The pedestrian crossing signal glows red at this downtown street corner. Standing and waiting is pure pleasure on such a brilliantly blue June day. Sunlight slants down between the tall buildings, urban sentinels keeping attention. Even surrounded by the concrete and metal of a busy, four-lane intersection, the scent and humidity of the ocean comes through with each cool breeze. I am on vacation, walking on air. There is something about this city.

The traffic signal turns and a couple dozen people on my side of the street pour into the crosswalk on a collision course with a couple dozen people headed toward us. Stepping off the curb, my eye is drawn to the tallest pedestrian in the oncoming crowd: a young, blond man with his eyes trained intently upon the tiny brunette directly in front of me. As the converging groups begin a subtle dance of veering and weaving to intertwine while keeping pace, the woman’s eyes remain riveted on her cell phone. She intuits, rather than sees, her way across the street.

The blond guy is coming up on us fast, his stare at the woman in front of me intensifying. Without breaking stride, he maneuvers a snaking route through the melee that will take him directly past her, his face joyous and expectant and maybe a little mischievous. These two know each other. His smile grows with each step, but still she has not looked up and spotted him. Will he call her name? If he wants her to see him, he will have to!

But he does not. Instead, he raises his hand in a high-five as he simultaneously stoops low, practically crouching, to bring his eyes to the level of hers. He is focused on her with all of his attention, complete concentration, and no hesitation—doubling, tripling the stakes. I have the urge to tap her on the shoulder to alert her of his approach, but by now he is so close that if I do, her glance back toward me will cause her to miss him entirely. I realize I am holding my breath. Who is he to her? Will she notice him? Please, girl: look up!

At the last possible moment, my own heart suspended, she seems to sense his gaze and her head lifts. Instantly upon seeing our endearingly lanky, goofy friend she raises her hand to return his high-five. Their palms make contact—a strong, satisfying smack—and they are already walking away from each other when a subtle shift in her posture hints her mind has had time to connect his identity with all her thoughts of him. She whips her head around to glance back over her shoulder with an openly surprised, happy grin.

Now he is passing me, straightening to his full height and resisting any urge to look back, his face utterly content. I see her understand that they are both supposed to just keep walking as if nothing happened, her smile morphs into knowing amusement. She exhales a quick, single-syllable laugh through her nose. The cynicism of a slight roll of her eyes as she turns to face forward does not fool me. This was the cheesiest thing that will happen to her all day, and the best thing, too.

I watch her step up onto the sidewalk and resume studying her phone while continuing straight down the alley of office buildings and shiny storefronts. I step up onto the sidewalk and turn right. Momentarily, I can see them both in my peripheral vision. Then they diverge into anonymous crowds, gaining distance from this intersection in geography and time, the moment of encounter already rendered perfect in memory by its own unlikelihood.