Stay Sweet(41)

“So what are we looking at, in terms of restocking?” Grady asks.

“We’re down almost fifty gallons. I’ve got the exact breakdown of flavors here.” She takes out the stock sheet, unfolds it, and hands it to Grady.

There’s an awkward silence as he glances at it. He folds the paper and hands it back to her. “Was there something else?”

This confuses her. Maybe Grady has a photographic memory? “I noticed earlier this week that some of the wood on the back wall is rotten. And there are a lot of broken shingles on the roof.”

Grady yawns and stretches. “I try to stick around here in the mornings, in case my dad calls from New Zealand, but I’ll check on it tomorrow after lunch.”

She takes a moment to steel herself. “There’s one more thing. We need to hire more girls. Three more, to replace Heather and Georgia, who graduated last year, and Britnee, who decided to stay at Sephora.”

“Let’s table that for the time being. I’m still trying to explain to my dad why I agreed to pay you girls so much for scooping ice cream.” He quickly follows up with “I don’t mean you, of course. You’ve been a huge help.”

Agreed? But that’s what they’ve always gotten paid. Amelia shakes her head, tries to refocus. “The problem is that three girls make up an entire shift. Without them in the rotation, the rest of us have only one day off a week.”

“I’m still sorting through Molly’s financial stuff. It’s going more slowly than I expected. Her books are a mess. I don’t know if it’s going to work.”

“Okay, but . . . we’ve always had ten girls on staff. So it obviously does work.”

He gives her a thin-lipped smile. “Anything else?”

Amelia feels unsteady. She was not expecting to be shot down so quickly. She knows Cate is going to be angry. And when Amelia goes over the conversation with her, Cate is going to find a hundred different ways that Amelia could have been stronger, more articulate, more firm.

“All right then . . . ,” Grady says, without waiting for her to answer, and walks toward the stairs.

“Wait a minute.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Grady says, “We can connect tomorrow on anything else you need to talk about, Amelia. I’ve got a paper due for one of my summer classes that needs to be up by midnight.”

Amelia shakes her head, incredulous. “But I need ice cream. Remember?”

Finally, he stops. And when he turns toward her, confusion twists across his face. “So make whatever you need. You’re not going to bother me.”

Amelia nervously laughs. “I don’t know how to make ice cream. Only Molly knows the recipes. Everyone in Sand Lake knows that. Molly . . . and now you.”

Grady presses his palms into his eyes. “Amelia. I’m seriously too tired to be messed with right now. When we first sat down, you told me that you helped her make the ice cream.”

“I never said that.”

“Then you implied it!”

“No. I didn’t!”

“I distinctly remember you saying that, as Head Girl, you were in charge of managing the stock.”

Amelia puts her hands on her hips. “Which is why I am here now, telling you that we need more ice cream.”

“I asked you, What about the ice cream? And you said, What do you want to know???”

“I never said I helped make ice cream,” Amelia says again, though this time, her voice is shaky. “If you had asked me that specific question, I would have said so.”

Grady bites his fist to muffle a curse.

“Whatever, it’s fine,” she says, uneasy. “I mean, I’m sure I can do it. Just give me her recipes and I’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t have the recipes.”

“You said in the paper that the recipes are the most valuable things you inherited! So go get the recipes you inherited so I can try and figure out how to make ice cream.”

“I meant that in a general sense! How would I know where the recipes are?”

“Have you looked for them?”

He’s pacing, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why would I have looked for them? After our interview, I figured you knew. Either where they were or . . . I don’t know, by heart.” His breathing is getting faster and faster, leaving Amelia to worry that he’s about to hyperventilate. “How much ice cream do we have? How long will it last us?”

“We have about fifty more drums. They could last us another week. Maybe a week and a half if it rains?”

“How can I run an ice cream stand if there’s no ice cream?” He startles, surprised at the volume of his own voice.

Amelia gets a text from Cate.

How’s it going? Can I put out the newbie applications yet?

Amelia doesn’t write back. It’s nine thirty p.m. An hour and a half until closing. It wasn’t busy when she left. Cate and the other girls can hold down the fort.

Something about Grady freaking out makes Amelia feel super calm, like she has to keep it together because he’s losing it. And right now, keeping this ice cream stand open is important to both of them. She convinced the girls to come back. She can’t let them down.

“Okay, there’s no need to panic,” she says. “I’m sure the recipes are here somewhere.”