He was late and I didn’t register when he got to our table. I was too busy on my phone, catching up on work emails. It took me a moment to feel him there, to sense that someone was watching me. When I looked up, he was already smiling.

He wore a navy suit jacket, a light blue button-down shirt with gold cuff links. Khakis, chinos. He filled it all out nicely. His hair was combed back. The shirt brought the blue out in his eyes, faint but there. His face was moisturized; his lips, too, in a supple, subtle way. Like he took care of himself without any prodding. He looked familiar somehow, maybe an amalgamation of so many good-looking, interchangeable white men whose eyes I’ve had to meet across Manhattan restaurant tables.

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked as he slid into the small wooden chair across from me.

I slipped my phone into my purse, clicking on the Do Not Disturb tab so the chimes wouldn’t interrupt our meal. “I was beginning to think you forgot.” I smiled slyly and took a sip of water.

“Forget you? Never.” And he waved a waiter over, ordered a bottle of Cabernet.

He asked me about myself and listened. He ordered the tuna. I ordered pasta with ricotta and eggplant. I hadn’t eaten since lunch. By glass of wine number two, I was tipsy, letting him in.

“I really liked my childhood. It was quite idyllic, actually. My brothers are four and nine years older than I am, so they could be kind of mean, but always in a loving way. There was never any real tension among the three of us. My mom stayed home. My dad went into the city every day for work, but was always back by six. We had family dinners every night at six-thirty. There were kids my age all over the neighborhood, so I never felt lonely. I miss the house where I grew up. Sometimes I go visit it. It’s only twenty minutes away from Grand Central Station. This young, hip family owns it now. Their kids are called, like, Leaf and Orange. Their parents painted the names on this little backyard playground. Do you think it’s creepy that I know?” I giggled.

He smiled back, took a sip of his own wine. “Not at all. You’re just observant. And nostalgic. Nothing wrong with being nostalgic.”

He’d cofounded a logistics tech start-up called SNAPea. He lived in Brooklyn Heights, a different neighborhood from most of his colleagues but he’d loved how picturesque it was, the fermented history in its pretty little sidewalks. He’d grown up in Connecticut. He had one daughter, a three-year-old called Penelope. He was separated from his wife, in the midst of a divorce. “Does that freak you out?” he said, spearing his tuna with his fork.