Dear Diary,

My name’s Peggy Schuyler & this is the first time I’ve ever started a sentence that isn’t just a continuation of what my sisters are already saying! I have so much to say I could burst!

Um.

My dress is yellow.

Mother says that she doesn’t remember if I was born or just followed Eliza in off the street one day. Angelica says Mother just doesn’t remember bc the day I was born she spent 72 excruciating hrs inhaling the ladunum-soaked birthing cloth that was also her only menstrual rag.

Anyway, I’m off to another night of being dragged around allyways. I’m sure we’ll be mugged again. Yelling “WE ARE IMPOVERISHED” never seems to stop thieves. Burr will probably watch from the shadows. He always describes what’s happening but he has never once helped.

P. Schuy

Dear Diary,

My sisters met a goatee in knee socks & both wanted to bang him Ang bowed out but I think that’s bc she prefers drama & angst to sincerity & duets.

I’m not part of the triangle & I can’t help but think it’s bc it would make something too confusing in the future.

Goatee & Eliza write each other every day which is ridiculous bc each letter takes 9 wks & several dead post-boys to get to its destination

I’ll be a bridesmaid at their wedding bc I’m one of 15 ppl who live in NYC. I hope they let me wear yellow.

P. Schuy

PS: There is a War

Dear Diary,

Wedding day. Eliza’s happy & won’t shut up about it. Goatee who says I confide in him (I don’t) is giving a toast about how smart he is & won’t shut up about it. 2 New Yorkers & a Frenchman (thrupple?) are holding hands & rhyme-yelling.

No one ever. stops. talking.

Angelic’s about to give a toast and I’m sure that it will be all about how Angelica feels about Eliza which of course is just about Angelica and really has nothing to do with Eliza at all and I’m SO BORED AND SO HUNGRY

Wait.

I feel weird.

weird feel I

Wait

HUNGRY SO AND BORED SO I’m and all at Eliza with do to nothing has really and Angelica about just is course of which Eliza about feels Angelica how about all be will it that sure I’m and toast a give to about Angelica’s

Huh.

No one....seems to be acknowledging what just happened.

I really hope Angelica is not a witch because she would never stop monologuing about how difficult and solitary her life is.

Anyway it’s my turn to make a speech and, as per usual, no one is paying attention to me so I will sing about my favorite part of this wedding: the passed hors d'oeuvres!

(yum yum)

A deviled egg!

(yum yum)

A blintzeee!

And pâté


P. Schuy

Dear Diary,

Sorry I haven’t written in two years. Nothing has really happened. Well, the war is over, Eliza has kids, a peacock in a purple coat is making some noise etc

But none of that involved me. So I kept my mouth shut & weaved a bunch.

Womanhood is a nightmare

P.Schuy

Dear Diary,

I am terrified. During my evening perambulation w/my chaperone, bodyguard & footman, I spotted a woman who looked exactly. Like. Me.

I could tell she had lost her Virtue as she was alone & the wind sounded like string instruments playing in a minor key as she passed

But most telling & scandalous of all?

Her dress was Red: the color of fallen women & harlots.

Not to be compared with my dress which, as you’ll remember, is yellow.

And to think, I never would have seen her if Angelica & Eliza remembered that I existed and invited me upstate!

And as I watched her walk into Alex’s house for what I only assume were Morality lessons, I wondered: were we really so different?

Or are we literally identical women born into two different tropes? We have no control

Who lives, who dies, whose dress is whore-y?

P. Schuy

Bless @dbkimbro for the gift of “And pâté”

(Also bless @JasCephasJones for existing)