“To that end,” I continue, “I thought about what you said the other day. About having run out of New York City landmarks for your characters to kiss in front of? And so, I have prepared a list of landmarks you have never written about, and may have never considered.” I hold up my notebook. “You’re going to look at my list. You’re going to cross off the places you’ve been to. Then, one by one, we’re going to visit the places left on the list until you find something worth writing about.”

“Lanie—”

“Talk to the list.” I set it down in front of him.

Fifty overlooked New York City landmarks. They are numbered in order of my personal preference, but all of them are gems. At the top, in an effort to inject a touch of playfulness, I’ve written the header Fifty Ways to Break Up Noah and His Writer’s Block.

“Do you have a pen?” he asks, stone faced and unappreciative of my good humor.

I hand over my pen. Noah crosses something out. I lean forward, watch as he retitles the page: Fifty Ways to Break Up Lanie and Her Anxiety.

“Just some light edits,” he says.

I want to tell him that my anxiety and his writer’s block are not mutually exclusive, that they are, in fact, in every way intertwined. But I hang back, because now he’s actually reading the list.

I’d spent most of Sunday drafting it after my brunch with BD. I had scoured the internet. I had paged through four old diaries. I had texted friends for help jogging my memory about the city’s little wonders that we’ve stumbled upon over the years.

To Rufus: Remind me how we scaled the back of the Pepsi-Cola sign in Gantry Plaza after that BBQ in Astoria?

He’d written back: All I remember is it involved a stolen fire ladder and a whole lot of Tanqueray.

To Meg: Does your mom-friend still live in that romantic little enclave on the UWS? Intel on how a girl might get access to the garden for an hour?

She’d written back: You mean Pomander Walk? That mom and I had a falling-out over gluten allergies. But the bish needs my help planning the school’s spring fundraiser, so lemme see what I can do.

My friends are used to these kinds of inquiries by now. They’ve stopped asking why and simply trust they’ll someday see the results in the pages of a book.

In this case, I really, really hope they will.

“What do you think?” I ask Noah when I can wait no longer.

“I think I made a good impression Saturday,” he says. “You really want to hang out with me. Fifty times.”

I grit my teeth. “More like I want to keep my job. For fifty years.”