"Oh," she says, in still-baffled relief. "I have said that to her many times. When we were children, and she told me my skeletons were disgusting."

"It did not mean..." Her body temperature tends to run high, but now she feels like someone has set her on fire with embarrassment. "We--it is hard to explain. But I have seen her magazines and you can be assured, I am not... I am not what she is looking for."