One morning when Papa was at the racetrack, and I was visiting with Eva, she asked me, “Do you like brunches?”

        “I love brunches!” I answered.

        “Good!” she said. “Your Poppa can be a little cheap sometimes, you know. Remember when he used to send five dollar checks for you and your brothers at Christmas time?”

        “Yes.”

        “Well, I told him that just wasn’t right! I told him, ‘Pat, they’re your grandchildren! You should give them each ten dollars!’ And I kept arguing with him about it every year until finally he gave in and raised it to seven-fifty, but that’s as high as he’d go!”

        “Oh,” I said. I remembered those checks.

        “It’s not that we don’t have the money,” Eva said. “We have plenty of money, but he always wants to save it. He doesn’t want to spend it on gifts, and he doesn’t see why we should go out to eat when we can have breakfast at home. But Woody’s has a wonderful brunch! Your Poppa loves it too, even though he won’t admit it. It’s a buffet, and you can have as much as you want! They have all kinds of things, the plain things like eggs and bacon and pancakes, and all kinds of pastries too! They have everything you can think of to eat at a brunch! We haven’t been there for ages, and he won’t argue about the cost in front of you,  so I’ll just tell your Poppa we have to take you out for brunch, and we’ll go to Woody’s tomorrow morning!”

        The next morning found us seated at Woody’s, Eva and I on one side of the table, Papa on the other, all of us with heaped plates in front of us. Papa seemed as pleased as Eva and I were. “I love bacon and eggs,” he said. “Eva used to make them for me every day for breakfast. And then the doctor told me I have arteriosclerosis. No more than two eggs a week, that’s what he told me.”

        “I stopped cooking the eggs,” Eva commented.

        “She didn’t stop cooking the eggs!” Papa said. “She cooked them for the dog!”

        “Well, we still had Noey when you were first diagnosed, Pat. Noey was used to eating bacon and eggs, and he didn’t have a cholesterol problem.”

        “I know we still had the damn dog. I used to sit and watch Noey eat his bacon and eggs, while all I had was my miserable little bowl of cereal.”

        “How can you call Noey a damn dog, Pat? You know you loved him!”

        “I didn’t love him when he was eating my breakfast!”

        Eva giggled. “Your Poppa used to get so mad!”

        “She’d cook liver for that dog too,” Papa added. “I love liver! I’d sit there drooling while the dog ate it, but no liver for me because I had to watch my cholesterol!”

        “Well, you can indulge yourself today, Pat,” Eva said.

        “That’s what I’m doing!” He shifted some egg and bacon onto a crust of toast and popped it into his mouth.

        I was enjoying a light, flaky biscuit along with my scrambled eggs. “How’s the biscuit?” Eva asked.

        “It’s very good,” I said.

        “Break off a piece for her,” Papa suggested.

        “No, don’t bother,” Eva said. “You know I don’t like plain things, Pat.”

        “You should try this cherry pastry, darling,” Papa offered. “It has nuts.”

        She took a bite of his pastry. “Maybe I’ll get one when I go back up to the buffet, but I’ll see if I can find one with more icing. What’s in  that coffee cake you have?” Eva asked me.

        “Blueberries,” I said. “Want to try it?”

        “Just a little corner.” She stabbed at it with her fork and took a nibble. “Mmmm! It’s buttery!”

        A little later, we all returned to survey the buffet a second time. When Eva came back to the table, she was ecstatic. “Look what I found!” she said. In one hand, she held a plate stacked high with an assortment of pastries, muffins and coffee cakes as well as three biscuits, and, in the other  hand, she carried a stack of napkins. “They have an apricot cake with almonds!”

        “Apricots!” Papa said approvingly, spearing a slice of coffee cake from her plate.

        “Don’t take the whole thing, Pat! Leave some for me!”

        Papa broke off a piece to taste and returned the rest to Eva. “Not too sweet,” he said.

        “Not too sweet?” Eva asked. “Oh, darn! Then you keep it, Pat!”
        “All the more for me,” he said.

        “And I got some more biscuits for you,” Eva told me. “You said you liked them.”

        “I can’t eat all those biscuits!” I protested.

        “Not for now,” Eva explained. “You can have them later.” She began wrapping the biscuits in some of her napkins.

        “Eva, you’re not allowed to take food home from a buffet!” I said.

        “You’re just being silly,” she said.

         “There was a sign, right by the door when we came in!”

        “Nonsense,” Papa commented. “People take things from the buffet all the time. The restaurant expects it.”

        Eva had finished wrapping biscuits, and was moving on to the muffins. “Your Poppa always takes home some artificial sweetener when we go to a restaurant. Everyone does!”

        Papa stuck a hand in his sweater pocket and pulled out a packet to show me.

        Meanwhile, Eva’s pile of napkin-wrapped sweets was growing.”Look at that family leaving now,” she said. “The little girl is taking an apple.”

        “It’s just one little kid with one little apple,” I said.

        “I told you! Everyone does it! But don’t worry! No one will even see!” She reached for the large shoulder bag which was hanging on the back of my chair, then lifted its flap and began to drop her stash into my purse.

        Later, as we waited for Papa to pay the bill, I adjusted the position of my purse strap on my shoulder. Eva leaned toward me and said, “I hate carrying a purse! But I’m so glad you carry a big one!” I had certainly noticed she didn’t bring one herself. I wondered what I’d say if the manager confronted me about all that food she had crammed into my shoulder bag.

        My grandparents made me do it?

        Several months later, when I called to tell Eva I could again come for a weekend, she was delighted. “You know,” she said, “Pat and I haven’t been back to Woody’s since that time we went with you. I’ll tell your Poppa that you loved it last time, and  we’ll have to take you back for brunch this Sunday!”

        Forewarned is forearmed, so when I went to Maryland that weekend, I was carrying the tiniest purse I owned. I could barely squeeze my wallet and a comb into it; there was no way that Eva would be able to stash any of her loot with me!

        On Sunday morning as we prepared to leave the house to go for brunch, I felt it was only fair to warn Eva. “Oh, Eva,” I said, “I just realized all I brought with me was this tiny little purse! You won’t be able to fit anything from the restaurant into it.”

        “Oh, darn!” Eva said. “Now I’ll have to bring a purse myself!” I followed her into her bedroom, where she began rummaging through her walk-in closet. “I wonder which purse I should bring!”

        I was only joking, but I still can’t understand what possessed me to resort to sarcasm. “Why don’t you bring a tote bag?”

        “What a good idea!” Eva said. She retreated further into the closet and emerged with a large, completely empty tote bag, into which she dropped a tube of lipstick. Then the three of us set off for Woody’s.

        Again, the food was great, but this time, I found it even harder to relax. As we ate, Eva kept asking Papa and me, “Do you like that?” If either of us said, “It’s good!” or “Want to try some?” or even a simple, “Yes,” Eva would return to the buffet to get some more of the favored item for us to take home with us. My anxiety rose with every napkin-wrapped item Eva dropped into her tote bag, and I stopped admitting to her that I liked anything.

        “Look, darling!” Papa said, returning from one trip back to the buffet. “They’ve just put out some barbecued ribs!”
        “We love ribs!” Eva told me. She hurried up to the buffet and came back with a full-sized dinner plate completely covered with ribs stacked two inches high. If we had invited the party at the next table to join us, we still wouldn’t have been able to eat them all! To be honest, I have to admit that Eva did eat one or two of them. But what to do about  that huge serving of ribs, all shiny and sticky with barbecue sauce?

        Eva flagged down a manager. “Excuse me,” she said, “but I just can’t finish all of my ribs. Would you please get me some foil, and I’ll take them home so they won’t go to waste!” I can’t say he looked happy about it, but the manager brought her several long sheets of foil, and Eva’s carefully wrapped ribs also disappeared into her tote bag.

        By the time we finally finished eating, the tote bag was bulging with goodies. As Eva and I stood beyond the register, waiting for Papa to settle the bill, she gleefully pushed the bag toward me. “Feel how heavy my tote bag is!” she said.

        “No, thank you,” I said, staring at the ceiling in the opposite corner of the room from where Eva stood.

        “Well, it’s very heavy!” she said.

        “I’m sure it is.” I continued to study the ceiling.

        “You won’t even look at me, will you?” Eva demanded.

        “Not until we’re safely in the car,” I answered.

        “I think you’re trying to pretend you’re not with me!”

        “I am.”

        “Are you always like this?” she asked.

        I stared at the ceiling, imagining scenes of the manager detaining us, or perhaps the police waiting for us in the parking lot. “Believe it or not, Eva, I’ve never been in this situation before.”

        “Hmmph!” said Eva. “You’re behaving so strangely!”

        But no one stopped us from getting into the car and driving away. We made it home without incident.  Eva spent the next hour rearranging her refrigerator, which as usual was already totally full to start with. But she was a miracle worker when it came to packaging food, and, as always, she managed to find a place for everything.

        A few months later, Eva sadly informed me, “I’m so disappointed! Woody’s has discontinued their brunch!”

        “It’s just as well,” Papa said. “You make wonderful breakfasts here at home. And no one can ever eat enough at a restaurant to justify their prices.”

*     *     *

Biographical Note: Kate Lydon is a storyteller, writer and editor who at times hires out as an adjunct professor. She grew up along the rocky coast of Massachusetts, but has lived most of her life amid the trees of Pennsylvania.   Daughter of a man who made the best donuts in the world and a woman who acted out Macbeth and read poetry for her children, Kate is the oldest of five, and thus is prone to giving advice. However, her husband, two children, two cats and one dog, independent souls all, pay scant attention, and so she writes. Kate’s satirical murder mystery, Off Center, is now available through Amazon’s Kindle Store. She is currently working on another novel, as well as a book of stories about visiting her grandparents Papa and Eva.  See the Author Index for Prose L-Z  and the Author Index for Poetry for more of  Kate's writing.