I felt lit up, as if someone had reached into my heart and flipped an inner switch, turning me on, brighter.

My chest drummed, and at the top of a sweetgrass hill speckled with orange-gold California poppies, I danced like a little kid, adrenaline rushing. A sense of great possibility charmed me. A wicked white jolt, wonderful and wrong.

Stepping outside, all finished, gold porchlight kissed my forehead. The animated nighttime island was a concrete jungle wild with promise, and around any cobblestone corner my big break might exist, disguised as a simple café, waiting for me to open the door.

He opened his laptop and showed me a picture of a “cozy” Greenwich Village apartment he’d found online. My dad, a born New Yorker, had told me stories of the Village, a lively network of cobblestone streets and jazz dives, coffee houses and folk clubs with no cover fee—and I felt a surge of light-headed ambition. “Though it’s kind of strange,” Justin continued, “there is no bathroom inside. Our toilet would be down a public hallway.