Mill's Rock, Massachusetts – population 2, 388 – didn't have a church. If you wanted to worship God, or Jesus, or Buddha, I don't know, then you'd have to go to Elton, the next town over. It was better in every conceivable way.
Well, almost every conceivable way. Sure, Elton had a lot of stuff Mill's Rock didn't. (i.e. the aforementioned church, a real grocery store, the closest hospital, a park, a mall for pete's sake) But it didn't have the beach. The odor of ocean. A constant layer of sand on, well, everything.
And it didn't have Franny's.
In the absence of organized religion, the people of Mill's Rock worshipped the gospel of cold, creamy dairy products. They flocked to the sticky, linoleum floors of the local ice cream parlor every afternoon, the same way devout Catholics needed their daily dose of the Bible.
At least, it felt that way, on those days when the AC was shot, and the line snaked out the door, and I had one hand on the blender and the other in the cash box, trying to make change with a permanent brain freeze. On some days, it was worse; there were the regulars, the ones who came year-round, plus whatever beach-goers stumbled in, already burned and totally lost as to how anything worked.
"It's peach ice cream, mixed with vanilla ice cream, with peach cobbler and gummy worms," I explained.
The woman still looked dazed. Or, I assumed she did, just based on her half-open mouth. The entire top half of her face was concealed behind the biggest pair of sunglasses I had ever seen, bright pink and rhinestoned and huge. "Now, what's the name of that one again?"
"Peaches n' scream."
She wriggled her nose, making her sunglasses wobble. "That doesn't sound appetizing."
So far, I had managed to salvage most of my 'customer service face,' the bright, fake smile I plastered on whenever I had to deal with anyone unfamiliar and difficult. But it was starting to crack; I could feel my eyebrows drawing together, my eyes getting unsettling wide, the forced enthusiasm fading.
"It's a play of the name 'peaches and cream,' only updated to encompass everything you're getting with every bite. The traditional peach and vanilla, and the cobbler, only with a twist, the gummy worms. Traditionally, when you see a worm in your food, you scream, right? Only in this case, it's a treat, a gummy worm, which is where the name has been derived from. Get it?"
During my monologue, the woman had started to slip back into her beach haze, her train of thought loping back around to the sun and the water and tanning lotion instead of my well-composed description of the ice cream she was going to order, if I had any say in it.
Realizing I had finished, she scrunched her nose again. "No."
I let out one heavy, angry sigh, but before I could let loose a string of incoherent, frustrated syllables, Frank was leaning his forearms on the glass case next to me.
"Can I get you anything, ma'am?" he asked Sunglasses Woman, flashing her a smile.
Her expression change drastically, and suddenly she was coming forward, smiling in a way I didn't think was possible with such tiny, pursed lips.
"Two scoops of chocolate in a sugar cone, please, sir."
Frank gave her a little nod. "Anything for a beautiful lady."
I turned away before I could see her swoon, taking up the empty place behind the cash register. Apparently, while I had been trying to explain the Flavor of the Day to Sunglasses Woman, the rest of our business had paid and left, concluding the after-lunch rush. Poppy, the other girl on our shift, had vanished into the freezer, so the only thing to do was wait for the flirting to stop so I could charge her for her cone.
"You come here a lot?" Frank was asking.
"I will now," Sunglasses replied. She, finally, took them off her face and shoved them into her beach bag – orange, with green palm trees.
Frank smiled, but only with one side of his mouth. When he replied, his voice sounded strained, like he was trying not to laugh. "I'll look forward to it."
When she walked to the counter to pay, I saw why; the bottom half of her face was completely different from the top half. It looked like, after wearing those sunglasses to multiple beach trips, only part of her face had developed a tan.
"Five fifty please."
After charging it to her card, she stuffed a stack of napkins into her bag and left. Almost immediately after the door swung shut, Frank dissolved into laughter.
"It's not funny," I told him. Quieter, I added, "That poor lady."
"Five minutes ago you didn't feel that way," Frank objected. "You should have seen your face. It was like Tinker Bell, when they lock her in that drawer."
"She wasn't even listening! She asked a question, so I answered it, but she wasn't even listening to the answer, and she didn't even order it." When I realized that I was only proving his point, I added, at a normal speaking level, "but I wouldn't even wish that kind of tan line on even my worst enemy."
"Which she was."
"What? No."
"January," Frank said, "Whenever anyone refuses to order the Flavor of the Day, you take it as a personal attack."
"Who's attacking who?"
Poppy emerged from the walk-in freezer with a fresh batch of rocky road, setting it on the ground between me and Frank.
"Anyone who doesn't want 'peaches n' scream' is wounding January's pride," Frank explained.
"I don't get why no one is ordering it," Poppy said. "It's good."
That made me grin. "That's what I thought too. Which is why I made a ton, and now no one's eating it. My dad's going to be so mad when he finds out I wasted all that perfectly good cobbler."
Frank fished the old container of rocky road out of the glass case and, after managing to excavate a few last spoonfuls from the bottom, brought it out back to the sink to wash.
"Just give it all to me," Poppy said. "I'll eat several pints of that stuff."
"So will I. We'll split it."
We shook on it just as the door chimed.
The two teenagers who walked in were definitely siblings. Or, possibly, on second thought, they could have been one of those couples who just eerily looked alike. But I would've bet money on the former, solely based on the way they were arguing, loudly, just inside the door.
"I can't just ask," the smaller, and rounder, girl was saying.
"You can just ask," her brother bit back, clearly frustrated. Even though he had turned to face her, only letting us see the back of his neck, you could tell from our distance that it was bright red. "Or I'll ask for you."
Poppy, beside me, cleared her throat. "Welcome to Franny's Homemade Ice Cream, what can I get for you?"
The girl sent one last glare in her brother's direction, then marched past him, right up to the counter. "Are you really hiring?"
Poppy glanced sideways at me, so I said, "yes, but only for summer help."
The girl looked surprised to learn that she could, in fact, just ask. "Can I have an application?"
"Sure thing," I said brightly. I grabbed the first sheet off the stack of applications besides the tip jar, and handed it over to her. "Want a pen?"
"Abs, here, I have one." Her brother came over, extending the pencil he had pulled out of his back pocket.
She barely looked at him. "Thanks."
As the girl – Abigail Marcus, the first line of her application said – scribbled in her answers, her brother walked along the glass case, squinting up at the chalkboard that listed all the flavors. Now that I had a good look at him, I could confirm that he was cute. And not just baby-cheeks-and-messy-hair cute, but like I'm-a-buff-man-but-also-adorable cute. Even though his sister's hair was shockingly red, his was more of an auburn, flopping into his eyes so he constantly needed to push it aside, giving every girl within a few foot radius a glimpse of one beautiful bicep.
"Which one is, uh, peaches n' scream?"
Poppy looked at me, on the verge of a smile, so I walked over, jabbing my pointer finger in the direction of my latest creation. "That one."
"What's in it?"
I repeated my spiel. "It's peach and vanilla ice cream, with peach cobbler and gummy worms."
"Is it good?"
"Well," I started, "I think so, but I'm biased."
He smirked, not unlike Frank's well-rehearsed, flirty grin. "And why's that?"
"I invented it."
His reaction was perfect, and predictably made him seem even more attractive. "Wow," he whistled, "I'm impressed."
"Really?"
"Sure. Why can't I?"
"You can," I said quickly. I could feel Poppy looking at me. I laughed, "you're definitely allowed to be impressed."
"Can I get three scoops of that, in a cup?"
I smiled. "Alrighty."
I dug around in the nearest drawer for a clean scoop, and grabbed a medium sized Styrofoam cup. I was aware, distantly, of Abigail finishing her application and Poppy taking it, but it wasn't until Frank, loudly, made his appearance, that I looked up from what I was doing.
"I just remembered why I never do real work," he was saying. His voice was so loud in the empty room, that I knew he must have thought we were alone. "It sucks a-"
"Frank," Poppy interjected. "This is Abigail, and ..."
"Jackson," the guy said.
Frank stop mid-charm, mid-rant, and stared. Even though I was also in awe of Jackson's appearance, Frank was less secretive about it. Borderline blatant. "Hey," he said feebly.
"Hey," Jackson replied.
I finished off his third scoop, giving it one last pat into place. Handing it to him over the glass, I nodded in the direction of his sister. "Poppy will ring you up, if you're ready."
"Abs, want anything?"
"No."
"Fine," he said shortly. "I wasn't going to pay for it anyway."
"Good."
Poppy, awkwardly, called out, "It's five oh four."
Jackson paid with crumbled ones he pulled out his wallet, and while Poppy looked annoyed that she had to smooth them out on the counter, it was mostly just endearing. With Frank sighing wistfully to my left, it was hard not to do the same.
After handing over the change, Poppy told Abigail that they would be looking over her application, and that she should receive a call within the next few days. With the promise of maybe, hopefully, finding a summer job, she left, still bickering with her brother.
This time, Frank didn't even wait for them to make it all the way through the threshold before talking about them. "He's so attractive it hurts."
"He is nice on the eyes," I confirmed.
Poppy, practical as always, waited until the door was shut to make her own contribution. "He's the worst kind of customer," she said. She brandished one crushed dollar bill, to prove her point. "He purposely makes our job harder."
"He makes me harder," Frank contributed.
"Please," I groaned, "please, no."
"It's true!"
'And all you managed to say in front of him was 'hey,'' Poppy pointed out. "So sad."
"I used up all my moves on that lady with the tan line. The one I don't actually like in any way. The one who isn't a statuesque god of sex."
"He's just a guy," Poppy said.
"A guy who happens to be a statuesque god of sex."
"Maybe not," I told Frank gently, "but he was very cute."
"And he liked January's ice cream."
"Yeah," I propped my head in one hand, "yeah, he liked my ice cream."
Poppy started to wipe down the counters, and customers started to slowly trickle in again, and Frank flirted with every middle aged woman who came in, just so they'd buy an extra scoop. But I couldn't get Jackson out of my head. Especially when people started to order the Flavor of the Day, and I'd have to give them their tentative scoops. Because all I could think of was his face when he first tasted it, the reason I made a new flavor every day; a little bit of confusion, a little bit of awe, and that eager second bite.
***
Martha Wallis started talking before I could even open the door.
"Two things, well, more like three things, except I forgot the third thing but it is completely possible that I will remember the third thing in the middle of telling you the first two things."
I pulled the front door open even wider, and she walked past me, straight to our couch. She claimed it was the softest thing she had ever had the pleasure of sitting on, which I doubted, but when you know Martha, you know not to argue.
"First thing," I prompted.
"Oh! Right. First thing. My parents went to Lola's dance recital, so it was just me in my house, you know how much the basement freaks me out when I'm alone. So I decided to sleep over here."
"Isn't that, like, the negative first thing you should have told me?" I asked.
She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
I waved this aside. We were way, way past the point of caring about that stuff.
"Second thing. I was working at MaxMart today and they had all this carrot cake that was on sale and I thought, 'huh, that's totally something Jan would try and put in ice cream.' So I bought it. All. It's in my fridge."
I laughed, finally sitting down next to her. Even though it definitely wasn't the softest couch, with a few select lumps, it was still nice. Big and L-shaped, with enough decorative throw pillows to cushion any and all parts of your body.
"I still can't remember the third thing."
"You're going to remember as soon as you leave."
"That's so true. Do you have any snacks?"
The two of us had been inseparable since second grade. When our teacher, Mr. Flink, found out we were the only two kids in his class from Mill's Rock, we were stuck together, and stayed that way, ultimately by choice.
But even then, we were as different as black and white – literally. I was Caucasian, blonde, and freckly, while Martha had the smoothest, darkest skin I had ever seen, and hair so curly it corkscrewed into every direction. Later – a lot later, for me – she grew tall and voluptuous, while I only grew slightly taller and only a little bit curvier.
We agreed, though, on all the important things; that she was the talker and I was the listener, that you could never have too many snacks, and that Wild Roses was our favorite show.
By the time I came back with a bowl of barbeque potato chips, Martha had managed to find reruns of an old episode on one of the obscure channels. She had already spread out, propping up her long legs on what used to be my seat. I sat down near her feet, nestling the bowl in my lap between my chest and my knees.
"Which one is this?" I asked.
"It's only, like, the thirty-second time Katie is threatening to drop out of Wild Rose Academy. Jake is getting it on with Ms. Turntell, but he hasn't broken things off with Samantha yet."
I smiled, stuffing a chip in my mouth. "The drama."
"I know. Now shh, I'm trying to watch Samantha's heart break."
On screen, the bombshell brunette was sobbing. Jake reached out to squeeze her shoulder, then ran his hand through his floppy hair.
Jackson.
Since yesterday, he had only crossed my mind a handful of times. But every time he did, I felt fluttery and happy, even though he wasn't actually around. Just a stupid, unsubstantial crush, solely based on his taste in peach ice cream and his devilishly good looks.
I turned to Martha, who had her eyes glued to the screen. She looked at me, after a while, and I almost told her about him. But then she just reached over, grabbed a barbeque chip, and went back to watching.
Later, I decided.