“You artist types claim to be so open-minded,” I point out, “but as soon as somebody disagrees with you about something, you start calling people names.” Hardly role models for us hicks in the boonies.

“I just get so irritated with the attitude,” Amy lectures, “that art is supposed to be immediately absorbed like some comic book. Do you realize that when somebody goes through a museum the average length of time spent on each exhibit is about eighteen seconds?”

I nod, more than happy to keep the conversation on this level. Some U.S. Supreme Court justice, hopelessly muddled, endeared himself to future generations of law students by confessing in a written opinion that maybe he didn’t know what obscenity was, but he knew it when he saw it.

“People know what they like,” I say, knowing I sound hopelessly provincial.

“They don’t have to study it for a lifetime. You either respond or you don’t.”

Amy shakes her head. Trying to improve me is irresistible.

“That’s what you think,” she says earnestly.

“But it’s like trying to judge a book when you don’t understand half the words.”

Is Amy like this with her clients? No wonder she isn’t making any money. She is so damn earnest about it.

“It’s over my head is what you mean. I can live with that. But I don’t have to have it in my house.”

Jessie, sensing she is forgiven, raises her enormous muzzle and gazes at Amy with her big, beautiful brown eyes as if to say, this guy is full of it. Seeing that I am shifting the focus of the argument, Amy ignores my dog and says to me, “I wouldn’t expect to have it out in the living room if it upset you.”

Is every conversation we have these days about us? When I bought the house, I thought she got the message that I wasn’t ready to get married. I take off Jessie’s collar. The tinkling of her tags is driving me crazy. Despite our differences, Amy and I seem to be wearing invisible magnets that have each other’s names embedded in them.