She told him about the world’s fair that would take place in New York two months from now, with new innovations, like television and a machine for washing dishes, and a big meetup for amateur radio operators. According to Lauren this was something you just had to go to—after all, over fifty thousand hams were registered in the US, so there were sure to be at least several hundred coming. That was amazing, almost like a family reunion. She lifted her eyes and looked at the skyscrapers, a gray set of teeth surrounding the park.

She reminded him of himself when he first arrived in the city fifteen years ago. The excitement of the beginning, the many beginnings—at that age, everything is a beginning. What had he actually been doing in all the time since then? Not much. Hadn’t built anything, hadn’t started anything. It was more like he’d mastered the art of disappearing. As if that was the one thing he’d succeeded at. The cabin in the woods in Harlem. Arthur was right. But things were going well for him, at least most of the time! The whole city was his.

She interrupted his thoughts: “What was your farthest contact?”

“Sydney. You?”

“Haiti. Not very far.”

Where had she even learned to operate a radio? he asked. It wasn’t exactly typical for women.

“Sure it is,” she objected. “At my school they offered classes for girls. I even built my first radio myself.”

“How long ago were these classes?” he asked.

“Oh, a long time ago. At least four years.”

“Yes, that is a long time,” he sighed.

She laughed. It was the first time he’d hinted at the age difference between them. A test without clear result. He told her about his apartment, that it seemed to him more and more like a radio station, like a window to the world. It was quickly apparent that they both shared the joy of turning a dial a few millimeters and drawing a whole continent closer, then turning the dial again to send it away and make yourself disappear. Feeling your pulse quicken when voices came through, never knowing whom they belonged to, observing your own reactions as if through a magnifying glass.