Sitting at a cafe table on Bryant Park, just outside the 42nd street library. We’d hoped to get a glass of wine here while waiting to meet people for oysters at Grand Central Station, but the cafe hasn’t yet opened for the summer. The trees here are still bare, arching over the park’s edge like columns of lace. It is sunny and warm, so people crowd the tables, eating sandwiches, arms folded, sunglasses on, all facing in toward the central, bare square of grass.

Gertrude Stein plays the role of Buddha here, sitting bronzed and calm above all we tender buttons.