“Ice Cream” by Margery Weinstein, page 2

         Max didn't answer me. Instead he began scooping Dalmations Deluxe, one of my favorites, into a gallon-size container. "Take this. You can have as much as you want for the next week. But that’s all you get."
         "Is this a test? You think I'll get sick of it or something?” I furiously began cleaning the glass display. I hated his tolerance.
         The Flavormobile pulled up to the shop to restock, bells jingling like Christmas. The driver sprinted past us and into the freezers with a look that said "Save Me." A little girl pursued him. Her mother, pushing two toddlers in a kidmobile, gasped as she followed. They were dressed for happy times, all of them, but they were tense and wary, their brows oily from the exertion.
         "Gimme the bubble gum," the girl snapped. “The Flavormobile’s outta bubble gum. Your driver said I could get it here.” The toddlers—twins, I supposed—had markings on their faces that I assumed were the remnants of some meal they’d eaten but upon closer inspection were actually biological. One had a strawberry birthmark on his forehead, the other a funny-shaped freckle on her cheek.
         "I like sticky flavors," the little girl said, tugging at her mother’s fur coat. Mom wore a tennis skirt beneath it. She had odd legs, strangely-muscled and colored, as if they’d been rented from a factory. I wondered if she’d ever stepped on a tennis court or hit a ball with a racket.
         Mom chortled: "You mean you don't want it to stick to you. You'll get fat. You're ten now, so you have to start thinking about those things. You want to be a fat teenager?"
         The girl looked suspiciously at her mother. I wondered if she would start crying. But she silently searched the tubs of ice cream with new intensity. She looked at me, and smiled. "Is there any rule about how many samples you can get? Can I have one of those miniature spoons full of every flavor?"
         I knew Max, the cheapskate, wouldn't like that. But he was in the backroom, making sure the driver didn’t overstock the Flavormobile. I showed my teeth to the girl. "Sure, why not?"
         As I assembled the miniature spoons—50 separate ones in total so as not to corrupt any of the flavors—the mother glared at me. "That's kind of you," she snapped. "But it's okay if you're too busy, or it's against your rules to allow so many samples."
         "Don't worry about it," I shot back. "We like accommodating our customers."
         The girl pointed at the rainbow sherbet. "That's not the good stuff,” I said. “It's fake. It isn't real ice cream."
         "It's better than real ice cream," said the mother. "It's what thin people eat."
         "Thin is good, but not as good as a tall double-peppermint sugar cone with hot fudge on the side," I chirped. I wanted the mother to hate me.
         "You're thin," she said to me, pointing an accusatory finger at my waist. "I'll bet you don't eat much of what you sell."
         "Actually," I said, nodding towards the vat of Veronica, “the peppermint came in this morning, and I ordered it myself. It has the same name as me, and I intend to have a lot of it."
         "What's so good about it?" The mother asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling the way people do when they think you're dumb.
         "Its taste reminds me of one thing breaking off from another because it's fresh-tasting, and open that way, not like strawberry or fudge, or one of the flavors that seems over-stuffed with something. Veronica is a flavor that's used for cleansing the palette."
         The little girl pointed at the chocolate. "Chocolat Classique. It sounds fancy."
         "It's not," I said. "Just plain chocolate with a fudge ribbon and dark chocolate chips. It's good with our miniature marshmallow topping."
         "It's okay to like things that are plain," the girl said, tugging at her mother's tennis skirt.
         "But not to get chubby eating too much Chocolat Classique," the mother said.
         "Sometimes the things you think of as being plain, like peppermint, aren't plain at all. Take Veronica, that's a flavor that isn't new or exciting, but has a taste—the peppermint—that 's unique enough to stand on its own. Chocolate or strawberry usually is added to with sprinkles or whipped cream. Peppermint usually is enough on its own," I said.
         "Chubby is classique. I've seen a lot of old people who are fat," the girl said.
         The mother, agitated, ran her fingers through her hair and shifted from foot to foot. I think I saw her nostrils flair. She took a breath, a long one. "It's a ‘classique’ problem," she said as calmly as she could. She laughed nervously.
         I liked the girl, admired her independence from her mother’s neuroses. I wondered if she’d ever escape them completely or if she’d be consumed by them or even assume them herself.
-----
Page 1 2 3