I was late, so late. I waited too long for the D-train at Broadway-Lafayette, my heart racing because I didn’t have his phone number and if he thought I stood him up… I couldn’t even finish the thought in my head. Too terrible.

It was raining fat drops in Brooklyn. Deep rivers of water coursed around the curbs. I walked the wrong way for a few blocks, then righted myself, desperately stomping over slick pavement, pushing past umbrellas and the evening rush.

I was nearly an hour late. Would he still be there? Yes, yes!

Yes. There he was, I saw him through the steam-stained glass from across Church Avenue. The traffic blurred by and the wet night ignored me. It was like a scene in a movie, I could zoom in on him, his shock of brown hair, those gray-blue eyes looking over a Carribean magazine he’d probably picked up in the restaurant lobby. He sat at a table alone in a beige coat. He’d started to eat. I stepped off the curb.