The Thirty Something Snap

Chapter Seven - Show Time

Five-thirty Monday morning came quickly. I was a little disoriented waking up on a futon in Penny’s apartment and forgot, for a moment, where I was. As I lay there in the dark looking up into emptiness I could hear Sylvia singing along to the radio. Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man‘ was playing and Sylvia’s duet with Elton was rather haunting. I guess that’s as good a word as any to describe the way it sounded as she belted out, ‘I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife.”

I could smell breakfast cooking. “Hmm, two mornings in a row now I’ve awakened to the delightful aroma of a woman in the kitchen. I could get used to this,” I thought. Probably a chauvinistic thought, I’ll have to check with Cosmo’s “Guide To The Liberated Woman.”

I sat on the edge of the futon and stretched my arms over my head. Sylvia could hear my characteristic morning grunt as I stretched and she poked her head from the kitchen. “Good morning, sleepy head,” she said.

“Sleepy head?” I thought. “I haven’t been called ‘sleepy head’ since the sixth grade.” Then I spoke to Sylvia, “Good morning, Sylvia. Boy, whatever you’re cooking in there smells really good.”

“I’m making pancakes. You like maple syrup or boysenberry?” Sylvia asked.

I was afraid to answer honestly but I gave it a shot anyway, “Thank you, Sylvia, but I think I’ll just have a coffee.”

The living room lit up as Penny opened the door to exit the bathroom. She had obviously been up for a while as she was already dressed and ready to begin her day.

“What time did you get up?” I asked Penny.

Penny shrugged and said, “Oh, about a half hour ago. I put a brand new toothbrush on the sink for you and there’s a clean towel on the towel rack.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Thanks.”

Sylvia then chimed in, “Well don’t get into the shower until you’ve had breakfast. The pancakes are going to get cold.”

“Alrighty, then,” I thought, sounding, in my mind, like a character from a Jim Carrey movie.

I stumbled from the futon to a chair at the perfectly set breakfast table in the kitchen. “Do you do this every morning?” I asked Sylvia.

Penny answered my question, “Every morning.” Penny then sat across from me.

“Francesco and I raised three boys,” Sylvia said as she placed a stack of pancakes in front of me. She continued, “So I know how to cook and I know how boys eat. So eat!”

I looked up at Penny who was containing her laughter. “Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked.

“I already ate,” Penny replied.

Sylvia corrected her, “No, you already drank, you didn’t eat.”

“I drank a breakfast substitute,” Penny explained to me.

“How come I can’t get away with that?” I asked.

“Because you’re a boy,” Sylvia proclaimed. “Now EAT!”

“Oy,” I said, tapping into my extremely limited Yiddish vocabulary.

I must admit the pancakes were delicious. Last night’s lasagna was also delicious. Sylvia clearly knew how to cook. “How do you manage to stay so thin?” I asked Penny.

“Thin?” Penny laughed. “You think I’m thin?”

“See?” Sylvia interjected. “I told you men like a woman with meat on her bones. You need to eat, Penny.”