Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

A coffee cup and pacifier in hand, Jason Greene, who has a quartet of kids, plops himself down on the living room floor, where his 18-month-old daughter, Arwen, is playing with giant LEGO tiles. Jason, lanky and laid back, waves good-bye to Cara, his wife, who is off to teach an English as a Second Language class. Two seconds later, he’s in a chair with tow-headed Arwen on his lap reading her a story. When she — and he — tire of the tiny tale of , they go off to find her bottle. …

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Surrounded by magic wands, angel statues and spiritual tomes, Joan Becht Willette, aka The Enchanted Goddess, is reclining in her writing chair, notebook in hand, waiting for the right words to leap from pen to paper. Whether inspiration comes swiftly or slowly, it does not matter. The sun is shining, Merlin is meowing and Joan is sipping hot coffee from her Wonder Woman mug. It took Joan a long time – her entire life, in fact – to channel her creativity, which is why she’s helping other…

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Effie Sfikas is gazing out the front window. The sun is shining, the stores are open and people are walking up and down Ditmars Boulevard. The world is bursting with life. She turns her big, brown eyes to the ground and composes herself. Death is not an easy subject to talk about. “You need to show sympathy and compassion to the families,” she says in a somber voice. Her grave garments — black slacks, white pleated blouse, black tie and black stilettoes – are accented with a serious…

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Dominique Perrot has painted striking stripes in her long, dark hair. She’s decided to go grey gracefully, and the indigo streaks blend in and stand out at the same time, making her ageless. She’s never worn her hair short and cannot imagine what it would be like to have her ears and neck uncovered. She doesn’t know what color her hair will choose to be in this, a new chapter in her life that brings her back to her beginnings, but strand by strand, she’s willing to let the past, present…

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When she was a little girl, Elizabeth Chubbuck used to climb to the top of the wooden jungle gym at the elementary school by her house. Each time, she opened her big blue eyes wide in hopeful expectation. Illinois is a flat-out flat state so she could see for miles and miles. But the view offered her nothing more than the unrelenting cornfields of her hometown of Urbana. “I kept telling myself that there was something else out there,” says Elizabeth, the vice president of sales and marketing…

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