Pollen Count Brooklyn Novels & Stories

He called her from the street outside the bistro at quarter past ten. The August evening was warm in the way August evenings in Brooklyn were warm—not the dry heat of the Hamptons, but the specific humidity that came from being surrounded by pavement and people and the accumulated warmth of a city that ran hot all summer. The air smelled like hot dogs from the cart on the corner and exhaust from the bus that had just passed and something green from the tree that had somehow survived on this block for forty years.

It was mid-June, and the Brooklyn heat had finally arrived, thick and heavy, rolling off the East River and carrying the scent of asphalt and sun-baked wood. Inside the DUMBO warehouse, the massive overhead industrial fans spun in a lazy, rhythmic trine, slicing through the warm columns of light that poured from the skylights.