Louisa is an ambitious seventeen-year-old student living with her grandmother. She plans on becoming a nurse in the future. Her mother has passed away and her father works in Colorado, where she lives with him in the summer. One day while waiting for her friend Patricia, Louisa meets an older man named Ellery, who says he is a painter. He asks for her phone number and wants to take her on a date. She agrees, but only if he meets her grandmother first. The next Saturday, Louisa waited for Ellery to arrive with her grandmother. She went to her room to get ready. Ellery asked her to wear blue, but she got sweat stains on her blue blouse, so she changed. Before the date, she made an entry in her mother's old notebook where they record their opinions of the men they meet. Louisa has only made two other entries in the book, and thinks that she will not be the one to fill all the remaining pages. She writes an unflattering review of Ellery. When Ellery arrives, Louisa's grandmother welcomes him in, and Louisa comes down to meet him a few minutes later. He promises not to keep her out too late. They go to a movie that Louisa had already seen twice before, and then Ellery takes her out to a burger place. When they're finished, Ellery drives her home, but stops half a block away from her house. He begins crying and holding onto Louisa, and makes her promise that she won't hold what he is about to tell her against him. He tells her that he is not a painter, and that he was only interested in her because she looked like Genevieve, his former lover who had passed away. He begins to make advances towards Louisa, but she insists that she needs to go home. He takes her home and accompanies Louisa to the doorstep, calling her Genevieve. Louisa rings the doorbell, waking her grandmother but getting Ellery to go away. Inside, she apologizes to her grandmother, then goes to her room and gets out the notebook, where she crosses out her previous review of Ellery and writes that he might be "the one."