The last day of our road trip, Yudhi and I lounge on a beach someplace for hours, and—as often happens with us—we start talking about New York City again, how great it is, how much we love it. Yudhi misses the city, he says, almost as much as he misses his wife—as if New York is a person, a relative, whom he has lost since he got deported. As we're talking, Yudhi brushes off a nice clean patch of white sand between our towels and draws a map of Manhat-tan. He says, "Let's try to fill in everything we can remember about the city." We use our fin-gertips to draw in all the avenues, the major cross-streets, the mess that Broadway makes as it leans crookedly across the island, the rivers, the Village, Central Park. We choose a thin, pretty seashell to stand for the Empire State Building, and another shell is the Chrysler Build-ing. Out of respect, we take two sticks and put the Twin Towers back at the base of the is-land, back where they belong.

We use this sandy map to show each other our favorite spots in New York. This is where Yudhi bought the sunglasses he's wearing right now; this is where I bought the sandals I'm wearing. This is where I first had dinner with my ex-husband; this is where Yudhi met his wife. This is the best Vietnamese food in the city, this is the best bagel, this is the best noodle shop ("No way, homo—this is the best noodle shop"). I sketch out my old Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and Yudhi says, "I know a good diner up there."

"Tick-Tock, Cheyenne or Starlight?" I ask.

"Tick-Tock, dude."

"Ever try the egg creams at Tick-Tock?"

He moans, "Oh my God, I know . . ."

I feel his longing for New York so deeply that for a moment I mistake it for my own. His homesickness infects me so completely that I forget for an instant that I am actually free to go back to Manhattan someday, though he is not. He fiddles a bit with the two sticks of the Twin Towers, anchors them more solidly in the sand, then looks out at the hushed, blue ocean and says, "I know it's beautiful here . . . but do you think I'll ever see America again?"

What can I tell him?

We slump into silence. Then he pops out of his mouth the yucky Indonesian hard candy he's been sucking on for the last hour and says, "Dude, this candy tastes like ass. Where'd you get it?"

"From your mother, dude," I say. "From your mother." Eat, Pray, Love