Stay Sweet(52)

Still, she keeps at it for the rest of the day, batch after batch, cycling through all aspects of the process, cooking up a new base with ingredients slightly tweaked from the last, while another batch cools in the blast chiller, while another one churns inside the ice cream maker. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Her arms feel heavier than after gym class push-ups, and her lower back aches from standing. And yet, time passes like magic. Hours feel like minutes, minutes feel like nothing.

If the learning curve weren’t so steep, Amelia might believe she was getting somewhere.

There is no eyeballing, no freestyling, the way her dad likes to in the kitchen, a pinch of this, a glug of that. Making ice cream isn’t cooking, it’s chemistry. Unfortunately, Amelia got a B in chemistry her sophomore year, unjustly she believed, and she never forgave Mr. Dunlap for it, returning his hellos with a frown for the rest of high school once she got her report card. Now she knows a B was too generous. Cringing, she thinks about apologizing to him the next time he comes to the stand, maybe even paying for his order out of her tips.

Take chocolate. Add too much of Molly’s homemade fudge sauce and the ice cream is thin and runny. Too little, and the chocolate flavor is nothing but an undertone, muted by other ingredients. Or it might taste decent as a finished base out of the blast chiller, but once it goes through the ice cream machine, the flavor is cloudy.

And that’s just the flavoring. If the measurement of any ingredient isn’t just right, the ice cream comes out gritty, or buttery, or eggy.

Timing is also a huge issue. Churn it too little in the ice cream machine and it pours out a slushy mess that won’t ever firm up, no matter how long you put it in the deep freezer. Churn it too long and the ice cream comes out solid as a brick, hard enough to snap a plastic spoon in half.

It’s an almost-impossible puzzle that Amelia must solve three different times, for vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.

And Home Sweet Home? She doesn’t even know where to start with that one.

The clock is ticking, and the remaining stock dwindling.

Grady comes down looking somber. “I have bad news.”

“What?” Amelia doesn’t take her eyes off the whirling ice cream machine, like a kid too close to the television. The batch she’s churning now is the closest she’s come. Good dark color, good depth of chocolateyness when the base went in.

“I’ve gone through all the boxes upstairs. No recipes.” His voice is almost toneless, resigned.

It’s all on her now.

Amelia pushes the lever and a stream of ice cream comes sliding out the chute.

Grady asks, “Can I try?”

But Amelia sees something she doesn’t like. The color is . . . off. She takes a taste and knows immediately. It’s tainted. “I forgot to clean the machine out from the last batch of strawberry I ran.”

“Chocolate and strawberries go together, though, right? That’s a thing!” Grady says, trying to be helpful.

She bites her lip and stares up at the ceiling, hoping to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling down her cheeks. She made a dumb mistake because she’s tired. But there’s no time for dumb mistakes. She takes the entire drum over to the sink and turns on the hot water full blast so the ice cream breaks apart and sinks down the drain.

“Amelia, wait! It could have been good—”

“No. I screwed it up.”

He softens his tone when he sees how near to tears she is. “At this point, I think we give up on right and aim for good enough.”

Amelia shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

The front doorbell rings.

Jogging upstairs, he says, “You can’t let this get personal. It’s business.”

Amelia leans her hands against the counter, stretches her back. Everything about this business is becoming very personal to her.

“So this is where the magic happens.” Cate comes down the stairs.

Amelia rushes over and almost tackles her in a hug. “Cate!”

“I’ve been texting you all afternoon.” Cate squeezes her back, then peels away, concerned. “You’re soaked.”

Amelia glances down at herself. There are sweat marks on her shirt, from her armpits down to her waist.

“No air-conditioning.” She feels woozy and leans against the refrigerator. It’s cool against her skin. “What time is it?”

“Six thirty.” Cate’s tone is clipped. “Have you had dinner yet? Or even lunch?”

“I’ll order us some pizza,” Grady volunteers, having only made it halfway down the stairs before he pivots and heads back up.

“She might not want pizza,” Cate calls back, snippy. And then, to Amelia, “You’ve been working for how long today? Have you taken even one break?”

“Nine hours? Ten?” Amelia says. “And no, not yet.”

Grady descends the basement steps, uneasy. “Pizza’s on the way. Cate, do you want to join us?”

“I don’t think so,” Cate says.

“Oh, and Amelia, I can drive you home tonight, whenever you want to call it quits,” Grady offers.

Cate gives a thin-lipped smile to Grady. To Amelia, she says sharply, “Walk me out?”

It feels disorienting to be outside after spending hours in Molly Meade’s basement. Amelia takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air and the pinkish evening light. “Thanks. I think you’re right. I needed this to clear my head.”