Elena-Loredana asked Elizabeth Fama:

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Elizabeth Fama That's right, Elena! "Plus One" is the permit given to doctors to transport patients after curfew. At the hospital reception desk, D'Arcy uses it as a noun, "I have a Plus One," and then right away as a proper noun, "Let's go, Plus One." This last use is significant: Sol has just called him "Day Boy," saying, "There's no point in first names between us," and D'Arcy is making a commentary on that--from that moment on he calls her "Plus One" out of principle. It's not stated explicitly, but he has just resolved not to use her name until she uses his. So, throughout the book, "Day Boy" and "Plus One" aren't nicknames between the two, they're symbolic of the feeling of "otherness" that this segregated society imposes. As Sol and D'Arcy spend more time together, they begin to think of the other as a person, not as a Smudge or a Ray to be kept at a distance, and there is a moment when each of them uses the other person's name for the first time, almost as a revelation.

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