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"So maybe a certain man's protoplasm has a chemical reaction to a certain woman's protoplasm. Something magnetic. It's just positive and negative atoms reacting, but people make it seem like more," she concluded.

"It is more," I insisted. "It has to be! Don't your parents think it's more?"

Alice shrugged. "They never forget each other's birthdays or their anniversary," she said, making it sound as if that was all there was to being in love and married.

Alice's father, William, was Sewell's dentist. Her mother was his receptionist, so they did spend a great deal of time together. But whenever I went to have my teeth checked, I noticed she called her husband Doctor Morgan, as if she weren't his wife, but merely his employee.

Alice had two brothers, both older. Her brother Neal had already graduated and gone off to college and her brother Tommy was a senior and sure to be the class valedictorian.

"Do they ever have arguments?" I asked her. "Bad arguments?" I wondered if it was just something my mommy and daddy did.

"Not terribly bad and very rarely in front of anyone," she said. "Usually, it's about politics."

"Politics?" I couldn't imagine Mommy caring about politics. She always walked away when Daddy and Papa George got into one of their discussions.

"Yes."

"I hope when I get married," I said, "I never have an argument with my husband."

"That's an unrealistic hope. People who live together must have some conflicts. It's natural."

"But if they do, and they're in love, they always make up and feel terrible about hurting each other."

"I suppose," Alice relented. "But that might be just to keep the peace. Once, my parents didn't talk to each other for nearly a week. I think it was when they argued about the last presidential election."

"A week!" I thought for a moment. Even though Mommy and Daddy had their arguments, they always spoke to each other soon afterward and acted as if nothing had happened. "Didn't they kiss each other good night?"

"I don't know. I don't think they do that."

"They don't ever kiss good night?"

Alice shrugged. "Maybe. Of course, they kissed and they must have had sex because my brothers and I were born," she said matter-of-factly.

"Well that means they are in love."

"Why?" Alice asked, her brown eyes narrowing into skeptical slits.

I told her why. "You can't have sex without being in love."

"Sex doesn't have anything to do with love per se," she lectured. "Sexual reproduction is a natural process performed by all living things. It's built into the species."

"Ugh.,

"Stop saying ugh after everything I say. You sound like Thelma Cross," she said and then she smiled. "Ask her about sex."

"Why?"

"I was in the bathroom yesterday and overheard her talking to Paula Temple about--"

"What?"

"You know."

I widened my eyes.

"Who was she with?"

"Tommy Getz. I can't repeat the things she said," Alice added, blushing.