We met downtown, because that’s where Alice insisted on living now, even though the philharmonic was up by us. I liked visiting her in SoHo. It felt like a different city from the Upper West Side, and transformed Alice into a more contemporary person, which meant I was cooler by proxy.

The sidewalk café she chose was a Brazilian place with unlimited weekend mimosas, which everybody but us was taking advantage of. Alice wasn’t a drinker. She did, however, eat a basket of cheese bread within the first five minutes of sitting down.

“What’s going on in your world?” she asked between buttered bites. “I have to admit, I’m kind of fascinated by you right now.”

“Only now?” I shot her a mysterious look.

“You’ve gone civvy. What do you do with your free time?”

“Good question.” I searched for answers in the zigzag pattern of my T-shirt. “So far, I’m experimenting.”

“Oh yeah? Do any of these experiments involve our young genius?”

“What young genius, I don’t know any young . . .” I yawned broadly. “Oh, do you mean Oscar?”

She raised an eyebrow.

I squeezed lime into my water. “I don’t like calling him a genius. It’s othering.”

“Look at you, little miss not-even-an-undergrad.”

“And . . . maybe.”

“Maybe? I knew it!”

Before I could hide my grin by sliding all the way under the table, her phone beeped—and her neck went red.

She blinked up at me. “Tell me more. When did this start?”

I took a massive bite of papaya French toast, forcing her to wait while I chewed. “You first.”

She stared, expressionless.

I stared back.

“Fine. His name is Daniel. He’s a public school teacher.” A smile started to spread across her face. “He bought his grandmother a season pass and he takes her to all the Meet the Orchestra events. It’s their thing. And he chats with me afterward. I mean, it’s been years of this. And . . .” She leaned way back in her chair. “I always wondered if there was more to it—didn’t want to be presumptuous. But last month, he asked me out. He was so shy about it.”

She slumped, as if she’d run out of breath thinking about him.

“And?”

“I freaked out. I said I had a busy rehearsal schedule before the season starts again, which is true, but . . . ugh, I don’t know.”

“Why? Because he’s a teacher?” I grinned, teasing her. “Too nerdy for you?”

I had a flash image of Mrs. Swenson’s piano studio—a Carnegie Hall program from her concert pianist days proudly displayed over a framed cross-stitch of a bear playing a baby grand—and felt my heart clench.

“Not at all.” Alice leaned over the table. “I love that he’s a teacher. It’s . . . noble. And the way he talks about the kids . . .”

She was going to explode like a party popper if we kept talking.