Steep Stoop
Dear Diary:
I had just finished a jog in Prospect Park when I noticed an older woman beckoning me from the door of a brownstone.
I pulled out my earbuds.
“Yes?” I called up to her.
“Can you get my newspaper?” she asked, pointing to the bottom of her steep stoop.
“Oh, sure,” I said.
I quickly jogged the paper up to her.
“Ah, thank you,” she said, beaming at me like I was Wonder Woman, not a sweaty, middle- aged mom in ill-fitting exercise shorts.
I was making my way back down the steps when she called out to me again.
“Sorry?” I said, turning back toward her
“My window,” she said. She gestured sadly toward a window overlooking the street. “It is stuck. My apartment, so very warm.”
I hesitated.
“Did you call your super?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He never comes.”
She stared at me beseechingly.
“Um, you want me to open it?” I asked.
She grinned.
“Yes, come!”
She motioned for me to follow her, and I walked uneasily into the building. Should I really be entering this stranger’s home, I wondered. I could picture my husband shaking his head at me.
As I entered her dimly lit living room, I stopped in my tracks. Hundreds of shiny eyes stared back at me, and a chill ran down my sweaty back. The entire wall was filled with a collection of old-fashioned porcelain dolls.
“There,” she said, pointing to the window.
I hurried over and gave it a heave, and it popped open.
She grinned.
“Wonderful,” she said.
I wished her a good day and made my exit. I was happy to have given her a breeze, but I was now wondering how many brownstones secretly had entire walls of spooky dolls.
— Johanna Gohmann
The Cynic in February
Dear Diary:
Why trust a month of varying days Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? A month that trips the tongue, bewilders groundhogs, offers a pale diluted sun to mock our chill.
Beneath fresh layers of snow lies treacherous ice. Beware that February sky, Blue and serene as a nursery. Storm clouds threaten our springtime fantasies.
Don’t believe lovers who bring valentines. Red satin can hide a cardboard heart, sweet phrases, like soft-centered chocolates, cloy and lacy paper promises may blow away in March.
— Kathleen DuHaime
Folded Sheets
Dear Diary:
I was on the subway sitting near a heavily tattooed artist who was drawing intently on lined paper.
When we were approaching 42nd Street, he moved toward the door to get off, leaving several folded, clean sheets of paper behind.
Another guy sat down and picked up the folded paper. As the train pulled into the station, he yelled to the artist: “Hey, buddy! Got a pen?”
The doors opened. The first fellow fumbled through his pockets as he stepped out of the car. Just in the nick of time, he found a ballpoint pen and threw it to the second guy.
In what seemed like one fluid motion, the second guy caught the pen, opened the folded sheets and quickly became engrossed in making his own drawings.
— Susan Larson
On the Aisle
Dear Diary:
In August 2012, I bought a ticket to a Horton Foote play that was being performed at a small theater on East 59th Street.
My seat was the second one in on the first row. Eventually, a gentleman with a round face, white hair and dark rimmed glasses took the aisle seat.
We acknowledged each other and the play began. It ran without an intermission. As I stood to leave, the gentleman with the round face, white hair and dark rimmed glasses asked if I would like to have a bite with him.
“Oh, no thank you,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
But then that voice in my head made me speak up.
“But I could have a glass of wine!” I said.
He perked up.
We left the theater and were together for 12 years.
— Sarah Bareau
Salad Dressing
Dear Diary:
I briefly lived on East Ninth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A in the early 1990s. One of my favorite local haunts was the Ukrainian restaurant Odessa on Avenue A.
One cold, snowy evening I went there for dinner and settled into the always-crowded diner’s warm glow.
An older waitress eventually came to take my order. The entree I ordered came with a salad, and she asked what kind of dressing I wanted.
“Plain,” I said. That was how I always ate my salads.
The waitress stopped writing on her pad, lowered her bifocals and studied me.
“Plain?” she repeated in a heavy accent.
“Yes, plain.”
“Young man,” she said in a scolding tone. “This is a salad, not a woman. You never leave a salad undressed!”
Awkwardly, I ordered a dressing and she walked away satisfied. I have never ordered a salad undressed since then.
— Joe Toris
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
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