The Thirty Something Snap

Chapter Six - Up On The Rooftop

Penny and I remained in the office until 7:30 p.m. Sunday evening fleshing out the details of our PR campaign for JEG and Tomoko Takahashi. By the time we were done we had a pretty slick presentation packaged nicely into a narrated Powerpoint production.

Our pitch, scheduled for Monday morning, showcased our proposed take-off of the Two Virgins cover, the curious but disinterested ‘average’ New Yorker, our comparison of Tomoko to Yoko (that we planned to pitch even if Yoko didn’t come on board), and our catchy little tagline of ‘Give This Piece A Chance.’

After reviewing the Powerpoint four times and rehearsing our spoken narration I suggested to Penny that we consider it done. We had been going non-stop all weekend long and we were both very happy with our combined efforts and relatively confident that it would fly in the morning for Richard and the JEG execs.

We checked our email many times to see if Yoko Ono had responded to the letter Penny had given her earlier in the day. With just a little over twelve hours before we would be making our presentation there was still no email and no phone calls. Needless to say that was the only part of our efforts that seemed to have been fruitless and we were both disappointed.

“What do you say we brew a couple of Starbucks and go sit on the roof?” I suggested. Edelman has Starbucks machines for the employees and there is an awesome rooftop garden on the building that provides a spectacular view of the New York City skyline.

Penny liked the idea. “Yes. Let’s go upstairs and exhale,” she said.

Sunset was still about an hour away but the sun was already casting long shadows across the metropolitan landscape. Penny and I sat fourteen stories above the busy streets on rooftop chairs sipping coffee and engaging in small talk.

An American Flag flew from a pole erected at the corner of the building and the sound of the fabric being blown by a gentle summer breeze added to the ambience of our tranquil moment. If we stood and faced west we could see the Hudson River, the Jersey shore, and all of the rest of America stretched out beyond a distant horizon.

“Ever want to travel?” I asked Penny.

Penny gave my question a thought and then said, “Yes.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m probably like every other New Yorker struggling to make ends meet,” Penny answered. “We all have the dream of visiting Paris and London, maybe even Tokyo or Sidney, Australia. What about you?”

“I want to see that,” I said as I pointed to the west.

“Jersey?” Penny chuckled.

“America,” I said. “And that includes Jersey. I really haven’t traveled much at all in my thirty nine years.”

“Wanderlust just might be a symptom of the very thing you keep trying to avoid,” Penny replied.

“What do you mean?”

“The thirty-something snap. Maybe your sudden desire to travel the country is your biological clock telling you that you’re not getting younger,” Penny stated.

“Could be,” I pondered. “Yesterday morning, when I went to help Peter, I drove deeper into New Jersey than I had ever driven. That’s pretty sad when you think about it. I’ve been to Atlantic City and I really bit the bullet one year and drove down to Bike Week in Daytona Beach but, other than that my entire life has been right here on this tiny little dot on the map.”

Penny sighed. “I know what you mean,” she said. “Maybe one day I’ll be like Sylvia. She spends six months of every year in Ocala, Florida. I wonder what it’s like down there.”