Rocky Road (9 page)

Pete picked his hat off the floor, put it back on, and caught up with me. “Wait—I was just trying to help. Really. You get a free snack in the cafeteria today if you’re wearing a hat.”

As Ma would say, he had to be shuckin’ me. Did he actually think I’d embarrass myself for a bag of pretzels? But the thing was, he looked serious—and sorry, like Jordan when he’s making nice after a temper tantrum.

“I bring my own snacks. And you did me a big enough favor making fun of me and getting me in trouble,” I said with a steely-eyed glare.

“Really, I was just kidding around. I didn’t mean anything bad. And I swear I didn’t know your little brother was deaf. But it’s true what I was telling your mom. I’m a
huge
Texas fan. You heard me singing ‘The Lone Star Song’! I bet I know more about the Alamo than you. ‘I shall never surrender nor retreat!’”

“Never whatever,” I said, turning into homeroom and hoping he’d disappear.

But he followed me in, with his jester’s hat jingling, and he was
loud
. “C’mon, Tess. I’m not leaving until we ‘resolve our conflict,’ like my court-appointed social worker always says.”

Sleepy kids slouching in their chairs perked up when they heard
court-appointed social worker
.

Then he leaned over my desk and stuck his hand out to shake. “Apology accepted?”

His breath still smelled like cheese. But I could also see clear into his golden-brown eyes. There was no meanness.

I shook his hand. “Apology accepted, and I’m sorry too—about throwing the pear.”

The homeroom bell rang.

“Since you’re from Texas, I’ll grant you an unconditional pardon. I better scram. The grim homeroom reaper will thrash me!” Pete shouted as he took off.

Just before he reached the door, he whirled around. “Hey, Tess, one of these days remind me to show you my Alamo model. I got a B. Remember the Alamo!”

I’ll remember
you,
all right
, I thought, rolling my eyes as he jingled out the door.

W
hat’s going on?
I wondered as I walked into the lobby of the apartment building later that afternoon. “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog” was blasting from a boom box, and the space was wall to wall with seniors eating ice cream, chatting, and filling out forms. Snow was falling outside again, and the lobby was drafty. Old men and women dressed in coats and scarves and boots filled the room, swaying to the music and eating.

“Hey, sweetie pie!” Ma blew past me, wearing her cherry-covered apron and carrying a tray full of ice cream in small Styrofoam bowls. “Can’t talk long. Conducting market research.”

“What’s market research?”

“Business homework. Neighbors have kindly offered to test-market ice cream and give me their two cents on flavor, texture, and presentation. So far this crowd gives fudge ripple four stars and rum raisin two thumbs down. And in case you haven’t noticed, they’re wild about Elvis, just like me.”

I walked toward the mailroom, where even more White Hairs were sitting in a circle, talking and stretching back lazily in chairs like it was summertime. Those chairs looked familiar. Ma’s parents’ old patio chairs! And nearby, I noticed she’d arranged the end tables from the bedroom where Jordan and I slept. They were pushed together and covered with bowls of toppings, as well as hot fudge and cans of whipped cream and nuts.

“Hey there, Tess!” Winnie called, waving a spoon in the air. Two older black men sat across from her, and Catherine was parked beside them with a bowl on her lap. Something squeezed right beside Catherine in her wheelchair was wiggling. I thought it might be Rudy the cat, but it wasn’t.

It was Jordan.

“Look, Tess. Peanut butter ice cream!” Jordan signed to me, smiling with a tan mustache.

“Your brother just polished off his third bowl,” Catherine said, patting his head with her trembling hand and smiling.

Winnie introduced me to the men, Melvin and Sam, “fellow music bandies,” she said. Melvin had wavy gray hair gelled
back in a flip. His eyes twinkled when he told me that Winnie was the real star of their act.

“How’s the ice cream?” I asked.

“Never had better,” Melvin said, scraping his spoon against the bowl.

“And you can’t beat the price,” Sam added.

Winnie dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “I must admit I tossed my diet out the window when Delilah offered me seconds. Peppermint ice cream is my weakness, and this brand just melts in your mouth like a cloud. I predict your mom’s shop will be a gold mine, Tess. No wonder she’s in a hurry to buy it on Wednesday.”

Wednesday?

“Attention, all hands,” Chief shouted from the lobby. “Last call to turn in your survey. And Delilah says don’t hold back with your opinions. Good, bad, or ugly.”

“No need to worry about that with me, Chief,” Winnie said, reaching for a pencil.

I could tell which people were from the Assisted Living building. Their hands shook more than the other seniors’, and a few aides in white smocks stayed nearby.

Ma came over as Winnie and her friends finished writing and handed me a bowl of ice cream. “Here you go, Tess. Rocky Road, your favorite,” she said.

I stared over at the tasty toppings spread out on the end tables. I felt torn about eating ice cream right now. For one, the lobby was downright chilly, and my ribbed-jersey henley wasn’t keeping me warm enough under my jacket, even if I did like the
look. More importantly, I wasn’t sold on Ma’s new business. Last year she’d tried to butter me up when she bought the cat kennel too, saying in no time we’d make enough money to go to Disneyland. Within two months we took a trip, all right—out the door of our apartment to a fleabag motel, where we had to stay for a month until Ma scraped up enough money to cover the next apartment’s security deposit. The carpet smelled like pee, and the women who lived downstairs hardly wore any clothes.

Eating this ice cream could send the wrong message. But … I
was
hungry, Ma sure had this lobby looking festive, and Rocky Road was hard to resist, what with all the chocolate ice cream, marshmallow bits, fudge, and nuts swirled together and staring up at me.

“Thanks,” I said, and I dug in. And while Ma continued peppering seniors with questions on their ice cream preferences, I moseyed on over to the toppings table and loaded up with extra nuts and fudge sauce.

Tug
. Jordan yanked at my jeans. “Me too. More!” he signed.

I shook my head and moved my fingers. “You’ll get sick.” Too many times I’ve seen Jordan overeat and end up driving the porcelain bus, as Ma calls vomiting.

He stomped his foot. “More now!”

My head shook again. “No!” I signed firmly.

So he ran over to Ma and signed that I was no fair, but Ma didn’t understand, and she was too busy talking to seniors to concentrate. That made Jordan even madder, and he charged back to me at the toppings table, grabbed the fudge jar from my hands, and stuck his tongue in.

“Ugh!” One of the ladies seated nearby groaned.

I grabbed the jar from him, shaped my hand like a claw, and circled it on my stomach. “Disgusting!”

“Tess meanie!” he signed back. Then he swiped the whipped cream can and took off.

“Get back here!” I yelled, no matter that he couldn’t hear me.

Round and round the lobby Jordan galloped, all the while grinning and aiming the can at seniors he passed, who looked horrified, like he was pointing a machine gun.

I kept trying to grab him, but he was speedy—probably on a high from all that sugar. Then he ran past me with the whipped cream can pressed between his lips like a baby bottle.

I reached out and caught the tail of his shirt. “Gotcha!”

Psssst
. Whipped cream sprayed everywhere. On the carpet. In my hair, on my jacket, in my face, even up my nose.

“Brat!” I roared—I didn’t know that sign. I wiped cream from my eyes. I could feel the heat on my face from the seniors’ disapproving stares. Jordan sat on the floor beside me, covering his eyes with messy hands, looking embarrassed.

Chief hobbled over with paper towels and started wiping the mess. “This behavior is unsat. Somebody’s going to fall and break a hip,” he growled.

Ma appeared, her arms full of papers. “Take him upstairs, Tess,” she pleaded. “Jordan’s going to run customers off before I even own the shop.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. Then I grabbed Jordan’s hand in a huff and headed over to the elevator.

Jordan went straight to the bedroom when we got in, and he
stayed there. He was wise enough to stay clear of me. I knew the FrankenJordan episode was only partly due to his being sugared up. He was overwhelmed by all the change in our lives too. He had a new home, a new school, and a new life—and with Ma, who knew what would hit next. I wanted to talk to him, to set him straight that things would settle down, but the words weren’t there. And I was tired too.

Ma returned to the apartment an hour later, her arms full of leftover ice cream and toppings. Her nose was red like she’d been outside. “Phew, conducting market research requires active listening! My ears took in a boatful about ice cream likes and dislikes. These seniors sure aren’t a bland vanilla bunch. The funkier the flavor, the higher they rate it, with Mississippi mud and turtle cheesecake tying for the top spot.”

“Have you been serving ice cream this whole time?”

“No. Afterward, Chief talked me into snowshoeing with his friends. I couldn’t turn ’em down since they helped me out. A sporty ol’ gal named Veronica had an extra pair of snowshoes, and we clomped our way through a two-mile trek behind the apartment complex. Chief keeps a speedy pace. He’s better at snowshoeing with one leg than I am with two!”

I stared at her hard. “You didn’t tell me you were buying that ice cream shop on Wednesday.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” she said, sticking the whipped cream in the fridge. “Tell ya what, I’ll make it up to you. You’re about to be the first person in Schenectady to hear the name for our new shop. Drumroll, please…. Introducing A Cherry on Top!”

“Cute,” I said. I did like that name, but I still didn’t like the idea of buying a business.

Ma wiped the messy hot-fudge jar with a cloth. “Glad you mentioned about Wednesday, ’cause I need you to watch Jordan after school so I can go back downtown for the closing. There’ll be lots of paperwork for me to sign at the bank.”

But Wednesday was Peer Mediation Club. I’d been thinking about Gabby’s offer a lot. Maybe she was right; I might be good at peer mediation. It was worth a try. “I can’t do it on Wednesday,” I said. “I’ve got plans.”

Ma wasn’t listening. Her work papers were spread across the counter, and she was talking to herself using business lingo about advertising and promotions.

“Ma, I’m busy on Wednesday. I’m joining peer mediation, and that’s when it meets. You’re always saying I should get involved.”

“This is a family priority, Tess. You saw your brother running hog-wild today. I’ll never get through the closing if he’s there.”

“Why can’t you get a job at Thrifty King?” I asked. “You said yourself deli pays the best in a grocery store, and you’ve got experience as a meat slicer.”

“Been there, done that. Working for a fat-cat corporation that doesn’t give a hoot if I slice off my finger isn’t my idea of the American Dream. Owning my own shop is. I’ve got six weeks to come up with a plan to make this shop the best thing that hit Schenectady since General Electric opened its factory.”

Ma’s eyes flickered like she was a kid about to jump on the merry-go-round. She showed no fear about messing up again. But
I knew plenty of reasons to pass on this ice cream shop. I’d read the headlines in the
Daily Gazette
. Nobody shopped downtown Schenectady anymore. They went to malls like Crossgates and Colonie Center. Vacant buildings were scattered everywhere, just like the trash in the streets. And families were tightening their belts on account of the economy.