‘He Thrust the Lemon Toward Me as if It Were a Bouquet’

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Self Served

Dear Diary:

I ordered pizza for a lazy-day dinner on a day I never got out of my PJs.

At about the expected time, I got a call saying that the pie had been delivered. It didn’t sound like my doorman so I asked who it was. Turned out, it was the doorman of another building on my Upper West Side block.

I asked why he had accepted the delivery. He said he had been busy, had told the deliveryman to leave it on the desk and had only seen my address and number after.

So I got dressed, went out, picked up my pizza and delivered it to myself.

— Laura Beattie

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Edible Arrangement

Dear Diary:

I walked up Broadway toward my neighborhood fruit stand at the corner of 73rd Street, hopeful that the gruff stand-minder was on duty.

He was, and I swept strawberries and blueberries into my arms as he watched. Other patrons milled around, among them a woman examining avocados and a lanky man considering the lemons.

“Nice raspberries, nice raspberries,” the vendor said, moving toward me. “Some sweet potatoes? Very fresh, very fresh.”

I retrieved my wallet to pay and leave. The vendor slipped his usual extra, and free, bananas into my bag alongside the fruit I had purchased.

The bananas were an equalizer of sorts. To him, they signaled appreciation that I listened to his advice without objecting. To me, they were a generous offering from a hard worker.

As I took them, I thought about our ongoing exchange and its evolution toward a relationship.

Then I heard a man’s voice from behind: “Miss. Miss.”

In New York, I had learned that turning to acknowledge a voice from behind could mean facing something untoward, or it could indicate someone saying I had dropped my wallet.

“Take this,” I heard the voice say. Turning, I saw it belonged to the lanky man who had been eyeing the lemons.

“Here, take this, please,” he said, his extended hand holding a lemon. “I bought three, but I only need two.”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“No, really,” he said. “I don’t need it.”

He thrust the lemon toward me as if it were a bouquet.

“OK,” I said, accepting the piece of fruit. Then I reached into my bag, snapped a banana off the bunch and quickly handed it to this stranger.

“No, no,” he said, “that’s not part of the arrangement.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” I said with a smile.

— Janet L. Schinderman

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Just a Glance

Dear Diary:

I was transferring to the L train one day when I saw a woman struggling to climb the stairs with a baby strapped into a stroller.

“Do you need some help?” I asked.

She nodded.

Just as I was about to grab the bottom of the stroller seat, a man stepped in to help but couldn’t because of the bag of takeout food he was carrying.

With a glance that I tacitly understood, he handed me the bag, which he exchanged for the weight of the stroller. Together, the three of us trudged up the stairs.

When we got to the top, I handed the man his food, he set down the stroller and we all walked off on our separate ways.

— Isabel Sung

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Low Tones

Dear Diary:

After hauling my bass trombone halfway across 23rd Street and riding a standing-room-only Q all the way to Brooklyn, I let go a big exhale when the train emptied out. I was finally able to give my feet and back a thoroughly well-deserved rest.

As I sat there, I saw a cellist board the train and occupy the spot where I had been standing. As the train began to move, I noticed that a man and woman sitting across from me were amused by something in my vicinity.

Two men sitting next to them joined in, and it was soon clear that, for some reason, all four of them were laughing at me and the cellist.

I removed my headphones, readying myself for public embarrassment.

The woman leaned forward.

“We also play cello and trombone,” she said. “Go bass clef! Where are you all coming from?”

I said I had just come from orchestra rehearsal and proudly produced a flier for our upcoming Dvorak concert, thinking that perhaps these amateurs might like some serious orchestral fare.

Then the cellist asked where our new friends were coming from.

“Oh, we all play in “Hadestown,’” my trombone counterpart said.

— Phil Mayer

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Uninvited

Dear Diary:

It was a sunny lunchtime in Lower Manhattan, and a group of us had gotten sandwiches and decided to eat them sitting on the side steps at Trinity Church.

As we sat there, a woman dressed entirely in peach (hat, gloves, suit, pumps) made her way through the tombstones toward us.