Is there anything more exquisite than fresh flowers, coffee, an apple tart, art? “Smile though your heart is breaking,” sings Sinatra in the background.

The ladies at the table across from me are talking about their eating habits, the neuroscience of happiness, and a friend of theirs who is “a very good writer.”

As I wait for Hayden at this week’s Bat Mitvah service down the block, I stopped at this cafe, Di Fiore Marquet Cafe on East 12th. It is lovely. The Village really feels like a village.