Goodbye for Now Read Free Page A

years old (Sam liked older women, even if they were only seven months older), a world traveler, a polyglot, a dog lover, an enjoyer of cafeteria-style strawberry ice cream, and possessor of skin that smelled like the sea.
    “This was fun,” said Meredith as they bused their trays. But she didn’t sound sure.
    “Should we do it again?” said Sam.
    “Maybe off campus?” Sam observed that this was not a no but was also not an of-course-don’t-be-absurd-yes. Was this thing not as good as he thought? Was it good on paper (well, in code) but not in fact? Or more appalling still: was she his perfect match, the one soul in all the world who fit with his, the boiling down of all humanity to his Platonic partner … and she liked him sort of okay? He scrambled to think up impressive first dates. Was he insane? The cafeteria at work wasn’t a good first impression. This one shouldn’t count. He needed a do-over. “Let’s go somewhere special for dinner.”
    “Okay,” she agreed.
    “Um … Canlis? Campagne? Rover’s?” Sam named expensive restaurants aimlessly. He’d never been to any of them. “We could take the Clipper over to Victoria? Canada’s very romantic.”
    “Boats make me throw up,” she said.
    “That restaurant at the top of the Space Needle?”
    “Do you like baseball?” she said.
    Sam stopped breathing. Was this a trick question? “I like baseball.”
    “How about dinner at the ballpark? Saturday night? Hot dogs and a game? Might be more fun.”

    The ball game was fun. So was dinner out, somewhat more casual than Sam had suggested in the first place but still what passed for fancy in Seattle. So was the play Meredith picked out for them to see and her interrogation of him afterward, which was like an English exam but with more pressure (the stakes being higher, after all). So was the Korean horror film at the three-dollar movies, and so was the day hike at Hurricane Ridge. But it still hadn’t clicked right away. Or maybe it was the opposite.
    “I can’t help but notice,” Meredith observed after all-day hiking, after separate showers and towel-dried hair and red wine and candles and carryout Thai on the floor of her living room, “that you haven’t kissed me yet.”
    “I haven’t?” said Sam.
    “Nope.”
    “What a strange oversight. Why, do you think?”
    “Could be you don’t like me,” Meredith suggested.
    “I don’t think that’s it,” said Sam.
    “Could be you like me but think I’m hideous.”
    “I don’t think that’s it either,” said Sam, scooting a little closer toward her across the floor.
    “Could be that you’re a lousy computer programmer and this algorithm doesn’t work and we’re totally mismatched, a crappy couple, star-crossed, ill-fated, with no chemistry.”
    “I am a brilliant computer programmer,” said Sam.
    “Maybe you’re scared,” said Meredith.
    “Of what?”
    “Rejection.”
    “Not much chance of that. Maybe you’re scared.”
    “Me?” she said.
    “Yes you,” said Sam, scooting a little bit closer still. “Maybe you’re too scared to kiss me . Maybe you’re lily-livered.”
    “What does that even mean?” she said. “Like your liver is flowery? Like a little girl? Like all the toxins it filters out of your blood are flora?”
    “It’s from humors. You know, bile, blood, phlegm,” Sam murmured romantically. “You lack enough to color your liver, so it’s all white and pale and cowardly, hanging out down there in your digestive tract talking you out of kissing me.”
    “You know a lot of things, Sam,” she said.
    “Is that a bad thing?” he asked, coming upright. He’d been leaning so far toward her, eyes half-closed, he felt almost dizzy. Or maybe that wasn’t why.
    She considered. “I do like my men smart, but perhaps the less talk of phlegm right before our first kiss, the better.”
    “I didn’t know it would be right before our first kiss,” Sam said.
    “Well then, I guess you don’t know everything