Rocky Road
Authors: Rose Kent
To my daughter Kellyrose
.
Love and ice cream forever
.
A Smattering of Ice Cream Recipes from A Cherry on Top
Ice Cream Flavors and the Inner You
On average, it takes a customer fifty licks to finish a single-scoop ice cream cone.—
The Inside Scoop
“Start spreading the news,
I’m leaving today.
I want to be a part of it,
New York, New York….”
“Pleeeez stop singing, Ma. You’re making me want to jump outta this car!” I called from the backseat. I would’ve, too, if it hadn’t meant leaving Jordan. For three days and eighteen hundred miles, I’d been suffering in silence through Ma’s
barn-owl screeching of the only New York song she knew. A broken leg had to hurt less than this ear torture.
“Thank the good Lord your laryngitis is cured, Tess,” Ma said as we moved into the fast lane, passing a Volkswagen Beetle.
Laryngitis—ha. Staying silent as the falling snow outside was the only sane way of dealing with our latest hopalong adventure. I’d been around Ma for all twelve years of my life, long enough to know that presenting a sensible argument as to why we shouldn’t move cross-country in the dead of winter without money or a plan wouldn’t put a dent in her thinking. See, when Delilah Dobson makes up her mind, she leaps first and looks later. And sure as we were fishtailing in this freezing car on an icy highway, she hadn’t done much looking.
I stared out the car window. A silver van passed with two little girls holding juice boxes and waving.
Now, where are they going?
I wondered. Grandma’s? Ice-skating? A party? No matter, they each wore a brightly colored pom-pom cap and a plucky grin, as if they fully expected sunshine, lollipops, and welcoming smiles to greet them at their destination.
“I want to take up in a city that doesn’t sleep….”
“It’s
wake
up
, Ma. And we’re not going to New York City,” I said, though she didn’t hear me over her own singing.
I have to admit I too caught the Big Apple fever that struck Ma on New Year’s Eve when she announced her resolution was to “
re
fresh,
re
vitalize, and
re
locate us to New York.”
Of course, I thought she meant New York City. Moving to the Big Apple might’ve been worth suffering through this long and freezing car ride. I read
Vogue
magazine every month, cover to cover (even the advertisements,
especially
the advertisements). Who wouldn’t find living in the fashion capital of the universe irresistible? I daydreamed about passing celebrities on the streets of Manhattan, all of us decked out in designer wear like Dior and Stella McCartney. And I pictured myself strolling around the garment district on weekends, sorting through rich fabrics just asking to be made into snazzy outfits and home furnishings. Plus all those famous stores! Bloomingdale’s, Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue. And what’s that jewelry store mentioned in movies? Tiffany’s, that’s it.
Sure wished Ma hadn’t waited until the morning we left Texas to set things straight and tell me she meant
upstate
New York. No one would feel like chitchatting in a freezing car if they’d just gotten hit with that news.
“Now that you’re speaking again, Tess, how ’bout sitting up front so we can have some girl talk?”
“Can’t, Ma. I’ll wake Jordan.”
I rubbed the top of my brother’s hood. He was sound asleep on my lap, with his sweatshirt pulled over his head like he was a turtle in its shell. I’d wrapped a fleece blanket around him too, tucking it tight under his sneakers to cut the draft. Looking down at his sandy brown bangs poking out, I realized that at times like this being deaf had its advantages for my eight-year-old brother. He didn’t have to listen to Ma’s wailing-siren
singing or her ninety-miles-per-hour rambling about the whole new world awaiting us in a city called Schenectady.
Brr
. It felt like an air conditioner was blowing straight into the backseat. My hands were throbbing, even though my fingers were crocheting furiously. I pushed the yarn to my side so it wouldn’t bump Jordan’s head. I was almost finished with a zigzag scarf like one I’d seen on a mannequin at the Gap. Not like that one, actually—far superior. This one would be softer thanks to an alpaca-merino-blend yarn with a stylish tousled fringe. It was turquoise, which
Vogue
declared the “hottest hue” this season. Jordan’s doe eyes and puffy donut cheeks already drew smiles from women. Add this scarf to that sweetie-pie face and he’d resemble a mini boy-band singer.
“It’s up to you, New York, New York….”
The draft from the window was getting worse. Each time Jordan breathed out, it looked like he was puffing on one of Pop’s Marlboros. I hadn’t seen Pop in two years—since he stopped by to tell us he was taking that construction job in Galveston—but I still could predict his reaction if he knew what Ma had done. Sneering, head shaking, and beer swigging. “Sounds like another of your dumb-as-a-bowling-ball schemes, Delilah,” he’d say, especially if he knew the heater was busted.
Thinking about the busted heater made me clamp up all over again. I’d told Ma she oughta fix it before we left San Antonio. “The Weather Channel says the Northeast gets colder
than a meat locker in the winter,” I’d said. So what did Ma do before we left?
To affirm the
re
fresh part of her New Year’s resolution, she took our run-down car to Maaco Auto Painting. Our tired gray Toyota came back a tired and ugly lime-green Toyota, still with a busted heater.
Outside, the evergreen trees blurred like a green kaleidoscope. Then we passed what had to be the hundredth deer-crossing sign as we headed north on Interstate 87, this dreary highway that was sending us deeper into the New York section of Antarctica. Hail was smacking the windshield like frozen turds, and the chain pulling the U-Haul was groaning like it had a stomach bug.
I rested the unfinished scarf against Jordan’s cool cheek, then touched his little fingers. Ice-cold.
“Jordan is getting frostbite!” I called to Ma over the rumble of a passing SUV. Having spent all my life in southwest Texas—where a fifty-degree cold snap causes a run on Walmart flannel pj’s—I wouldn’t know frostbite from fungus, but it got Ma’s attention. First she whacked the heater. Then she pulled over to the highway shoulder, got out, and walked back to the U-Haul.
She returned holding two pairs of socks. “We’ve got three bins of your craft supplies, and two bags full of your brother’s stuffed animals, but I can’t find any doggone gloves or hats.” She tossed the socks on my lap. “Put these on you and Jordan. Just a short ways to go.”
I put them on Jordan’s hands and mine, even though the look
was truly tacky. I wanted to finish this scarf, and I couldn’t crochet if my fingers went numb.
“What about you?” I asked, noticing her bare hands. Ma’s got no meat on her skinny bones.
“Can’t grip the wheel with socks on,” she said as we merged back on the highway. “Any more questions?”
Smack
—her knuckles whacked the heat vent again.
“Just one. Tell me again: How come we’re moving to this sorry city, Schenectady? It’s just asking to be spelled wrong.” I knotted the aqua yarn and started chain-stitching in navy, but the socks made it impossible. I yanked them off.
“They’ve got good schools in New York, Tess. And there’s a gold mine of business opportunities that I got wind of, thanks to Jimbo.”
Jimbo worked in the produce department at Albertsons and was always shouting free advice over to Ma as she sliced meat behind the deli counter. He should’ve stuck to displaying fruits and vegetables. If he’d been so smart, he would’ve convinced Ma to stop with the spending sprees and get-rich-quick schemes. These past two years, that had only gotten us poor.
“What would he know about a business opportunity in Schenectady?”
“Jimbo’s wife’s cousin’s stepsister lives there. Got herself a cushy job working for the New York Lottery. I’ve been e-mailing her on Jimbo’s laptop during my work breaks, and she sent me listings of businesses that’ve gone belly-up in Schenectady. The upside of a slumping economy is plenty of
leases to choose from at bargain prices. Sometimes life just calls for you to pick up and go. It makes me think about them immigrants who spent weeks at sea, only to arrive in New York Harbor and get welcomed by Gal Liberty, smiling and holding her big ol’ torch.”