“Hang on!” Cary called as the traffic started moving again and the scooter jolted forward. I used the excuse to tighten my arms around him as we drove, and I just tried to take it all in while I could, but all too soon, Cary was exiting the park on West Seventy-Second Street, and hung a right. He turned down Seventy-Third Street and parked the bike between two cars. I pulled off my helmet—praying my hair still looked somewhat decent—and looked around.

Sure enough, across the street, there was an awning and logo that matched the one I’d seen on the East Side—but this one read MAVERICK CLEANERS WEST. Cary locked up both our helmets and adjusted his messenger bag. “We’re okay on time, right?”

“We are,” he said, pulling out his phone. “An hour and a half.”

“Great,” I said, even as I felt a stab of disappointment. Suddenly, our time together—which had felt so expansive—was counting down. It was like I could practically feel the clock ticking.

“I had a thought,” Cary said, twirling his keys again, despite what had happened the last time. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you hungry?”

“I am,” I admitted. “Is there a place around here we could grab a slice?”

“Yes,” he said. But he tilted his head to the side, like he was thinking about something. “Or… have you spent a lot of time on the Upper West Side?”

“Just, like, going to the Natural History Museum,” I said. “Or Lincoln Center.” Now that I was in the city, walking around in it, seeing little side streets and residential buildings and pockets, I was realizing how limited my previous trips into the city had been. We’d come in to do one thing, maybe have a meal, then go back home again. I’d never just let New York unfold.

“In that case,” Cary said, smiling at me, “there’s somewhere we have to go.”

“No hundreds,” said the guy behind the counter at Gray’s Papaya, looking at me like I was crazy.

“I did try and tell you,” Cary said as he pulled out his own wallet.

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug as I looked around the tiny hot dog restaurant, which was one block over from Maverick Cleaners West. I was pretty sure I’d seen it in a Nora Ephron movie but had never actually been inside myself. When we’d walked in, the letters on the side of the building had been lit up in red neon, and this, coupled with the fact that I was about to get something to eat—to say nothing of the fact that Cary was promising me it was the best hot dog in Manhattan—had given me a jolt of happiness.