It was late summer, verging on fall in New York. So by seven in the evening it was still light out. But the skyscrapers of Manhattan cast long shadows across the island.

I stood in front of one such building. Not mine.

Mine was farther down Madison. Three blocks farther down, actually.

No, this one was the one where Rachel worked.

I pulled the cuff of my jacket back so that I could steal a look at the face of the Mariner watch strapped to my wrist.

She wasn’t late yet. I was just anxious.

When was the last time I felt anxious about meeting a woman?

I thought perhaps that was part of my problem. The type of woman I had become used to seeing, the ones who haunted my social circles, no longer gave me any sort of nerves.

They never had, really.

Then I saw Rachel emerge from the revolving front door of the office tower.

She saw me, smiled and waved. I waved back. My heart revved in my chest, and I smiled in return.

A few pedestrians passed between the two of us while she closed the distance. She got to me, glanced up into my face, then back down again. That same lock of hair from the speed dating fell across her forehead and she again brushed it back into place with that well-practised gesture.

“So you’re really not going to let me go back to my place and change?” she said.

I put my hands in my jacket pockets, elbows out, and shrugged. “Well, you could. But that would throw off my timing. And you look just fine. Better than fine, actually.”

I turned, meaning to start walking. I gestured with the elbow closest to her. She hesitated a moment, then slid her hand down into the crook formed by my arm.

“Something’s being timed?” she said, “Color me intrigued. Care to share?”

At first, she kept her hand on me only loosely. As we walked, she relaxed and held me more firmly. Unconsciously, our bodies moved closer together.

By this point in the date, the type of woman I was used to seeing and being seen with would be asking which five-star place I had a reservation at. Oh, and had I remembered to get the chef’s table?

She’d also be wondering why we were walking down the street rather than gliding down the avenue in my limo, sipping champagne.

“If we’re late, the line will be too long,” I said.

“The line to what?” she replied. She kept glancing at me, and the corners of her mouth kept trying to turn up into a little smile which she only somewhat successfully suppressed.

“The best place to eat in the whole city, of course. Not to get your hopes up too much,” I said.

“Consider my hopes realistic in proportion,” she shot back.

We continued down the sidewalk another couple of blocks. I liked the warmth of her hand on my arm. I also liked that she didn’t make any move to slip that hand out from the crook of my elbow.

“So you picked me up from work and you’re not going to ask what I do?” Rachel said when we stopped at a red light, the push of pedestrians piling up behind us.

“No,” I said.

If I ask you, then you’ll ask me. And I’d like to keep work out of this for as long as possible, I thought.

For once I wanted a woman to know me for myself, rather than for my bank account or my position.

“Why? Afraid I’ll find it too interesting?” Rachel said.

I saw the white walk signal come on and I led us across the intersection.

“The opposite, actually. I do corporate stuff. If I want to go to sleep at night, I begin describing my job to myself in my head.”

“You know, that sounds like a good talent to have. When I was little I used to wish that neck pinch thing from Star Trek was real so that I could do it to myself on Christmas Eve, or on the night before my birthday... I think you get the point.”

“That you were a nerd as a child? Yeah, I do,” I said. I gave her a playful nudge with my elbow and she laughed.

She had a lovely laugh. And the smile that went with it was even better.

“What?” she said, suddenly self-conscious, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re nice to look at.”

The spots of blush on her cheeks spread. I swallowed hard, resisting the urge to gather her up in my arms and lay one on her right there on Madison Avenue.

I thought I could get away with it, too. But I also thought that it was too big a risk to take. I really wanted to see where things could go with Rachel.

I knew women. I knew that with some, like Rachel, pushing too hard too fast could make her recoil. Make her stay away. And that I was the last thing that I wanted.

I wanted things to be different.

“I wasn’t a nerd,” she said. Her hand tightened a little on my arm and we started walking again. “My brother is. He loves all the Stars: Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar...”

“Your ‘brother,’ right,” I said with a wink, “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I can’t believe you!” she said, giving me an accompanying playful sock on the arm.

“You, on the other hand, are very believable.”

She laughed again, those rosy spots on her cheeks still there. A breeze caught in her hair and stirred it around her shoulders and again that urge to kiss her almost overcame my defenses.

“Are we almost wherever we’re going?” Rachel asked.

I’d become so focused on her that I hadn’t really been paying attention to exactly where our feet took us.

Then I smelled it on the breeze and my mouth watered.

“We’re here,” I said, “Best food in all of Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens, too.” I held my hand out to indicate the princely source of the smell.

“You mean that hotdog stand?” Rachel said.

I put my hand over my heart, as though mortally wounded. Or clutching a string of pearls.

“Not just a hotdog stand, I’ll have you know,” I said, “But the hotdog stand.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Rachel said, playing along. She couldn’t suppress that smile any longer. “However, I feel like I have to add that the best hotdogs in the city can be found about a block up from the Guggenheim.”

I clutched my chest harder, my fingertips pulling divots into the jacket above my heart, “You wound me. And you wound Rob.”

Rob was the proprietor of this particular hotdog stand. He looked like a New York stereotype: shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows, a pack of smokes held in one, said shirt covered by a large apron (surprisingly clean) and both those articles of clothing covering a large stomach.

A derby cap sat pushed forward down his forehead, presiding over a broad face. Rob kept himself busy chewing on the stub of a thick, unlit cigar.

He noticed Rachel notice the cigar.

“I never lights it. Used to smoke but the wife made me quit years ago,” Rob said. Years came out as Yee-ahs. “Suckin’ on it helps with the cravings. The usual, Mr. Big Boss?” He directed this question to me.

“Two of them,” I said, finally removing my hand from my jacket to hold up two fingers, “And make them good ones: your honor and mine depends on it.”

“Sure thing,” Rob said. Shoo-ah.