Summary

This section moves into the beginning of the Girlfriend Experiment, narrating Kurt and Mary's first Relational Experiment. It is 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday in a back room of a cocktail bar in the West Village, and Mary still feels as though she has no idea how to be around Kurt although she has been trained extensively by Matheson about what to say and how to say it. Innumerable measures have been taken to ensure Kurt and Mary's privacy for their first meeting. Mary has been instructed to press a doorbell three times before listening for the click, pushing the door open and going up a narrow spiral staircase before shuffling down a hallway and down another narrow spiral staircase and showing her ID to two security guards and a maître d' behind blue velvet curtains. Kurt is not there yet...