When the new arrival said that screwing up and buying the farm were one and the same, it unsettled Sarah a little bit—just because she was usually good under pressure did not mean she wanted such a glib reminder of what was at stake. “Nice to meet you, Pat,” she answered him, hoping she was not being presumptuous. The medic was then very surprised when he kissed her hand. She blushed and looked away briefly. It was not that Sarah was a prude—if anything, she was all for “free love” and open relationships and all that fun stuff. But she was a little shy and relatively inexperienced—throughout college and med school a lot of other students had seen her as a rival, or mistaken her reserve for being standoffish. And so the kiss on her hand left her feeling unsure how to react and awkward.