Goodbye, Columbus: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The first time Neil meets Brenda is at a country club to which his cousin Doris belongs. Brenda asks Neil to hold her glasses for her, then she dives into the pool and returns to him to retrieve them. He is instantly drawn to her, and that night, Neil decides to call her. When his Aunt Gladys prods him about who he’s calling, he tells his Aunt that Brenda’s last name is Patimkin and that he met her at the club. Aunt Gladys says that she doesn’t know anyone named Patimkin, and Neil thinks that she wouldn’t know anyone who belongs to Green Lane Country Club.

Aunt Gladys returns to cooking dinner. Neil, his cousin Susan, Gladys, and his uncle Max all eat dinner at different times, which Neil explains is due to the fact that his aunt is crazy. He suggests to Gladys that they all eat the same meal together, saying that it’ll be easier for her. She replies that they all want to eat different things, and that it’s less work to serve four different meals at different times. She says, “Twenty years I'm running a house. Go call your girl friend.”

Neil calls up the Patimkins’ house, but Brenda isn’t home, so he apologizes for calling and hangs up. Then Neil eats dinner: a pot roast with gravy, potatoes, peas, and carrots. Aunt Gladys pesters him as he eats, saying that she won’t buy peas if he doesn’t want to eat them, or that if he doesn’t like bread with seeds she wouldn’t have cut a slice for him. Neil protests, trying to assure her that he likes all of the food.

Neil tries to call Brenda again after dinner, and this time she picks up. He introduces himself nervously, telling her that his name is Neil Klugman and that he held her glasses for her. She doesn’t remember him, but he asks her if he can see her tonight. She says she’ll be playing tennis, but that he can pick her up at 8:15 in Briarpath Hills. He says he’ll be driving a tan Plymouth (though he doesn’t say that it’s a very old model) and he hangs up, pleased.

Neil drives out of Newark and approaches the suburbs, which he describes as driving “closer to heaven.” He arrives at the tennis court and sees Brenda, calling hello. She tells him that she’ll be one more game, which infuriates her opponent, Simp. As Brenda plays, Neil observes that in the sunlight, she seems to want to maintain an air of attractiveness—but as it grows darker, Brenda’s playing grows more intense and aggressive.

After the game, Simp refuses Neil’s offer of a ride home. He asks Brenda why she calls the girl Simp, and Brenda reveals it’s her Bennington name. When Neil asks if Brenda goes to Bennington, she says she goes to school “in Boston.” This frustrates Neil, who understands the veiled meaning of people who hint at “Boston and New Haven.” He says that he always comes out and says that he went to Newark Colleges of Rutgers University. When he presses her on it, she admits she goes to Radcliffe.

Neil and Brenda sit down on a bank of grass near the court, and he thinks, in her white outfit, that she looks like an angel and could have had wings. Brenda asks where Neil lives. When he says Newark, she remarks that she lived there when she was a baby. They start to walk together, and Brenda walks a step ahead of Neil.

Neil asks Brenda why she only rushes the net when it’s dark. She says that she doesn’t like to be too close to the net unless she knows that her opponent won’t return the hit. She explains that this is because of her nose, which she had fixed. He asks her what was wrong with her nose. She says it was “bumpy,” and that she wanted it to be “prettier.”

Brenda says that her brother Ron is getting his fixed, too. Neil asks if Ron wants to be “prettier,” too, and Brenda asks why Neil is being nasty. Neil apologizes. He then asks how much it costs; when she says $1,000, he asks to see if she got her money’s worth. Brenda asks if Neil will stop being nasty if she lets him kiss her. He goes silent, and pulls her in for a kiss, feeling a faint fluttering through her body as he does so, as though she has wings.