Goodbye Columbus

At the Greenlane Country Club, Neil Klugman holds Brenda Patimkin’s glasses so that she can swim. He finds her beautiful, and later he asks his cousin Doris for her name and decides to call her. No one picks up the phone at her house on the first call, and though his Aunt Gladys teases him, he calls again after dinner. She answers this time, and they make plans for him to pick her up from tennis later that night. Leaving Newark for the suburbs, Neil notices the stark differences between the city and its wealthier, more spread-out surrounding communities.

Neil finds Brenda at the tennis courts, playing with a friend. He watches her play a few sets and notices that she only rushes the net after it grows dark. After the match, they go for a walk, and Brenda tells Neil, who attended Rutgers, that she will be returning to Radcliffe in Boston that coming autumn. When he questions her about her style of play, she explains that she only rushes the net after dark because her friend is less likely to hit it back hard without being able to see well, and she wants to protect her nose job.