"How do you do?" She shook his hand.
Her fingers were sticky with chocolate.
"Well," said Walter Gripp.
"What?" asked Genevieve Selsor.
"I just said, ‘Well,‘" said Walter.
"Oh."
It was nine o‘clock at night. They had spent the day picnicking, and for supper he had prepared a filet mignon, which she didn’t like because it was too rare, so he broiled it some more and it was too much broiled or fried or something. He laughed and said, "We’ll see a movie!" She said okay and put her chocolaty fingers on his elbow. But all she wanted to see was a fifty-year-old film of Clark Gable. "Doesn‘t he just kill you?" She giggled. "Doesn‘t he kill you, now?" The film ended. "Run it off again," she commanded.
"Again?" he asked. "Again," she said. And when he returned she snuggled up and put her paws all over him. "You’re not quite what I expected, but you’re nice," she admitted. "Thanks," he said, swallowing. "Oh, that Gable," she said, and pinched his leg. "Ouch," he said.
After the film they went shopping down the silent streets. She broke a window and put on the brightest dress she could find. Dumping a perfume bottle on her hair, she resembled a drowned sheep dog."How old are you?" he inquired. "Guess." Dripping, she led him down the street. "Oh, thirty," he said. "Well," she announced stiffly, "I’m only twenty-seven, so there!"
"Here‘s another candy store!" she said. "Honest, I’ve led the life of Reilly since everything exploded. I never liked my folks, they were fools. They left for Earth two months ago. I was supposed to follow in the last rocket, but I stayed on; you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because everyone picked on me. So I stayed where I could throw perfume on myself all day and drink ten thousand malts and eat candy without people saying, ‘Oh, that’s full of calories!’ So here I am!"