“Hey," he said smiling at me pulling off his sunglasses. "Did you get me something good?" "I think so," I said trying to ignore how hard my heart was beating. Then before I could think about it or analyze or consider what I was doing I leaned over and kissed him.”

“What happened?" I asked. "What did you say?"Roger put the key in the ignition and looked over at me. "I told her good-bye," he said. Then he started the car and put in in gear, and we headed out.”

“That's us," I said smiling brightly. "The Udells." That seemed to wake Roger up a little, and he blinked at me, surprised."Finally," the clerk muttered. "All right. Names?" he asked, fingers posed over his keyboard."Oh," I said, "Well. That's... Edmund. And I'm Hillary." Roger glanced over at me, a little more sharply, and I tried to shrug as subtly as possible.”

“He stood and looked at me for a moment, taking in my outfit. "You look hot.""What? Me?" I stammered, completely flummoxed."Yeah," he said, still looking at me."Oh. Um, thank you. I mean, not that you don’t, but I’m not sure that you should—I mean …""Oh, no," Roger said quickly, and I could see that he was blushing again. "No. I mean—I meant what you’re wearing. Are you going to be too warm?”

“All I could determine was that it must have been a nice thing to see if it was a house you were thinking about moving into. But not so nice if it was the house you were moving out from. I could practically hear Mr Collins, who had taught my fifth-grade English class and was still the most intimidating teacher I'd ever had, yelling at me. "Amy Curry," I could still hear him intoning, "never end a sentence with a preposition!" Irked that after six hears he was still mentally correcting me, I told the Mr. Collins in my head to off fuck.”

“I kept thinking back to all those nights in Connecticut, when I was out the door as soon as dinner was over, yelling my plans behind me as I headed to my car, ready for my real night to begin—my time with my family just something to get through as quickly as possible. And now that I knew that the time we had together was limited, I was holding on to it, trying to stretch it out, all the while wishing I’d appreciated what I’d had earlier.”

“You know what my grandma used to say?”“There’s no place like home?” I asked, trying again for a smile, this one less trembly than before.“No,” he said, still looking serious, still holding on to his end of the CD. “Tomorrow will be better.”“But what if it’s not?” I asked.Walcott smiled and let go of the CD. “Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. Younever know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.”