Stay Sweet(31)

Amelia feels her most confident here next to Cate—the best, shiniest version of herself. Today the summer feels long. She won’t let herself think of the opposite of this day, in August, when they’ll be close to saying goodbye.

Instead, she serves their friends, former teachers, neighbors and cousins and old babysitters. Cars zip by on the road and people honk and wave. Little kids spin around the picnic tables on a sugar high. Parents teach their sons and daughters the proper way to lick a cone, from the bottom up.

“I don’t ever remember it being this busy,” Cate says from her window. “This is like Fourth of July plus Labor Day weekend times a heat wave.” She calls out for one of the girls to bring another drum of Home Sweet Home from the walk-in freezer.

She’s right. Thankfully, it’s not disgustingly hot, the way it’ll be come July. The zip of cold air that hits her every time she opens up the scooping cabinet keeps her cool.

The next man at Amelia’s window has on a purple paisley shirt and a porkpie hat. He’s an older gentleman, but the people he’s with are younger and fashionable and snapping pictures of the place.

“I like your hat,” Amelia tells him.

“Thank you!” He orders two scoops of Home Sweet Home in a waffle cone.

His friend pops up next to him and asks Amelia, conspiratorially, “So what’s the deal with Home Sweet Home? Can you really not tell us what’s in it?”

“I don’t know myself.”

“What if I’m allergic?”

“We tell people that if they’re concerned about any potential allergens, they should order something else.”

“He’s not allergic to anything!” one of the girls says, swatting him with her woven clutch.

“He’s just nosy,” another says, and the whole group laughs.

The man in the hat tells them, “Order a waffle cone. They’re homemade and they put little mini-marshmallows in the bottoms to keep the ice cream from dripping out!”

Amelia punches his order into the register. “That’ll be five dollars, please.”

The man turns to his friends. “Can you believe how cheap this is?”

This always seems to happen with city people. Amelia isn’t sure why. Do normal things like ice cream really cost so much more there? She hands the man his order and, after dropping a five into the tip jar—for which Amelia gives him a heartfelt thank-you—he takes a lick of his cone.

“Oh my God, this takes me back.” He closes his eyes, and Amelia can see him work the ice cream around in his mouth before he swallows. To Amelia he explains, “I grew up not too far from here. Chesterfield.”

Amelia smiles. These are her favorite customers. The locals who’ve long since moved away, who take one lick and are transported back to a particular summer, a moment, a feeling. She’s sure that’s why the ice cream stand becomes the center of the universe during summers. People wanting to find, even in the smallest taste, something they’ve lost.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, Grady pops into the stand, equal parts excited and concerned. “I can’t even see the end of the line. Can we pick up the pace? Maybe do a little less of the chitchat? I don’t want anyone to give up and go home.”

“We’re moving as fast as we can,” Cate says, like he’s a cloud passing over her sun.

“Okay, okay.” And then he calls out, “Girls, I just want to say thank you. You ladies are killing it.”

Amelia ushers Grady away and motions for another girl to take over her window. This, she realizes, will be part of her job this summer. The good thing is that Grady will need to be up at the farmhouse soon, making the ice cream the way Molly used to.

“Hey, Grady, before you go,” Cate says, and Grady stops. “I’m not sure if Amelia mentioned this or not. . . . It’s tradition that Molly Meade bought us pizzas on the first day of the season.” The other girls, including Amelia, raise their eyebrows because this isn’t at all true. But Cate is smooth. She reaches down into a tub and keeps scooping. “Call Pizza Towne. It’s on Main.”

Grady, to his credit, doesn’t hesitate. “No problem. Everyone cool with pepperoni?”

“Liz and Jen and I are vegetarians,” Cate informs him.

“Okay, one plain, one pepperoni. I’ll get some sodas, too.”

Though she swats Cate, Amelia only feels relief as Grady steps outside and places an order. Between the two of them, they can manage Grady and also the stand. Everything’s going to be just fine.

*

Amelia spends her break going through the register tape. She’ll do a full accounting when her shift ends, but she’s curious to see how much business they’ve done. She’s never been the most senior person on a busy day, like opening day or the Fourth of July, so she has no idea what to expect.

There are two shifts per day, and each one averages anywhere from six hundred to eight hundred dollars. On weekends, they’ll do double that. But today they’ve already gone through four drums of Home Sweet Home and three of everything else. It might just be a record breaker.

Grady comes in with the pizzas. “I feel like a celebrity out there in that pink Cadillac. Everyone’s waving at me.” He comes around the back of Amelia’s chair. “How it looking?”

Amelia punches some numbers into the calculator. She almost can’t believe what comes up. “We’ve already done over fifteen hundred dollars and we’ve still got two more hours to go on the first shift.”