I’d sort of guessed. Oscar never seemed to have a cell phone in his hand. He was totally present, peering at every building we passed—the brownstone with the eagle keystone over the door, the burnt-umber apartment building with scaffolding attached to it for the past three years, the pink house where three tiny dogs always barked through the first-floor window.

We turned onto Columbus, straight into the spiced scent from the Turkish corner restaurant, but Oscar didn’t seem to notice.

He started drifting into the Top Cat Deli. “Want lunch? I haven’t had anything since—”

I pulled him to safety.

Oscar looked at my hand, his arm, with a surprised smile. I let my fingers slip away, the feel of his biceps lingering. Kept walking—assertively, so oncoming foot traffic would part for us.

“Not that place.”

He glanced backward, galloping to catch up. “Why not?”

“It smells weird. They leave the buffet out too long.” I pointed to a shop across the street. “That’s the one you want.”

“The Three-Star Deli? They couldn’t name themselves the Four-Star Deli?”

“They’re honest.” I shrugged. “I respect that.”

The light was changing and he wasn’t following quickly enough, so I pulled him across, gently this time. “Sorry. I hate missing lights.”

“Is this . . . a New York thing?”

“Don’t know. Never lived anywhere else.”

“I live in the suburbs,” he said, following me into the deli. “I’ve been known to miss a light or two.”

“The suburbs?” I snorted. “Do you even walk anywhere?”

“Of course we do. All the way from our cars to our houses.”

“Apologies. Sounds exhausting.”

“The struggle is real.” Oscar squinted up at the endless deli menu.

I cooled off against the ice cream freezer, watching as Oscar ordered his lunch in such a roundabout way, it became a weird kind of performance art.

“I like all types of meat. And toppings. If you could only have one sandwich for the rest of your life, what would that sandwich be? That’s what I would like to try.”

I wondered whether to stop him, to tip him off about how to “when in Rome” when in New York. But even more mind-boggling was that this surly, middle-aged Russian dude, who had never once smiled while ringing me up, was leaning on the counter with a big grin, tickled pink to have been asked.

Oscar ate his sandwich—corned beef, coleslaw on rye—while walking. I averted my eyes, but so far, he was making an art of it. No mess, no smacking . . . as elegant as eating a sandwich in the middle of Columbus could be. Every time a passerby gawked at him, he gave a jaunty nod like he was the mayor of an old-time village out for a stroll.

“How is it?” I asked.

He let out a low moan. “You have to try it.”