<strong>"I didn't think so," </strong>Mary said more than a little unpleasantly.  What really stung was the monkey comment.  Mary might be a lot of things, bitchy when she was in the depths of self-pity chief among them, but she wasn't a racist.  Most racism was learned from one's parents, and hers had never been around to impart it and the help were professional enough to not bring it around her.  Besides, most of her help, besides Daddy's assistants who always seemed to be about her size and hair coloring and build, were African-American or African-African or Asian or Latino.  It was probably her only redeeming quality and this girl was already making fun of it.<strong>"But whatever." </strong>She swept the iPad off the music stand and tossed it carelessly onto her bed.<br/><br/><strong>"I'm your new roommate.  My name is Mary Green.  Do you have a name or can you not do that either?" </strong>She kicked her shoes, low heels with red leather soles, off and let them fall in two different spots around the room without regard to sides.  Mary sat down on the bed and swing her legs in, making the dress bunch tight around her thighs and ride up a little as she squirmed to put her back against the headboard in a sitting position.<br/><br/>She knew she was being a bitch.  Knew it wasn't the right thing to do, but it really hurt getting told yesterday she was moving to a new school tomorrow without a chance to even try to fight with Daddy about it.  And why was he moving her?  Connecticut was just as far away from Dubai as Texas, or near enough to not matter.  Mother was off in Bangladesh of all places, doing something with her charity girlfriends that involved travel, shopping and the incidental photo op with snot-nosed orphans or something.  Hockaday, Miss Porter's, before them it had been Middlesex in Massachusetts.  Always a new school, always with no notice and no chance to even think about making and keeping friends.  Why did they do that to her?<br/><br/>Mary looked at the girl and waited.<br/><br/><br/>