His Wife’s Hat
Dear Diary:
I stepped into the elevator at my Upper East Side building. A friendly older neighbor was there carrying a hat and some tchotchkes.
He was going to the basement, and I was going to the lobby. We exchanged small talk, and I asked him about the hat.
His mood shifted from happy to looking like he was on the verge of tears. The hat had belonged to his wife, he said. She had died some time ago, and he was finally throwing it away.
I could feel his pain. It was a perfectly beautiful hat. I asked if I could have it.
He handed it to me, and I put it on.
“You have the perfect head for it,” he said.
I thanked him, and he smiled again.
— Carmela Marasigan
This Summer
Dear Diary:
This summer I want to go to Ellis Island with my son to see our family name. I want to go with my father to Maria Hernandez Park, where he played stick ball when he was younger. I want to walk the Ramble with friends visiting from out of town.
And there are some things I want to do with you.
I want to see the Vivian Maier show at Fotografiska before the museum moves. I want to watch “Cinema Paradiso” on a blanket at Bryant Park.
I want to catch a Mets game from the nosebleed seats of Citi Field. I want to go to another concert at Forest Hills Stadium where we stand in the bass trap.
I want to swim in the salt water, giggle and eye-roll and tell the best kind of bad jokes. I want to kiss more than last year, or the year before. And I’d like to have some kisses with you.
This summer I want to sleep well and get stronger, be present enough to pray before every meal and joyful just where I am.
And that joy, well, I want to share some of it with you.
— Michelle Fiordaliso
Closing Time
Dear Diary:
Thirty minutes before the SoHo restaurant where I work was to close, a young man and his partner walked in and sat at one of my tables.
He told me he had a shrimp allergy, and I told him which dishes to avoid. He was kind and soft-spoken, and they got up to leave after an hour.
The next week, I was walking down Orchard Street when I heard someone yelling. Looking across the street, I saw the soft-spoken customer.
“Server!” he yelled, smiling. “Server!”
“Shrimp allergy!” I yelled back.
— Sofia Anna Gatmon-Sandrock
Free Sandwich
Dear Diary:
It was 1985, and I was on my first trip to New York. I had driven up from Knoxville with a boy who didn’t like to drive. He was chasing a boy in the city, and I wanted to see the city.
After we arrived, he went his way, and I went mine. I stayed with some actor friends but spent most days alone with a tiny bit of money, trying to soak up everything.
Walking past a deli one day, I saw a sign scrawled on butcher paper: “Free sandwich if you can name Meryl Streep’s first movie.”
I walked inside and approached the man at the counter.
“I know the answer,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s ‘Julia,’” I said, speaking quickly. “Meryl Streep’s first movie was ‘Julia’ starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.”
The man looked irritated.
“How’d you know that?” he said. “I can’t believe you knew that. Man. OK, what sandwich do you want?”
“Really?” I said.
“What sandwich — you won. Come on. Hurry it up.”
He pointed to a menu on the wall. I couldn’t believe it. I had won a sandwich, and it was free, and I was broke, and knew Meryl Streep’s first movie.
He made me a great sandwich — chicken salad on rye, maybe? I remember eating it in the spring sunshine, so happy to be out of Knoxville and on the streets of New York.
— Kerry Madden-Lunsford
Salvation Army
Dear Diary:
My 21st birthday was coming up so I went to the Salvation Army to look for a dress. It was the middle of summer, and I was on the hunt for something sparkly and short to wear clubbing with friends.
I navigated through the narrow aisles thick with secondhand clothes: velvet evening gowns, Planet Fitness T-shirts, leather pants with the tags still on. Customers chattered in Spanish and pressed themselves against the hangers to allow one another to pass.
A small woman wearing a sun hat and a medical mask noticed me frown at a stain on one dress. She said her mother was a seamstress, and then explained how to remove the stain.
She pointed to some other clothes she thought I should try on.
“You have great legs,” she said. “Show them off.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said, scurrying off toward the dress pants. “Thank your mother.”
— Lilly Sabella
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The post ‘We Exchanged Small Talk, and I Asked Him About the Hat’ appeared first on New York Times.
