It's like when you take a trip with someone you don't know very well. Sometimes, you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over… - Gabrielle Zevin

Los Angeles, especially when taken from a distance, was not a beautiful city, but she could will herself to be beautiful, if only for two weeks. Beauty, after all, is almost always a matter of angles and resolve.

Liz, I like you very much," he says.
"Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!"
Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plan "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the needs to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.'"
"O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her.
"Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?

What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?