New York City, June 19, 2016

★★★★ The medium-sized loop from the bank ATM to the coffee shop to the hot dog place and back home was enough to leave the four-year-old’s feet visibly begrimed in the flip-flops he’d insisted on wearing. Horrible dry leaves turned in a big slow circle on the empty sidewalk. “Make me cold make me cold make me cold make me cold,” he chanted. At whom? “The wind.” Out on Columbus there’d been a whiff—sweat and suntan lotion?—of the beach. A man and a woman, both in swimsuits, sprawled perpendicular to each other on the roof deck across the avenue. Once the sun was off the top of the sky, the breeze in fact could make a difference.