He reached under the counter, took a paper cup off a stack and filled it with black coffee from a glass pot.

He tucked the cup into my bag next to the picture hooks and didn’t charge me for it.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he said.

I carried the bag out into the cool afternoon.

I strolled along the stone seawall, the warm paper cup in my right hand.

The wind off the water carried the smell of salt, wet sand and diesel from a far-off tugboat working near the mouth of the harbor.

I didn’t look at my wristwatch once on the three-block walk back to the building.