“I want to say that I can’t accept this, but I’m going to accept this,” I said, clutching it to my chest. “Thank you so much.”

“He’s cute!” his wife shouted at me as I hustled for the door. “Go get him.”

And off I went, to do exactly that.

*  *  *

I had no watch and no phone to keep track of time, but it felt like the train inched from Brooklyn into the city. It was the weekend, so it was making local stops, and the feeling of calm that had settled into me in the bagel shop was long gone. I was now a full-on wreck: a foot-jiggling, nail-biting, sleeve-twisting mess. Hayes was in love with me too, and now every second we were not together was a complete waste of time.

The train chugged into the Rockefeller Center station, and I bolted as soon as the doors slid open. I ran up the stairs, past the shops that lined the hallways of the station, and then I was outside, on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-First Street.

“Crap!” I dodged my way through the throngs of people already hogging the sidewalk. Two breathless blocks later, I was near the NYN studio. I took a minute to catch my breath, hands on my knees, panting next to a lamppost. I looked around as the world moved quickly by me. I laughed, out loud, at the ridiculousness of it all. It would be impossible to find him in the middle of this chaos. I looked down. In my frantic departure from the bagel shop, I’d smeared cream cheese on the front of my sweatshirt.

Of course.

My grand plan of meeting Hayes as he left NYN was quickly being ruined by reality. I turned the corner to walk in the street, past the crowds and the shops hawking tourist wares, and toward the center of the Plaza.

I suddenly felt incredible stupid. What was I thinking, running here smelling like an everything bagel with a stranger’s MetroCard in my hand? I had to get back to Brooklyn, where at least I could shower and put on some mascara and shave my legs, and then call him and go to his apartment and strip naked immediately and climb on top of him. That was a much better plan.

I got the hell out of the tourist madness and made my way down Fifth Avenue, to Grand Central Station. The Main Concourse was slow for a Saturday morning. The space always reminded me of a library, with its giant glass windows and arched celestial ceiling.

I was walking across the marble floor, headed toward the long hallway that led down to the subway tracks, when someone a few steps ahead of me dropped a wad of cash. I ran to pick it up and then lifted my head to figure out which way he’d gone.