` Tuesday, September 4th. 6:47 PM.

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` The taxi smells like pine air freshener and someone else’s lunch. You press your forehead against the cold glass of the window and watch Manhattan slide past in streaks of yellow and gray. Rain slicks the streets, turning brake lights into smeared rubies. August’s humidity finally broke this morning, and the city feels different now. Crisper. Hungrier.

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` Your suitcase is in the trunk. Your laptop bag is on the seat beside you. Your rental lease is folded in your coat pocket, still smelling of the ink from the management office printer. A one-bedroom in Washington Heights. Subway line nearby. Laundry in the basement. Everything you need to start over.

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` The driver glances at you in the rearview mirror.

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` You tell him it’s not your first time visiting but it’s your first time living here. He nods like he’s heard that before.

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`

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` The notebook is half-full. Two hundred pages of observations about men you don’t know and a hero who won’t feel real. A heroine who’s starting to feel just as imaginary.

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` Outside, Madison Square Garden slides past on your left. A massive structure of glass and steel and electric blue letters glowing through the dusk. People are flowing toward its entrances like water finding a drain. Rangers jerseys everywhere. Blue and white and red.

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` You watch a man hoist a little girl onto his shoulders so she can see better. She’s wearing a tiny jersey that drowns her completely. She’s laughing.

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` The taxi turns right. The Garden disappears.

`