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"What do they do, make a date to have sex?"

Star asked her.

"I don't know. Maybe," Jade replied, thoughtful

for a moment. She smiled. "Maybe it's more

romantic."

"Oh yeah, you're married, but you got to make a

date to have sex. That's really romantic."

"Passion should be . . . unexpected," Misty said

with dreamy eyes turned toward the ceiling. "You've

got to turn toward the man you love and have your

eyes meet and then float into each other's arms with

music in your heart."

"You're living in your own soap opera," Star

told her, but not with her usual firmness. She looked

like she hoped she was wrong.

"Maybe, but that's the way it's going to be for

me and the man who loves me," Misty insisted. Jade drew her lips up in the corners and shook

her head. Then she turned back to me.

"So you don't think your mother and father had

sex? Is that what you're saying?"

"They had to have had it once," I said. "What do you mean? You just said they

adopted you:'

"My father told me there was almost a baby. He

was alone with me one night when I was feeling very

low, and he told me the story. He said my mother

didn't know she was pregnant or didn't want to know.

She found out when she had a bad pain in her

stomach, went to the bathroom and lost the baby that

was in her. She flushed it down the toilet."

"Ugh," Misty said.