“It’s getting ridiculous,” I said to Andy. By “it” I meant the celebrity sighting. The week before, I’d been at the adorable new smoothie and sandwich shop in my neighborhood – my favorite place to get work done out of the house – when one of the stars of a popular HBO series had sat down at a nearby table. The event had been exciting but left me with all kinds of questions, like “does a premium cable star live in my neighborhood?” and, more importantly, “what exactly is the significance of that?” A week later, the first question seemed to have at least been answered. Everyone had been seeing the actress in the most innocuous of places, and calling me via cell phone to report the sighting. “She got an iced coffee at the little red French deli,” my friend Liz told me. “I took Peanut for a walk,” Hallie informed me, “and there she was, sitting on a bench in Cobble Hill Park.” I became the go-to gal for this type of information as I saw the actress almost every day. Not only was the woman a celebrity, she was fast becoming an adorable sandwich and smoothie shop regular. She was in there all the time. There I’d be, sitting at my table, drinking a smoothie, enjoying a sandwich, when in she’d walk, with or without her shaggy blonde-haired male companion – husband or boyfriend, I’d immediately find myself wondering and remind myself to check Us Weekly, order a coffee and/or a breakfast burrito, and sit down and read the paper.

“You’re stalking her,” my friend Josh said, over dinner.

“No,” I corrected. “I’m in there first. If anyone’s stalking anyone, she’s the one stalking me.”

The first couple times, it had been novel: “There’s the celebrity. What is she wearing?” The next couple times, it had been almost mundane: “Oh, there’s the celebrity in those yoga pants again.” But, recently, it had taken on an awkward new tenor. The place was tiny, and I’d been seeing her almost every day. She’d even begun making small talk with the motley crew of scruffy slackers behind the counter. We’d already exchanged mini-smiles and glances. In fact, raising her eyes as I got up for a napkin, she’d looked like she’d wanted to say something to me the other day.

“If this keeps up,” I told Andy. “I’m going to have to say ‘hi’ to her.”

Andy nodded, aware of the significance for me. By actually saying “hi” to the actress, I would be flying in the face of the unspoken, “don’t feed the animals” New York City code: Celebrities are to be noticed and commented upon, but, to their faces, ignored. Acknowledgements, if necessary, must be nonverbal. Approaching a celebrity meant you were a tourist, or in from New Jersey.

The problem, I realized, was Brooklyn. On the Upper West Side, we’d managed to live peaceably with the celebrities by following the code. In Manhattan, there is a tacit agreement between laypeople and celebrities: I will feign disinterest, but you know and I know we both know who you are. But this was Brooklyn, where the onus was on neighborliness, not anonymity. By moving here, the celebrity had thrown everything off. Sitting in the smoothie and sandwich shop, I was now in uncharted territory. “Andy,” I asked. “What do I say to her?” “Say what you’d normally say to someone who hangs out in the same neighborhood place as you do,” he offered. “Please,” I said. “That’s totally phony. She and I both know what she and I both know.” “Well,” my husband shrugged, “you can always find a new local hangout.” I shot him a shocked look. It was bad enough to be living in the age of wall-to-wall celebrity infotainment. The glitterati would not drive me from my spot. If I waited it out, maybe more celebrities would move to the neighborhood, and a new Brooklyn-specific set of celebrity mores would evolve before the issue came to a crisis point. Of course, I would have no such luck. The other day, it seemed contact could no longer be avoided. It was late morning, and the celebrity and I were the only ones in the smoothie and sandwich shop. She came in and sat two tables down from me, and I gave her a mini-smile, hoping to stave her off. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and I kicked myself for not averting my eyes quickly enough. “The bakery’s all out of ham and cheese loaf,” the husband/boyfriend boomed, entering the shop. His accent was thick and Australian. “Well, that’s too bad,” the actress said, shifting her gaze from me and on to him, then looking back quickly, as if to say “to be continued.” The moment of truth had come and gone, but I felt relived for another reason: The actress’s accent was also thick and Australian, even though she played a confirmed Angelino on television. Now I had the perfect thing to say to her: “You know, your accent is great on that show.” It was as if a weight had been lifted; I was able to concentrate on work for the next hour as the celebrity and her husband/boyfriend hunkered down with iced coffees, croissants, and the paper. Soon enough, it was time for me to go – I needed an Internet connection to keep working – so I packed up my things, knowing that, as I passed the celebrity, I’d make my move. She looked up at me as I began walking out, clearly thinking, as I did, that this was the moment. Together the two of us would set in motion a ripple effect of new celebrity/plebian interactions – a new day seemed about to dawn. I opened my mouth as I neared her table, ready to throw down the accent line. But just as I was about to, I was interrupted. “I knew I’d find you here, Evie,” Hallie said, appearing from nowhere. “Peanut’s outside, and we’re springing you from this joint.” Flustered, I glanced back towards the actress, who looked at me with a mini-smile. As I left the store with my friend, I shot one back at her. To be continued, indeed.