As we leave the museum we’ve still got an hour until dinner, so I suggest a walk back through the park.

We approach the Gapstow Bridge at Sixty-Second Street, which has been a touchstone of my jogging route since before I got the job at Peony, back when I was lost and broke and alone, begging the universe to reveal my destiny. The stone bridge looks like it was torn out of a fantasy novel, slate gray and mossy, crossing the north edge of the Pond. Beyond it rises one of the most stunning views of the Manhattan skyline, glittering in the gloaming. It’s a place where I’ve never felt like I could ask for too much, so long as I was willing to work to make it happen.

I stop at the center of the bridge, take Ryan’s hand to make sure he stops, too. “This might be my favorite place in all of New York.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, tugging my hand a little, glancing up at the sky. “Should we get going? Looks like it’s going to rain again.”

“Wait. I was going to save this for tonight, but the moment feels right right now.” I open my purse and take out my small gift wrapped in tissue.

As Ryan unwraps the gift, I feel a growing anticipation. I’m practically bouncing on my heels by the time he parts the wooden panels.

“Your list,” he says. “From the book.”

“Yeah. From the book.”

“Doesn’t own clogs. Check. You do know I’m not a grocery list, right? I’m, like, a real guy?”

“Don’t you think it’s amazing that I had this unreasonably long and meticulous plan for love—and I found a man who meets every single one of my requirements?”

“Uh-uh, I found you,” he says and kisses me.

I show him how to put his gift in his wallet, and I like the way it looks there. “Now even when we’re apart, you’ll know why I love you.” We’re stepping off the bridge when I stop. “Wait, it’s Saturday.”

“All day long.”

“They should be here.”

“Who?”

“Edward and Elizabeth.” I scan the grass below the bridge, as I did so many times on my Saturday evening jogs. But the couple I’m looking for is nowhere to be seen.

Their names aren’t really Edward and Elizabeth. Or maybe they are—I’ve never actually met them. But I used to see them here each week. For as long as I’ve lived in New York, they have mattered to me.

“The picnickers,” I tell Ryan, hoping he remembers. Early in our relationship, I told him how this couple walks to the same spot in Central Park every Saturday night and feasts on an elegant picnic at the water’s edge, on the north side of the Pond.