Egg white on whole grain bagel, cup of coffee, mostly cream. She comes in three times a week and gets the same thing. She sits alone in the same corner table by the window, scrolling on her phone. She has a little smile while she's looking at it, so I'm guessing she's carrying one of those harmless torches for someone that will never go beyond words. I decide for myself she must be an artist. Those harmless word-loves are catnip to an artist. Sometimes, she has a smear of paint over her left eye, confirming my suspicions. Always a different color, her clothes the delightful mismatch of someone who likes colors and is not for public consumption. I always smile at her. She looks up sometimes and smiles back; she has astonishing gray eyes, the color of the ocean under a bank of clouds. Her mouth wide and generous. I can't help it. I compare her. Claudia's mouth had been small, precise, the mouth of an actuary, not a dreamer.

I might have carried on in this fashion, smiling here and there but ignoring her, if she hadn't left without paying her bill. It was raining, one of those cold, driving rains that invite only the loneliest and most persistent. It's the same routine: the egg-white bagel, the smear of paint above her left eye is bright red today, the phone, the absent-minded smiles, except today, after about fifteen minutes, she stands up, bagel untouched and wanders dreamily out the door. If I hadn't been watching her with her phone, I would've thought she was sleepwalking. My first instinct is to ignore it. After all, what's one bagel? Claudia would have been furious. Her principles, ironclad, wouldn't've stood for it, to say nothing of the precedent it would set. Claudia's castigations in my head, I wander over to her table. Next to her perfectly arranged breakfast, she's left her phone. I promise I have scruples. Clchudia would say otherwise, say what I have is too much imagination. All this to say, I thought twice before I picked it up, but I didn't think that hard the second time. I notice she's had the presence of mind to take her raincoat, her hat, I think it was yellow. It's that that makes me pick up her phone. That she clearly wanted to go into the rain without paying me, leaving her little torch behind.

She hasn't locked it. She rchally should have, Claudia chides me, Look, someone's snooping through it.

When Claudia finally had enough and left, my good sense walked out, too, but so did the fear. There's a certain tightness in your chest that comes from knowing you're always a breath away from your next mistake.

I was right. Her phone is full to bursting with texts. Banal ones for an artist. No declarations of love. Nothing the least bit what Claudia would call "untoward." But I know what's there. When you're both a man and a dreamer, pouring love into tiny sentences is your native language.

"Do you want coffee?"

"I'm already at Vie En Rose."

"Egg white bagel again?"

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." (The emoji for crying with laughter. A nice touch, I thought.)

"Aren't you at work?"

"Sick."

"No, you're not." (a slight-smile this time. Good choice on her part. Nothing excessive. No tears of joy for her.)

"Sick of being in here. They're doing construction right above my office. Going to the park."

"In the rain?"

"They have a vailion."

"The one on Twenty-Second? I watch birds there."

"Of course you do."

I might have stood there forever, reading their microscopic love not speaking itself on that tiny screen had Penny the hostess not thrown a pencil at my head.

"What the hell, Will? Put that down."

I straighten up. I know how it looks. I tell myself I'm going to return it to her. That's a much better story than "I've forgotten what being in love sounds like and I have questions."

I grab a brown raincoat two sizes too large off the peg. I've lost a lot of weight since Claudia, not in a good way. The phone in the pocket, pings again. I can help it, but I won't.

"You should come." it says.

Out on the pavement, I can barely see the top of her yellow hat at the bus stop, weaving in and out of the crowd of commuters and desperate people. I lull my hood up and cross the street at a clip. Not thinking, bordering on creepy, I should stop. I should put her phone in lost and found, badger her about the bill when she comes to get it.

She hears me before she sees me. That's what happens when you forget rain boots and your socks are squelching when you move. Her yellow-hatted head snaps around.

"Shit." she says. It's the first time I've heard her speak. An odd voice, on the lower side, tending toward contralto. I expected an artistic soprano, with laughter.

"I forgot to pay for my bagel." she continues, "Shit, I'm sorry, here."

She digs around in her purse (bright pink clamshell) and comes up with a couple of bills, handing them to me.

"It's not..." Oh, of course, now, I have no voice. "It's not your bill. You...uh...you left your phone?" The end a question.

"Double shit." she laughs, and now I understand why a perfectly sane man is birdwatching on Twenty-Second Street in the pouring rain right now.

"Here." I take it out of my pocket, "I...it's none of my business, but you're going to meet him, aren't you?"

"You didn't just tell me you read my texts and you have some feedback, right? That's not what you just said. Because that is the creepiest thing I've heard all day." Her voice brooks no nonsense, but not like Claudia's. There's an affection in hers. She's puzzled by me, like a basically harmless science experiment.

"Well...yeah." What am I supposed to say?

"Did your wife just leave you?"

`Yeah...actually, how did you know that?"

"My dad was like that when my mom took off." she smiles, "kind of sentimental. Tried to do it over again. Got to be a busybody, you know. He's sweet, though. He didn't hurt anyone."

"You are going to meet him, though, right?"

"Why is it so important to you? It won't make your wife come back. Sorry, that was mean."

She's so young.

"No, it's fine. I just want you to know he loves you."

"He can tell me himself. I don't like cowards."

"Who is he?"

"A friend. From work. A real friend, you know, I'm not just calling him a friend so I can lead him on. He's the real thing. Not that you should know that." She actually blushes, the red smear over her eye fading.

I should turn around. She has her phone. She paid me. Mission accomplished. Except...

"Why's he your friend?"

"My bus is coming in a few minutes." she says but she doesn't move away. In fact, she tucks her hair back under her nellow hat like she's setlling in.

"Look, if you're just going to be weird about this and I don't feel like stopping you, he's funny. I laugh with him all the time. I'm not so damn tense anymore."

"Look, I see you all the time when you come in for your coffee. I'm not spying on you. You just notice things when regulars come in." I'm yammering. "like how the old lady with the ballet slippers comes in at six and gets a chocolate croissant every Saturday. Things like that. You're always smiling and looking at your phone. People don't smile like that for their friends."

Now she's angry.

"What's it to you? I know about this stuff. When you paint, there's a point in the painting where it can either become beautiful or just a total mess. With one brushstroke. That's where I am. I could destroy the one good thing I've got going for me."

"I know he loves you."

"Did he tell you?"

I can't actually believe it. I'm choking up. I can feel the pressure behind my eyes. I need to call Claudia and tell her how stupid I look.

"Because that's how I talked. I said small things. I reached out. Over and over. Little ways. Too little. She didn't see them. Who really sees flowers and that kind of thing? She didn't want flowers, she wanted me to stand next to her in the kitchen and talk about nothing important. She wanted me to be her friend."

She's reaching into her purse and handing me a tissue. Claudia would laugh. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe I made her look cruel so I wouldn't have to be sorry.

"It got better, for my dad," she said, "he started taking walks in the morning. Doing the crossword, playing basketball with the other guys in his neighborhood. He met someone last year. I actually kind of like her now."

"You must think I'm...

"I don't think you're any worse off than anyone else. We're all kind of a wreck." The air-brakes on the bus squeal as it pulls in.

"This is me." She swings her purse over her shoulder, "good luck. I promise it'll get easier. Just don't stalk people, okay." I find myself smiling. A real one, after almost thre months. As she climbs up the steps, I hear her tell the driver, "Twenty-Second Street station, near the park."