I was walking down Broadway this afternoon in Greenwich Village, watching all of the fascinating people, each in their own little world, their own personal movie within this astonishing and densely packed backdrop. I passed by a young couple kissing passionately in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to anyone but each other, then an old man walking slowly, lost in his thoughts, followed by two woman sharing an obviously very funny joke. I felt very pleased just to be here, immersed in this endless panoramic display of lives barely glimpsed. Yes, on the one hand the city is a huge swirling mass of humanity. But on the other hand, each individual within this mass is utterly unique.
Just as I was having this thought, I saw a young woman, probably in her early twenties, standing on the sidewalk and holding in her right hand a cellphone, which she was talking into with great animation. As I got closer I noticed that she was staring right into the window of a liquor store, all the while chatting away amiably. I wondered what she saw through the window, and whether she was describing it to a friend. Then I noticed that a young man was inside the store, at the window, looking in her direction and smiling. In fact, I realized, the two of them were looking right at each other through the glass.
The entire scene seemed rather mysterious. I could tell by the way the young man was dressed that he probably worked in the store. OK, that made sense – he couldn’t leave the store because he was working. But why was he just looking at her through the plate glass while she talked on the phone, and who was she talking to? Then I remembered that some people have “hands free” cellphone headsets – and that would make particular sense for someone working in a store. The young man was probably wearing an unobtrusive headset, and she was most likely talking to him.
By now I had passed the couple by, and the little tableau was already behind me, but I was still trying to puzzle it out. Why would a young woman hold a conversation with her young man over a cellphone while staring at him through a plate glass window, when she could just as easily go in the store and talk to him directly?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I turned to look back, and that’s when I saw the telling little detail that I had missed before – the one detail that explained everything. This is, after all, New York, and there are certain rules, and sometimes those rules require resorting to cellphone conversations through thick plate glass windows. For clearly the young man, being in the middle of work, could not leave the store in the middle of his shift. And yet his young woman friend could not enter the store to talk with him directly, for a simple reason.
In her left hand was a cigarette.