New York City, June 9, 2013

★★★★ The odds on the long-term bet had turned bleak, at nearly the last minute, but now here was the payoff after all: The sky over the apartment building’s deck was clear, all clear, devoid of anything that might even slightly resemble a threat. Decorations could be taped down to dry paving blocks, paper streamers wrapped around dry railings. The wind sent bunches of newly inflated balloons, weighted with mere rolls of masking tape, retreating down the hallway; the balloons would need to taken outside and tied down one by one. Some of the children — with their short time horizons, their indifference to the perils of how things could have been — saw fit to complain aloud that they were awfully hot under all that sun. But there was the shade and air conditioning of the playroom for them to retreat into. In the playroom, it was rumored, entropy and animal spirits were rampant. Out on the deck, though, the sunshine was baking the children into spells of near tractability. Ice melted and soaked through the bottoms of the paper cups of popcorn. A gust yanked a balloon loose, yet kept it low and horizontal long enough to be run down and recaptured. The birthday boy was flushed and a little glazed over. The first match blew out. The second match blew out. The third. The fourth. More. Barely scorched matchsticks were piling up. The wick on the numeral 6 candle caught briefly and went out again. Indoors, with a lighter, it caught for real. On the way back out the doorway, out it went. Again the lighter, sheltered by hands and cardboard — the cupcake and flame thrust quickly at the birthday boy — makeawishmakeawish — and the breath of childhood finally prevailed. Two hours of battering by the wind had visibly shrunk the balloons, and their ribbons were so twisted and braided that they seemed to have been fused into a single solid rope. With a little work, and a pull from the top, it was still possible to extricate a parting gift for each child, a short-lived but still buoyant keepsake.