Unfortunately for Ming’s mother, the event happens to be held one block away from a secondhand sneaker store we’ve been to before, which is the location from where Ming is currently streaming a series of poorly framed close-ups of Jordans.

I send him a quick text reminding him that the concert started fifteen minutes ago, and the live footage abruptly cuts off. I can’t help but smile, imagining Ming running through traffic right now. One more thing that’s coming to an end in a few months, I think with a twinge.

I end up spending my evening in at the Troys’ with Palm Tree and go through a few more rounds of clicker exercises with him.

It’s a long shot, but I’m hoping to surprise Corinne when she gets home with the gift of Palm Tree having fully mastered Down, Fetch, and Roll Over. So far, however, the results have been inconclusive. The clicker is a method of puppy training that associates a unique sound from a cheap plastic clicker with positive reinforcement. The dog learns to associate the command you give with the click and displays the desired behavior, in expectation of a treat that comes a second later. But Palm Tree does not seem to naturally recognize the click sound as something particularly worthwhile. To his puppy brain, it’s just one of the many strange noises and honks of this giant concrete city.

“Hey, did you know that Columbia University is where the Pulitzer Prize award ceremony is held every year?” I say while he finds a renewed interest in his tail. “Like, the Pulitzer Prize?”

By the nonreaction, it looks like Palm Tree did know and found the whole thing pedestrian intellectual pageantry. For a prepubescent canine, Palm Tree is a very good conversationalist.

Tok.

Palm Tree suddenly whips his head around at a strident sound that my clicker did not make. There it is again.

“Yeah, I heard it too. What is that?” I wonder aloud.

I’ve been hearing it since the Troys left. An occasional tok that sounds like a table-tennis ball bouncing off a wall. I’ve checked both the oven and fancy fridge and neither of them seems to be the cause.

Tok.

There’s no pattern to the sound. Some days it never occurs and others, I’m bombarded with two or three in a row. Today, I follow the sound to one of the few rooms I’ve never been to before. I know it’s not the master bedroom, and the door is slightly ajar, which makes taking a step in not feel quite so much like a violation. Indeed, it would be weirder if Chantale Troy didn’t have a home office filled with shelves of books, folders, and dusty cactuses. There are multiple mug water rings around the desk.

Oh, duh. An email alert dings.