Sundance Kitchen Cart

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Pamela was still beaming as she carried her empty casserole dishes to her sink. “I still can’t get over what a lovely evening this was. Don’t you think it was just grand, Sylvia?”

Sylvia let the still three-quarters full aluminum lasagna pan fall to the top of Pamela’s kitchen cart with a passive-aggressive slap before fishing out a cigarette and lighting it. “Yes,” she said. “Simply wonderful.”

Here’s how it normally works: Sylvia gets invited to some kind of potluck dinner get-together by someone on the board of one of the various charities she volunteers for. Because she doesn’t cook – that was something her ex-husband Rod always did – but wants people to think she does and well, she orders something special from one of the best restaurants in town and then passes it off as her own. Then, Sylvia invites Pamela to cook something and tag along, mostly to rub how fabulous her life is in her face a little and have her dish stand out even more against Pamela’s inedible tragedy of the culinary arts.

This time, however, things had not gone as planned.

“Your charity friends are so nice!” Pamela said as she rinsed her dishes. “And so hungry! I guess I should’ve made more food. I honestly think that man… David… Darold…”

“Daniel,” Sylvia told her, pulling out the ashtray Pamela kept (solely for Sylvia) from one of the three drawers in the cart and tapping ash into it.

“Yes, that’s it! He refused to let me leave until I had promised to send him the recipe! I simply must remember to email him first thing in the morning.” Pamela walked over to the cart and wiped her hands off on the towel hanging there. She nodded towards the uneaten lasagna. “Did you want me to take a little of that off your hands, dear? It really was divine. I kept telling your friends to try it, but maybe they weren’t in the mood for Italian. I’ll just wheel this over on its casters and cut off a hunk or two.”

Sylvia nearly choked on a pull of a cigarette. Was that pity she heard in Pamela’s voice? What the hell was going on here? Had she stepped into one of those mirror universes Craig was always going on about? “Just leave some for my nephew, Pammers.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be a problem. Say, did you want a cup of coffee?”

Sylvia’s fingers tightened, crushing the cigarette filter. CONDESCENSION?! From Pamela?! Sylvia jabbed the smoke out and snatched her tray from the rubberwood top of the solid wood cart. “On second thought, dear, I should give the whole thing to Craig. It’ll give him something to eat on for a couple of days.”

“A week, even.”

Sylvia gritted her teeth. “Yes, that may be. Now I’m awfully tired, so no coffee for me,” she said as she walked towards the door. “I’ll let myself out.”

On any other evening, Pamela might have picked up on Sylvia’s signals, particularly the one where she slammed the door shut behind her. Tonight, though, she was thinking about how excited she was to tell her new cooking coach how things went.

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