‘A World-Wise Waitress Came to the Table and Scoped Out the Group’

Initiation

Dear Diary:

It was the early 2000s. I had been resisting my friends’ invitations to join them in a night of dancing at one of those only-in-New-York, late-night parties held in the kind of dark, crowded clubs that were tucked into quiet streets along the Hudson River at the time.

Intense, sweat-soaked group experiences like that didn’t appeal to me.

At some point, I gave in and spent six hours one night dancing as hard as I possibly could. It was magic. I had found my tribe.

As the early spring morning broke over Manhattan, seven of us left the club together, footsore, sweaty, exhilarated and exhausted, and then settled in for breakfast at a nearby diner.

I felt as if I had been initiated, let into the heavy rites of a secret fraternity. I was now one of those guys.

A world-wise waitress came to the table and scoped out the group.

“Oh, puppy!” she said. “Puppy! What happened to you? Did you get off the porch and play with the big dogs?”

I nodded.

“Don’t say a word,” she said. “I know just what you need.”

She took the other six orders and went to the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later, bringing me a mound of scrambled eggs, several strips of bacon, a toasted bagel and a big glass of cranberry juice.

It was best breakfast of my life.

— Gary Clinton

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Tiramisu

Dear Diary:

He slid the oval dish toward us, a perfectly clean column of cream waiting at the edge of the plate, an arrow made of ladyfingers and mascarpone pointed directly at our hearts.

Befuddled, we looked at him, then at the bartender’s face which evolved from confusion to adoration.

“Here,” said the stranger I had been shoulder-to-shoulder with as we ate an Italian supper on a Saturday night in Carroll Gardens. He gestured toward his plate of tiramisu (well, our plate of tiramisu). “You try it.”

Just a few minutes before, I had gestured toward the plate with my eyes while craving it under my breath to my friend.

The two of us had shared a regretful, longing glance: We should have gotten dessert. Now, we were being offered the last bite of someone else’s.

I was almost afraid to ask the bartender for a spoon. Was this kind of sharing allowed?

Before I could think too hard, shiny silver spoons were resting on the counter, then caressed in our hands, then sinking into the custard with an Olympic diver’s grace, and then, satisfyingly, into our open mouths.

It turned out the owner’s father came into the place every morning and made the tiramisu by hand.

— Jordana Hope Bornstein

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Isn’t It Delicious?

Dear Diary:

Marilyn, you’re dead, but I am alive
Standing on a subway grate
Your subway grate
On the southwest corner
Of 52nd and Lexington
There are no signs of any sort
No indication of commemoration
Drip, Drip, Drip, raindrops
Zoom, Zoom, Hustle & Bustle
New York’s in motion
While I stand soaked, remembering
The poems you used to write
I loved the one about the bridges
I’ve read it at gigs
It always gets a big response
Marilyn, you’re dead, but I’m alive
Issuing a reminder
So you can remember
You are not going alone

— Danny Klecko

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Sunshine Boy

Dear Diary:

It was spring 1975. I was 23 and had been in New York for less than six months. I was working as a secretary at Artkraft Strauss, and “The Sunshine Boys” was filming around the corner.

During one lunch hour, Walter Matthau appeared in a shabby overcoat. Gathering all of my courage, I asked him for an autograph.

Almost smiling, he asked my name.

I panicked. Should I ask for two autographs? Would that be too much? I decided not to risk it.

“Oh, it’s not for me,” I said. “It’s for my mother, Ruth.”

Giving his best scowl, he scribbled a line and stomped off.

My mother still had that autograph when she died 13 years ago. I have it now.

— Amanda Sherwin

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Tumbling

Dear Diary:

My husband and I were in New York to see “Good Night and Good Luck,” and I had gotten done up for the occasion: dress, hair, makeup, jewelry, a stunning but impractical white coat and an infrequently worn pair of kitten heels.

As we walked to the theater, the promise of spring was in the air, and I was feeling upbeat. I was gliding along. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling in slow motion onto the dirty pavement at Broadway and 44th Street.

My coat and my ego were a bit tarnished as my husband rushed to help me up. To my surprise, two young men also stopped to help.

As I turned to thank them, one of them smiled.

“Hon,” he said, “it was totally worth it! Those shoes are fabulous.”

— Suzanne Schneck

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee

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