Cafe Borgia
Dear Diary:
I was having a cappuccino at Cafe Borgia on Bleecker Street 40 years ago. It was summer, and I was sitting inside the cafe.
The windows were open. Outside the one near me, two men were talking and smoking cigarettes. One had red hair and was very cute. When his friend stepped away, I leaned out the window and asked if I could have a cigarette.
He offered me the pack. I took one, and he lit it for me. His friend soon returned, and they resumed their conversation.
When I was ready to leave, I stopped at their table and suggested we get a drink at Jimmy Day’s a few blocks away.
We did, his friend eventually left for the Bronx and a year later the redhead and I were married.
P.S. I had never smoked before and never did again.
— Robin Kornhaber
Hesitation Blues
Dear Diary:
It’s hot on the platform. The uptown 1 arrives, and I step on.
A man sitting to my left has earbuds in. I look over his shoulder, straining to see what he’s listening to. It’s one of my greatest flaws. I’m not a music snob, but I am a music busybody. I don’t recognize the song, but the title is romantic-sounding, and the album art is colorful.
I turn back to my own phone and shuffle my “liked” songs. I start a Sudoku game. At 86th Street, I look over at the man to my left. He, too, is playing Sudoku.
People come and go. There should be an eight in the center left square of the top right cell of his game. I almost tap his shoulder to tell him, but I hesitate. I’ll tell him when I get off.
110th Street. We’re both immersed in our games. People get off; people get on. As the train is about to leave the station, he jumps up and strides to the door before I can say a word.
There is no sound in my ears. I paused my music a long time ago. I watch the darkness rushing past. The train slows to a stop.
116th Street. I get off, walk up the steps and emerge silently into the light.
— Lauren Zhang
The Stagehand
Dear Diary:
I was sitting on a bench waiting for the M66 after seeing “Orfeo ed Euridice” at the Metropolitan Opera. A tall man in jeans and a black T-shirt sat down next to me.
“Were you just at the opera?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m a stagehand.”
A stagehand! He might as well have said he was Pavarotti. I was in awe. Star-struck.
The set for “Orfeo ed Euridice” consisted of two multistory structures manually pushed by stagehands.
“Were you one of the ‘pushers?’” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
I proceeded to pepper him with questions about the set, all of which he politely answered in great detail.
“When I was a child,” he said at one point, “I sang in the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus, even with the likes of Kathleen Battle and Pavarotti.”
“As I got older,” he continued, “I knew I didn’t have the voice for a professional career and went on to other work. About 12 years ago, I found myself missing the Met so much that I became a stagehand and changed careers. I couldn’t be happier being back onstage.”
— Dottie Jeffries
Expert Eye
Dear Diary:
I was getting on the elevator at a building in the Flatiron district to meet a photographer friend in the 1970s. Getting on at the same time was an older woman wearing a long brown overcoat and carrying a large shopping bag.
She pushed the button for the floor where I was to meet my friend. When the elevator opened, I found myself following her to the office number I had been given.
It had a Dutch door with the top half opened, a small counter on the lower half and a sign stating that it served only professional photographers. In the space beyond the door, I could see large cameras on tripods and related gear.
The woman approached the counter and touched the stem of a call bell. A clerk appeared and, with the air of the maître d’ at an upscale restaurant, asked what she was looking for.
“I want to see a Sinar camera,” she said.
“Do you realize that’s a professional view camera?” the clerk replied in a condescending tone. “Do you know anything about view cameras?”
The woman drew herself up.
“My name is Berenice Abbott,” she said, “and I’m an expert at it!”
— William Howze
Rerouted
Dear Diary:
I got on a C train at the Jay Street-MetroTech station and noticed an older woman who appeared to be lost.
I asked if she was, and she said she had hopped on the train heading to Manhattan but was now confused because of all the weekend rerouting.
I offered to help her.
“Are you from out of town?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “indeed I am — from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.”
— Kiho Cha
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