Gert said, laughing during dinner, “the guy with the clipboard wouldn’t even let us up the stairs.” She and Todd were on their second date, at a restaurant in Little Italy. Gert had never actually been in Little Italy before, although she’d certainly heard good things. She was sure that if she stayed in New York for another eight years, she still wouldn’t get to all the neighborhoods. Two months ago, in fact, she had visited Columbia University for a focus group on women who had lost a spouse, and she was amazed at what she saw when she wandered a few blocks north to 122nd and Broadway: To her left, a verdant park that held Grant’s Tomb, and ahead of her, the part of the subway where it exploded up into an elevated line bedizened with lights. On both sides were Gothic buildings and grassy fields and backpacking students, and it looked completely different than only fifteen blocks earlier. Tonight, she’d felt the same way when she’d started following Todd’s directions to Little Italy.
