamp to build our development. Well, attempting to drain a swamp is pretty pointless. They don’t really drain. You can dump as much fill on them as you want, but they’re still swamps. The only thing worse than building a housing development on a swamp is building it on an old Indian burial ground—and if there had been an old Indian burial ground around, the greedy morons who built our McMansions would have set up camp on it in a heartbeat.”

“Oh. I see.”

My answer only seemed to increase the intensity of the smug glee waves. My flip-flops made weird sucking noises on the stones.

“Your feet must be cold in those,” she said.

“They are.”

And that was the end of our conversation.