Big Salmon Lake afterglow

Cold as butts, the other woman says, and Autumn finds that it's easy to maintain her small, but genuine smile.  The dark lady reminds her of one of her uncle's children, who she had detested.  It was funny — she could accept this kind of humor from someone her own age, but if it came from anyone younger she found that it drove her nuts.  Lucky for this stranger, the only reason she'd even hated her cousins was because, well, they were her cousins.  

No, she responds breezily, I don't really live anywhere right now.  She says this like she's been doing it her whole life, because she'd found that the only way to break past the misery in traveling by her lonesome was to fake it until she made it.  She just wished it was easier to "make it" than it had turned out to be.  Why?  Do you come from somewhere around here?  Hopefully, for then at least she'd have a point of reference to work from.