Party of 10
Dear Diary:
My husband and I got married at City Hall in Manhattan on a morning in 2009. A few people had to go to work after the ceremony. The rest of us, feeling hungry, went to a Belgian restaurant on West Broadway that has since closed.
The place wasn’t really set up for a party of 10, but the staff made do and pushed together a bunch of tables to accommodate us.
There was only one small table that we didn’t end up using. A man who appeared to be in his 30s was sitting at it working on a laptop.
We placed our orders and started to take photos of one another. The man working at his laptop asked if we would like a picture of the whole group.
We thanked him for his offer, and he took a couple of pictures. Then we went back to celebrating, and he turned back to his computer.
He left at some point after our food arrived, and I can’t remember if we said goodbye.
When we were finished, and my father asked for the check, the waitress said not to worry. The man with the laptop had already paid the bill.
— Ana Cristina dos Santos Morais
Beautiful Baby
Dear Diary:
It was a summer day, and I was pushing my 4-month-old son along Madison Avenue in Carnegie Hill in a lovely English-style pram a friend had lent me.
We were stopped at a light waiting to cross the street when a woman came up behind me and peered over my shoulder at my son.
“What a beautiful baby” she said.
She turned back to look at me.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.
“A boy,” I announced proudly.
She turned back to look at my son again.
“A truly beautiful baby,” she said. “He must look just like his father.”
— Sandra Daly
Whistle Regret
Dear Diary:
When the whistle seller passes
like a snake through the grass
on the 2 train halfway to Borough Hall,
you won’t have time to decide how
you would have used one. Still, you’ll regret
for the rest of the trip not shelling out a buck
for something so shrill and unambiguous —
a whistle that sings only one song,
and always perfectly.
— Richard Schiffman
‘Doolittle’
Dear Diary:
In the late 1980s I was the manager of a high-end bakery in the West Village. It was one of those places that had a new manager every year or so, and I was nine months in.
The front of the house was a typical cafe setup: a half-dozen tables, some glass display cases, and every type of coffee and pastry imaginable, mostly served to go.
The back of the house, four times as large, was where the real money was made, with wedding cakes that often ran into the many thousands of dollars.
One positive aspect of the job was that I got a long lunch break each day. After making myself a turkey and Brie sandwich on a baguette with sun-dried tomatoes and garlic aioli, I would grab a bottled iced tea and a bag of chips and rush to my nearby apartment.
Once there, I would sit and eat while watching the theater that was Christopher Street from my second-story window and playing the Pixies’ recently released cassette “Doolittle” loud. Really loud. After listening to both sides of the tape, I would return to the cafe.
One day, the owner asked why I had been gone so long. I apologized and said I had been in a hurry to get out of there.
He told me never to be in a hurry to get out of there. Then he said he wanted me to start taking my lunch breaks at the cafe so I could keep an eye on things.
I nodded in agreement, but I quit a week later without telling him the real reason.
I needed to hear the Pixies.
— Doug Sylver
Tiffany Frame
Dear Diary:
I was cleaning out my closets when I came across a small Tiffany box. Much to my surprise, it did not appear to have ever been opened. Inside, covered in plastic, was a lovely sterling silver picture frame nestled in a Tiffany blue felt bag.
Unfortunately, on close examination I could see that the silver had become tarnished. I tried to clean it, but to no avail.
I called Tiffany and was told to bring it in for repair. So I traveled to Rockefeller Center, brought the box into the store and was directed to the repair department downstairs.
I showed the frame to one of the women at the counter there. She called two other women over to take a look.
The three of them admired it, but then said that they didn’t sell Tiffany items.
“How could Tiffany not sell Tiffany?” I asked.
“You’re in Saks Fifth Avenue!” one of the women said.
— Eileen Rosenberg
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