We ordered salads at a faux-French café in the financial district and sat at a rickety table outside, watching the midday stream of men with briefcases and women in shift dresses. They looked so much older than we did, in their inoffensive textiles and fake alligator loafers. They looked straight out of another era, like the nineties. I wondered how we looked to them: two round-cheeked slobs in T-shirts and sneakers, eating slices of grilled chicken like teenage miscreants with a stolen credit card. I nudged my backpack under the table, out of view.
