I WALK THROUGH A BLACK wrought-iron gate in the brick wall bordering the Yard, and I look up and down Quincy Street.

On the other side of it the entire block is taken up by the recently renovated brick-and-concrete Harvard Art Museum that includes six levels of galleries under a glass pyramid roof. I wait near a line of parked cars glaring in angled sunlight that is slowly waning, and I check the time and weather on my phone.

It’s still an oppressive ninety-three degrees at 6:40 P.M., and I don’t know what I was thinking a little while ago. But I simply couldn’t take it anymore as Bryce prattled nonstop while he drove along the river toward the Anderson Memorial Bridge, turning right at the red-roofed Weld Boathouse, following John F. Kennedy Street to Massachusetts Avenue.

I didn’t think I could listen to one more word, and I instructed him not to wait for me as I climbed out of the SUV in front of the college bookstore, The Coop. Harvard Square with its shops and Red Line subway stop is always populated even in the most miserable weather. There’s going to be foot traffic and a fairly steady panhandling population 24/7.

It wasn’t an appropriate place for Bryce to roll down his window and argue like a boy-toy lover with a lady boss mature enough to be a cougar. He wouldn’t listen or leave me, and started sounding slightly hysterical, which unfortunately is his personality. He wanted me to state “for the record” why I no longer desired his assistance and to inform him “chapter and verse” if he’d “done something.” He kept repeating that he just knew he’d “done something” and wouldn’t listen each time I denied it.

The curious were watching like hawks. A homeless man sitting on the sidewalk in front of CVS, shading himself with his cardboard sign, stared at us with the beady eyes of a magpie. It wasn’t exactly an ideal spot to park a vehicle that has OFFICE OF THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER and the CFC’s crest, the scales of justice and caduceus painted in blue on the doors. The SUV’s back windows are blacked out, and I understand the impact when one of our marked vehicles pulls up.

After I managed to shoo Bryce off, I shopped inside The Coop for gifts for my mother and sister. I made sure my clingy chief of staff really was gone when I finally emerged from the air-conditioning into the brutal heat, heading out on Brattle Street.

I swung by the American Repertory Theater, the ART in the Loeb Center, to pick up six tickets for Waitress, having reserved the best orchestra seats in the house. After that I backtracked on Massachusetts Avenue, cutting through the Yard and ending up where I am now on Quincy Street.