Rainy Night on the L
Dear Diary:
I was on the L train heading to a friend’s birthday party in Bushwick. It was a rainy night, and I was wearing an old disposable rain poncho that looked like a slice of watermelon.
“I like your poncho,” the guy next to me said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“Hypothetically, how much would you sell it for?” he asked.
I wasn’t planning on selling the poncho off my back, but I said, “I don’t know, five dollars?” I immediately regretted my lowball answer.
“I’ll give you 10,” he said.
I thought: This guy must be the worst negotiator ever. But there I was, giving him the poncho and getting a crisp $10 bill in return.
“My best friend’s name is Watermelon,” he said before getting off at the next stop. “She’s going to love this.”
I took the $10 and bought a chicken quesadilla.
— Avery Lender
Beautiful Baritone
Dear Diary:
My husband’s job recently allowed us to live in Midtown Manhattan. While he went to work each morning, I worked from home and explored the city on foot.
On many days, as I stepped into the hallway, I heard the most beautiful baritone voice coming from a nearby apartment. I never saw the singer, but hearing him became one of the highlights of my mornings.
Once, as my husband and I were leaving for the Whitney Museum, our mysterious, musical neighbor stepped into the hallway at the same time.
I could not resist.
“Is it your voice I’ve been enjoying all these weeks?” I asked.
He smiled.
“I hope I haven’t been bothering you,” he replied.
“Quite the opposite,” I said. “It’s been a joy.”
My husband asked if he sang professionally.
“I’m singing Marcello in ‘La Bohème’ at the Met this month,” he replied, as casually as if he were telling us he worked down the block. Then he invited us to attend the next performance.
We gladly accepted.
That evening was unforgettable. It was my husband’s first opera and my first since attending performances years earlier with my grandmother.
As the music filled the Metropolitan Opera House, I thought of how, in New York, the most extraordinary invitations can begin with a neighbor practicing behind a closed door.
— Debbie E. Miller
Precarious Parcel
Dear Diary:
I was biking through Midtown on a warm spring day. Next to me at a stop light was a man on a Citi Bike. He was carefully holding onto a full-size air-conditioner that was sitting on the bike’s basket.
A delivery worker on the bike next to him at the light pulled out a bungee cord from his insulated bag.
“You can have this,” the deliveryman said.
The light changed, and we all rode off.
— Rob Price
Mother Bucka’s
Dear Diary:
I was born and raised in Brooklyn. When I was 1, my family moved into a two-family house in East Flatbush.
I became instant friends with the little girl who lived upstairs and was almost a year older than me. Her name was Elise. We became inseparable.
Flash forward to when we were in our late teens. She met a guy who drove a taxi, and they became close very quickly.
In spring 1977, she and I took a weekend trip to Washington D.C., traveling on a bus that left from outside Grand Central.
When we returned, her boyfriend, Bruce, came to pick us up along with a friend of his. The first thing we did was have ice cream at the guys’ favorite place, Mother Bucka’s in the West Village.
The next day, I was told that the friend, Jay, had asked for my phone number. A couple of weeks later, he called me. The first thing I said was: “It’s about time.”
Flash forward again, and we’re now two married couples. Unfortunately, about 25 years later I became a widow. But Elise has celebrated over 40 years of marriage bliss.
The best part about having a friend for over 60 years is all the reminiscing we still get to do about that wonderful trip to Mother Bucka’s, and the life it created for us.
— Fran Sturm
‘Let’s Go, Rangers!’
Dear Diary:
In spring 1974, my father and I were walking back to our car after attending a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. We had a 90-minute drive home to Fishkill ahead of us, and I planned to skip school the next day.
In the distance, we heard a woman’s voice chanting: “Let’s go, Rangers!”
As we got closer, the voice began to sound familiar.
“Let’s go, Rangers!”
From behind, I saw a small, compact figure yelling at the top of her lungs: “Let’s go, Rangers!”
Then she turned around.
“Ms. Racheter!” I shouted.
It was my 11th-grade English teacher. I did not miss school the next day.
— Peter Charkalis
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee