Rocky Road (18 page)

“Intense. There sure are lots of people getting mad at each other.” I poured lemonade from the mini fridge Ma had just bought and took a long sip. “What are you making?”

“Homemade fudge, aka a revenue booster that’s gonna bring in gobs of money. Tourists always splurge on fudge.”

“What tourists?” I asked. I doubted rusty old Schenectady was listed in a travel guide as a vacation destination.

“Tourists from NYC or across the Canadian border. ‘If we make it, they will come.’ That is, if we make it taste good.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “This is an ice cream shop. Shouldn’t we stick with ice cream?”

“Customers want all sorts of treats, and that’s not just me talking,” she said as she banged the wooden spoon inside the kettle. “The
Inside Scoop
says so.”

The problem with selling homemade fudge is that it has to be
homemade
. Both of the trial batches Ma made that afternoon came out terrible. One tasted sickly sweet, and the other, like stale oatmeal.

For hours on end she made batch after batch, adding more corn syrup, then less corn syrup, boiling it five minutes longer, then boiling it five minutes less, but it all looked like a gloppy mud cake—tasted that way too.

Eventually Ma started to
melt
down. First she let out a loud “Hell’s bells!” and then she flung the spoon toward the sink but missed, splashing chocolate across the counter and against the wall.

“I feel like a chocolate train wreck. This is terrible, terrible, terrible! I can’t afford to mess this fudge up—or this business,” she moaned, slinking down against the counter and putting her head between her knees.

Her crying, and acting like this was a life-or-death matter, got me worried again. Was this the start of a crash?

I rinsed off the spatula. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?
We’ll figure this out with some time and practice. I’m taking over as official fudge maker.”

Turned out that fudge making is kind of like doing a science lab. The secret is following the recipe directions
precisely—
Ma’s style of guesstimating when she measured out ingredients didn’t work. Using the very best unsweetened chocolate helps too, and the right tools. When our dollar-store candy thermometer cracked in the boiling mixture, I went out and bought an upgraded model that gave a more accurate reading.

Not that I mastered fudge making all by myself. My first batch didn’t set, so I called the best troubleshooter I knew: Winnie. “Fudge isn’t my expertise, but I’ll refer you to a specialist,” she said.

Talk about a coincidence. Catherine was born on Mackinac Island, Michigan—also known as the fudge capital of the United States—and she gave me
The Authentic Mackinac Island Fudge Cookbook
. After reading it, I realized my problem: the mixture needed to be spread more smoothly, and I had to allow more cooling time. And Catherine gave me a tip that explained our first day’s disaster: “Make fudge when the sun shines. It doesn’t set well when it’s humid.”

I have to admit I got caught up in fudge mania. I should’ve been spending every waking moment on homework, preparing for peer mediation, and sewing patchworks for Winnie’s bench cushion. Instead, I was at A Cherry on Top, listening to Elvis on the jukebox and whipping up dozens of exotic varieties of fudge. White chocolate, peanut butter, cherry rippled, coffee
and ginger, macadamia nut, Kahlúa—and my favorite, of course: Rocky Road. Ma was thrilled with all of them, giddy like a little kid as she watched me mix and pour each new creation. And every night I’d bring back samples for Jordan to taste. He always gave the peanut butter fudge five stars.

Then, after I’d created more fudge flavors than you could count in a minute, Ma reconsidered and decided to stick with three classics: chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter. “No sense in overwhelming customers,” she said, biting into a freshly made piece. “Better to save the variety for the real stars of the show: the ice cream.”

Ma made me wear an apron, plastic gloves, and a hairnet while I cooked.

The hairnet itched something awful, but she was a stickler about sanitation. “The Schenectady Health Department will be checking on us,” she said. “And besides, right is right. Who wants hairy fudge? Good grief!”

On the first Friday afternoon in April, I was delirious from a marathon candy-making session. There I stood in my apron and hairnet, stirring the chocolate-butter-cream mixture over the heat to make yet another batch of fudge. Only I wasn’t feeling like a cheery Food Channel chef. My clothes smelled like fudge, my fingernails were rimmed in fudge, and I had a callus on my thumb from gripping the wooden spoon. The last thing I wanted was to make
more
of this stuff. And to make things worse, the old radiator was running on overdrive again. The shop felt hot and steamy like a rain forest.

“One more batch and you get time off for good behavior,” Ma said, rubbing my shoulder as I smoothed the mixture.

Then she pulled red dress heels from behind the counter, stuck them on her feet, and dabbed matching lipstick on.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Out to dinner,” she said, slinging a purse over her shoulder.

“Without me? No fair.”

“This is strictly business, Tess. The monthly meeting of the Schenectady Chamber of Commerce. Winnie’s having Jordan for his first sleepover at her apartment, and I’ll be back here for you by ten.”

But I didn’t want to stay at the shop alone at night. It was almost dark outside—and creepy. “That’s too late. I’m tired. And it’s so hot in here.”

“I know, honey. That sorry excuse for a landlord says he can’t fix the radiator until tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll crack a window open.”

I looked around. The shelving unit behind the ice cream counter had to be assembled, the menu board still wasn’t complete, and the windows needed washing. Plus we hadn’t designed a flyer to circulate yet for the Grand Opening.

“There’s so much to do, Ma, and we’ve got less than two weeks. Why waste time at some boring dinner?”

“You gotta schmooze to make a buck in Schenectady, Tess. If I give these folks some attention, they’ll spread the word about A Cherry on Top. And Mayor Legato will be there. I’m going to ask him to do the honor of cutting the ribbon at our Grand Opening.”

I frowned. “Why would he want to help us after what happened to his car?”

She nodded as she buttoned her jacket. “One hand washes the other in local politics. This shop is going to brighten Schenectady’s business horizon. Believe you me, every politician’s mouth drools for sweets
and
publicity.”

Ma handed me a five-dollar bill and a check made out to the ice cream wholesaler. “After you finish this batch of fudge, get yourself supper next door at Bianco’s Pizzeria. I was over earlier helping Mrs. Bianco wash her blinds, and I said you’d be by. But hurry back. The ice cream delivery is coming later and it’s a costly frozen bundle. We have to make a killing when we open.”

Ma started for the door, but then stopped, looked back, and smiled.

“What?” I asked, wiping fudge from my elbow.

“You, working so hard. This business. It’s all good. We’re out of the storm. Once that cash register starts ringing, it’ll be sunny skies.”

“Don’t jinx yourself,” I said, pointing the drippy spoon at her.

“That reminds me,” Ma said as she plugged in the dipping cabinet’s electric cord. “I better get this chilling before the ice cream arrives. And be sure you lock the door behind you later!”

A
n hour later I was back in A Cherry on Top, nibbling on pizza crust, reading through the peer-mediation training folder, and rehearsing lines like “Please explain what’s been going on” and “What would you like to see happen now?” in my best take-charge voice when someone tapped on the door. It was a UPS guy with a package. The deluxe Lone Star flag Ma ordered. Three cheers for Texas.

A few minutes later, the ice cream wholesaler arrived with a
full load of five-gallon tubs. I showed him the dipping cabinet, and he started filling it with the ice cream.

“Phew. Is this working?” he called, banging his hand inside the case. Sweat glistened on his ruddy face.

“Think so,” I said. “It just got turned on.”

He swiped his forehead. “Well, it’s not cold yet. And it feels like the Sahara Desert in here.”

He went back to his truck for two more loads, and I gave him Ma’s check.

“How much ice cream is this altogether?” I asked, looking at the jam-packed dipping cabinet.

“Twenty-eight tubs: twenty-one ice cream, four frozen yogurt, and three sherbet. Don’t you have an extra freezer in the back?”

I shook my head. Ma had bought plenty of overpriced gizmos, gadgets, supplies, and decorations, but not an extra freezer.

After he left, I stuck my hand in the dipping cabinet. Yikes. It wasn’t cool at all. The thermometer hanging in the corner read sixty-six degrees. I touched the side of the mint chocolate chip. Rock hard—good.

I shut the glass top quickly to keep the heat out. Then I put my peer-mediation folder away. I started embroidering another patch for Winnie’s bench cushion, a tribute to her favorite Motown music group, Gladys Knight and the Pips. Cross-stitching four singers on a six-inch square was hard enough, but fitting three Afros was
really
tricky. I planned on presenting Winnie with the cushion for her birthday in June. Summer might seem
like a long time away to most people, but not quilters. I had sixteen customized patches to go, and each took a long time to make.

Embroidering in a steamy room made me sleepy. I took a break, stretched my legs, and then started writing the ice cream flavor label cards using my nice calligraphy pen. Twenty minutes later I opened the dipping cabinet to put the label cards in place, but the temperature hadn’t dropped; it went
up
another degree! The shop
did
feel like the desert. How long would the ice cream stay frozen before the freezer kicked in? I opened the top of the mint chocolate chip tub. It wasn’t rock hard anymore.

An hour later, Ma still wasn’t back. I touched the strawberry tub, afraid to open it and discover a pink puddle. Luckily, it was still cool—but not cold. And instead of having a thin layer of ice on the outside, it had tiny water beads.

I thought about carrying the ice cream outside. The April night air was downright cold, but then I remembered Ma warning me to keep the place locked up. Troublemakers walked the streets at night, and I didn’t want them messing with our product.

Ice. I’ll get ice
.

I locked the shop and ran to Bianco’s Pizzeria. They’d help.

Uh-oh. A
CLOSED
sign hung in the window. I walked two blocks in the creepy dark to a gas station with an ice machine. But I only had $1.75 change left from dinner, which bought just one bag of ice. I rushed back and dumped it over the ice cream.

Darn, it barely covered two tubs!

I found an old fan in the storage room. I dragged it out and propped it on a chair so it would blow right at the dipping cabinet.
But thirty minutes later the ice was melted and I felt a panic attack coming on. All the ice cream we’d just bought with the last of our money would be ruined. I had to do
something
. If only Ma had gotten around to getting a cell phone and I could call her.

I picked up the phone. “Chief, it’s Tess. I need help.”

Chief came limping into the shop with a husky old man wearing a Yankees cap. “Mr. Murray here is Albany’s best retired refrigeration technician with a union card,” he said, unzipping his parka. “We play poker together, and he’s got a cool hand there too.”

The best retired refrigeration technician with a union card wasn’t into small talk. He didn’t say hello, but he mumbled that he needed the freezer on its side. So Chief and I unloaded the ice cream quickly, like nurses preparing a patient for emergency surgery.

Working on his knees, Mr. Murray tightened and loosened bolts, pulled apart coils, and blew dust off the metal underbelly. But half an hour later, he dropped his wrench and stood up, shaking his head. “Looks like your mother needs a new freezer. The compressor’s dead as a turkey on Thanksgiving.”