That fall, Jen had planned to visit New York, and it turned out David wanted to visit, too, so he bought a ticket that overlapped with her stay. He arrived a few days after her, and she met him on a cold, darkened street near her friend’s apartment in Chelsea. It was almost ridiculous how cinematic the meeting was, with steam blowing across the wet street and neon lights blinking, her in a trench coat and him with his luggage. They smirked at each other, aware of their roles, the danger of their noirish love, and kissed and returned to her friend’s empty apartment, where they stayed together the rest of the week.

David had many friends to see—most of his clique from college had moved east—and Jen went along to visit them in their dinky apartments and cruddy lofts. Afterward, David would fill her in on the more salacious details of their lives—who was sleeping with whom, who was addicted to what—which he thought would humanize them but which really just made them seem more distant. Every day they went out and looked at art, and every afternoon they took a nap.

One night they went to meet David’s friend Bart, a blond musician who worked at an Internet magazine, for a drink on the rooftop of his apartment in the East Village. It was the first warm evening of their visit and Jen was glad to be outside. The masses of the city spread out in every direction, complex hues of gray and brown spiked with antennae and electrical lines. Traffic sounds washed up from the streets below—squealing brakes and car doors and alarms. The gold roof of the Standard Insurance building brightened gradually against the darkening sky.

The boys kept Jen in the conversation for as long as they could, but soon enough they were joking around about forgotten professors, and then the talk moved on to even more boyish things. Jen was happy enough to bow out. It was even relaxing in some way. She watched David against the skyline, unshaven, more disheveled than usual after their days of travel. He held a coffee mug of vodka tonic loosely at his hip, one finger looped through the handle, laughing agreeably. His encouragement was almost a reflex, she realized; he had a special talent for enthusiasm. For a moment, there on the rooftop, she glimpsed a whole life with David. A house together. Separate studies. How utterly sane and well-proportioned it could be.

David left a day before she did. At the end of his visit, saying good-bye on the sidewalk, hard sunlight falling onto buckets of irises and carnations, Jen hugged David tightly. “It was nice being in love with you this week,” she said, and meant it.