“Where there's smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together.”

“What the hell?” Helena objected. “And would someone please flick a Bic or rub two sticks together? I want to die knowing exactly what killed me.”

“When I asked my parents how the baby got inside Ma, they both laughed, and then Daddy told me they had made it with their bodies. I pictured them fully clothed, rubbing furiously against each other, like two sticks making fire.”

“Where there's fire, there's smoke.”

“I explained that I'd been homeschooled but that didn't help. She must have been picturing cavemenlike supervillians in capes grunting and showing me how to rub two sticks together to make the pretty fire stuff.”

“I seriously think I could have sat in the middle of the kitchen floor rubbing two sticks together over a pile of dynamite blocks and gasoline cans, and my parents would be oblivious, as long as I was keeping myself occupied.”