His Twitter feed was long and adorable, filled with Latin quotes and links to pictures of his enormously fat black cat in comical situations. In one of the pictures the cat was asleep on its back on Mr. Streko’s chest—his bare, muscly, elaborately tattooed, very hairy chest! It was enough to send Shy crashing into a lamppost.

“Sorry,” she apologized to the inanimate object and kept walking. Still staring at her phone, she continued down Court Street to Kane, then onto Strong Place and home.

As soon as Wendy and Shy left that morning, Roy Clarke had gone out for his morning walk. The sun was bright and the air was crisp and full of promise. Autumn was coming. He loved autumn in America. It was so American. Apple pie. Burning wood. Pumpkins. Mulled cider. Tartan shirts and down gilets. Ambition. It wasn’t the same in England. In England autumn didn’t feel like anything, with the exception of Bonfire Night, when there were bonfires and fireworks and everyone got very drunk and stood outside. Roy and Wendy had decided to get married at the bonfire on Primrose Hill. “Let’s get married then,” he’d said, and she said, “All right,” and then the fireworks began and they held hands with their faces turned up to the night sky, murmuring, “Ooh,” as each one went off. Pure magic.

This particular autumn day felt so promising that he dashed back inside to retrieve his laptop and set out once more with the idea that he’d go and work on his new novel somewhere in the neighborhood. All the autumn energy might somehow permeate his skull, resulting, hopefully, in words on the screen.

“You can’t force these things,” he always told Wendy when he tried to explain why he hadn’t written a new book in six years. She would nod resignedly as he went on, “It’s like a snowstorm, dusting and dusting, building and building, so slowly and quietly, until you look out the window in the morning and find it piled up on the cars and stoops, glistening in the sun, finished and perfect.”