by Rose Kent
Seeing Ma crashed and useless again made me frustrated. She was the one who moved us cross-country when she was flying high. She was the one who said Schenectady would be a fresh start. And she was the one who was gunning to open this ice cream shop in the middle of a freezing winter. I wanted to burst into her bedroom, yank the covers down, and shout, “Pull yourself together, Ma!” But I didn’t. That would be as helpful as spanking a sick puppy.
Shooting Stars was predictable in its usual ugly way. Back in San Antonio it struck Ma about twice a year (or more, before the divorce, when she and Pop fought a lot). She wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. I guess she was embarrassed.
With Ma unable to function, Jordan and I spent the weekend cooped up in the apartment watching cartoons, eating microwaveable meals, and playing old maid and war with an old deck of cards. I finished some crocheted doilies too, including a pair to cover the ripped futon, and I did some touch-up painting in the kitchen and rearranging of pillows and knickknacks to give the living room a fresher look.
I’d check on Ma in the bedroom every hour or so, and Jordan would deliver her meals on a tray, not that she ate much. I could tell by his pouty face that it bothered him to see Ma lying in bed with a zombie look. I couldn’t understand it and I was twelve; Jordan was barely eight.
Ma got out of bed for the first time Tuesday morning. She slipper-shuffled over to the kitchen counter in her bathrobe with her hair looking like a bird’s nest. I fixed her a poached egg and a buttered tortilla. Then she started weeping again, saying how truly sorry she was to be such a good-for-nothing parent. But then Jordan jumped on her lap and wiped her eyes with a napkin, and she stopped crying. And when I got back from walking him to the bus stop, she was in the shower.
“You dressed for school?” she asked as she strolled out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair.
“That depends. Are you through hibernating?”
She paused, then nodded. “Reckon so. You know me, tougher than a cast-iron washtub.”
Nothing about Ma seemed tough. She looked pale and skinnier than her usual one hundred pounds. Her collarbone stuck out like a hanger.
I tried to talk to her about what happened. “You can’t keep doing this, Ma. You gotta get help,” I said. But she answered in the same way she always did.
“I know you mean well, sugar, but I’ve told you before. I don’t have a screw loose in my thinking gear, if that’s what you’re hinting at. I just inherited my paw’s energy bursts and patches of blue, God rest his soul. Once I ride this out, I’ll be back to my usual strong-as-a-bull self.”
Then Ma grabbed the TV remote and clicked on the morning news and tuned me out.
So back I went to Ottawa Creek Middle School. It was my second day there, but my first one running the Cafeteria Gauntlet. Anyone who’s been the new kid knows that the bus ride, the locker scene, and classes are just the warm-up. The true test begins at lunch, with that sea of unfamiliar faces drinking from flavored-water bottles. I wasn’t looking forward to that, even though I’d packed my favorite smoked turkey and cheese piled high on butter-crust bread. And I hadn’t made any friends on the bus or in my classes.
At least I had someone to sit with—thank goodness for the fine print of the meet-and-greeter contract. Ellie sat at a long table of chatty girls who were laughing and sharing snacks. They all smiled when Ellie introduced me, and they seemed friendly enough. Then a lunch aide came over and told Ellie that Coach McGregory was looking for her, and she took off. So I ate my lunch, listening to the jock girls moan and groan about what drills they would do later at practice and how many suicides Coach would make them run if they missed their free throws. All this basketball talk made me think about Jordan, and how he must feel when he’s surrounded by hearing kids who don’t sign.
When I got up to throw out my trash, I noticed a bake-sale table by the side doors. The sign taped to the table read: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE: SUPPORT PEER MEDIATION.
Peer mediation. I remembered Mr. Godfrey mentioned something about that in his office after I’d tossed the pear at Pete. I walked over and stared down at the table packed with brownies, cupcakes, donut holes, mini muffins, slices of pound cake, and my favorite: giant M&M cookies. A white boy covered with pimples and a black girl with red glasses stood behind the table. The girl was counting the money. The boy was looking down at his notebook.
I picked up an M&M cookie and gave the girl two quarters. She studied my face. “Hmm. I’ve never seen you before,” she said, grinning. She had wild, curly hair that shot out like tangled wires and a gauze sleeveless blouse. I was cold just looking at her.
“I’m new,” I explained, and I told her my name.
“Welcome, Tess. I like new.” She poked the boy next to her. “Ritchie and I are co-presidents of the Peer Mediation Club, which also likes new. As in new beginnings, new agreements, and new members. My name’s Gabriella Danes—Gabby for short. I’m a tiger.”
I laughed. “A tiger?”
She nodded. “The Chinese zodiac. Tigers find pleasure in the unpredictable and, contrary to their image, can be just as calm and warmhearted as they are ferocious. Which is why I do Zen archery and peer mediation.”
More kids started gathering around the table. Gabby was scrambling to keep up with sales, and Ritchie was still glancing down at his notebook.
“Need some help?” I asked him.
Ritchie perked up at that. “Thanks. I forgot I had a Spanish quiz next period, and I gotta study.”
I squeezed between Gabby and Ritchie and began taking money from kids and passing them napkins.
A boy biting into a donut hole pointed to me. “Hey, aren’t you the one who punched Pete Chutkin?”
I felt splotches spreading across my neck like spilled red ink. “I didn’t punch him; I threw a pear—oh, never mind.”
“Pete’s a loser anyway,” he said, spewing powdered sugar from his mouth. “I’ve seen him picking through trash at the city dump. He lives with his dad in a trailer without indoor plumbing. Swear to God!”
“Excuse me, but could you take your toxic talk away from our bake sale?” Gabby said with a looks-can-kill glare. Then she turned to me. “So what’s your month and birth year, Tess? Are you a tiger like most seventh graders?”
When I told her, she said being slightly older made me an ox.
“Figures,” she said, nodding. “You act like an ox.”
I felt my face redden. “Huh?”
“Relax. I’m not dissing you.” She reached for the bag of napkins under the table and put some beside the donut holes. “The ox is serious, loyal, responsible, intelligent, and good with her hands. Which leads me to ask, did you make your belt?”
I looked down at my lanyard rope belt and nodded, smiling.
“Very stylish. Oxen also make true friends if you can overlook their worrywart tendencies. But don’t mess with them! They take things very seriously! Maybe that’s what happened between you and Pete? At least now you’re helping like a dependable ox, and you’re even wearing green. Obviously the ox loves an earth-friendly look.”
A small girl with a freckled face came up to the table and greeted Gabby.
“Sorry I can’t help, Gabby. I’ve got a meeting with the reading teacher. But I have enough time to buy a treat.” She started counting pennies in her hand. “Just my luck, I’m short ten cents. And I’m a peer mediator,” she said, frowning.
I gave her a dime from my pocket.
“Thanks. I’m Kim,” she said, all smiles, before picking out a brownie and leaving.
“So where did you move from?” Gabby asked me.
“San Antonio, Texas.”
“Wow. Us upstaters get excited when someone moves here from Long Island, and you come all the way from Texas. So what’s there to do back in San Antonio?”
“Plenty.” I told her about the River Walk, the fiesta celebration, and the annual rodeo. “And I lived seven miles from Sea World. They’ve got the best dolphin and whale s
hows. You even get to feed the dolphins.”
Gabby shook her head. “Don’t get me started on Sea World. They exploit animals just to make a buck.”
I shrugged. “The fish looked happy to me.”
“Whales and dolphins aren’t fish. And would you be happy trapped in a concrete tank if you belonged in the ocean?”
I got the picture. Gabby, Zodiac Girl with a Cause. Now I knew why she was in peer mediation.
With five minutes left, most of the cookies and brownies were gone, but we still had half a table full of donut holes and cake.
Gabby wasn’t pleased about that. “This is the last lunch period. That means we’re going to be stuck with all these leftovers. And we really need to raise money to buy team shirts.”
Back at Albertsons deli, where Ma worked, the manager used to run a BOGO special on whatever ham or turkey was close to its expiration date. That meat always moved. Ma said folks never pass up a bargain.
I turned to Gabby. “I’ve got an idea. How ’bout announcing a buy-one-get-one-free sale?” I pointed at the front of the cafeteria, to a microphone propped on a stand.
Gabby’s eyes flashed approval from behind her red glasses. “Brilliant idea, Texan!” She jumped up and made the announcement, and before you knew it, the table was swamped with eager customers.
The bell rang, and I said goodbye to Gabby. Ritchie pointed me toward the computer lab for my next class.
Halfway down the hallway I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Gabby again. “Here,” she said, handing me something wrapped in a napkin. “I saved the last one for my new friend. Tess the ox.”
Another M&M cookie. I’d save it for after school. I smiled at her. “Thanks.”
“Thank you for using your Texas smarts. We sold thirty-two dollars’ worth of baked goods because of you. That will help cover the cost of team shirts. Hey, Ritchie and I were talking. We think peer mediation could use your creative persuasive skills. You interested?”
I shrugged.
This Gabby was strange, but I kind of liked her.
Chapter 7
Don’t even consider starting a retail venture without capital—also known as cold, hard (but not edible) cash.—The Inside Scoop
“I’ll take black and you be white,” Ma said as she plopped the backgammon game onto the kitchen counter. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and the three of us were still lounging in pajamas, sweaters, and scarves on account of our igloo apartment. And as if it wasn’t freezing already, the TV weather lady said an arctic blast was headed our way. With windchill, the temperature would hit twelve below zero.
I set up my backgammon pieces opposite Ma’s, tossed the dice, and took a piece of beef jerky out of the bag. Jordan sat cross-legged on the floor at my feet, making animals out of the Play-Doh he’d found in one of my craft bins. Already he’d made enough creatures to fill a zoo, although they sure weren’t ordinary-looking, especially the lion with an elephant trunk and the monkey with two tails.
Ma’s turn. She tossed the dice and then threw me a question. “Remember how tight money was back home? How we always had to count nickels just to have enough for ice cream?”
I nodded. All our money problems seemed like just yesterday. Come to think of it, it was yesterday.
“From here out, your cup and Jordan’s runneth over with ice cream,” she said, all grins. Ma folded her skinny arms across her baggy cardigan sweater. “You’re playing backgammon with the soon-to-be owner of an ice cream shop on State Street in Schenectady, New York.”
I groaned on the inside. Not this again. I had figured this business scheme faded away after the last Shooting Stars episode sent her to bed. “You’re serious?”
She nodded. “Serious as a snakebite.”
“What do you know about running an ice cream business, Ma?” I moved my piece six spaces. Or any business, I thought. Not that I wanted to keep rehashing mistakes, but facts were facts: she’d only sold one set of steak knives from her cutlery franchise—and that was to Juanita’s grandparents. Cats in the Cradle lasted a month, and we almost got slapped with a lawsuit. The only jobs Ma ever kept were farmhand at her parents’ horse ranch when she was a teenager, and more recently, at Albertsons in the deli. She was good at slicing meat: friendly, efficient, and—as she liked to brag—one of the few workers who hadn’t cut off a finger. Kids liked how she always gave out free samples too.
With no horse ranches in downtown Schenectady, my vote was for her to apply at the grocery store.
“Ice cream isn’t rocket science, Tess. And thanks to the Inside Scoop here, I’m learning a lot,” she said as she passed a thick magazine my way. “Check this out. I just read that the profit on a single-scoop cone is a whopping hundred and fifty percent!”
I picked up the dice and rolled a one and a three. Not my best roll, but it still enabled me to bump Ma’s piece off the board. Drats. Ma came up with doubles and got her piece back.
I glanced at the Inside Scoop. It had an ice cream sundae on the cover, piled high with whipped cream, nuts, and hot fudge. Who would actually buy this magazine? I wondered, noting the price was pretty steep, the same as Vogue.
“It’s not a magazine. It’s a training manual,” Ma said, as if she read my mind. “For folks serious about scooping their way to financial freedom.”
Ma pointed to the middle of a section listing guiding principles for achieving success in a retail ice cream business, and she started reading business suggestions. Dairy Dips they were called, and they sure sounded dippy to me.
“‘Number Forty-two: Go beyond vanilla. Reach out to your customers with dramatic flavors and attention-grabbing novelty items. Remember that ice cream is indulgent entertainment for the masses. Number Forty-three: Humor the calorie counters with some lighter varieties, but weigh heavy on the good stuff. Americans gladly dump their diets at the door of an ice cream shop.’”
Then she pulled out a brochure from the Schenectady Chamber of Commerce with instructions for new business owners. “Says here this city is all but bribing ladies to throw their hats in the business ring. They’re offering tax breaks for women only.”
But not for business owners with Shooting Stars, I thought as fear clawed at my throat. Especially those bursting with drive and determination one day, and crashed in bed the next.
“No more,” Jordan signed to me, holding the empty Play-Doh can. Dozens of bright, funky animals were gathered at his feet.
“Sorry,” I signed.
He pouted, and then shuffled into the family room, scuffing his footie pajamas along the way. A few minutes later he returned and threw the TV remote on the backgammon board. Pieces fell to the floor.
“Jordan!” Ma yelled and I signed.
He was trying to sign “Not working,” but he was doing it wrong. Gently I formed his hand in the A shape and thrust it forward from his chin for “not.” Then I moved his S hand up and down on top of his fisted left hand for “working.”
Ma and I followed him to the family room. The remote control wasn’t working. I kept pressing buttons, but nothing helped.
The same question whirled around in my head like a Hula-Hoop. What was Ma going to buy the business with? I’d peeked at her checkbook on the counter after she’d returned from grocery shopping the other day. There wasn’t enough to fix the car heater. But she spewed on with her business plans. How the shop was located in the heart of bustling Schenectady, at the corner of State and Lafayette streets, between a shoe-repair place and a pizzeria, with a bus stop right out front.
“The owner, Jerry Breyers—no relation to that grocery-store brand,” she quickly pointed out, “gave me the full shop tour. Place was built in 1926, and it’s got a charming old-fashioned marble counter and backsplash, and brass light fixtures like the drugstores had back then. You’re going to love it, Tess. With your style and decorator know-how, we can turn this place into the talk of the town!”
Ma said the shop had been turning a decent profit for the past twel
ve years—in spite of a downtown business slump running longer than the Mohawk River—but Jerry’s arthritis was flaring up so bad this snowy winter, he’d decided to pack it in and move to North Carolina.
“He calls his shop Van Curler Creamery after the city’s founder, but I’ve got another name picked out,” she said, grinning.
“What? Tell me,” I said, my arms crossed over my sweater.
“Not so fast. I didn’t announce you’d be a Tess till you made your appearance, and the same goes for my business baby. But don’t you fret. It’s the perfect name.”
Finally, after fiddling with the remote buttons fifty different ways, I tried changing the batteries. That did the trick. I gave the remote back to Jordan, with closed captions turned on. He smiled and plopped down to watch a cartoon.
Ma and I went back to the kitchen. I rubbed my cold hands together and suddenly felt like a temperamental ox.
“Once the business is mine, I’m getting our old sewing machine repaired,” Ma said. “I was hoping you’d make curtains for the front display window. Nobody’s better at prettying up a room than you, and this shop is just asking for a cutesy old-time café look.”
If there was a shred of good news in all this, it was hearing Ma was getting the sewing machine fixed. It sat in the hall closet broken, just like it had been back in San Antonio for six months. I missed being able to make clothes and accessories.
I reached for the dice and looked up at Ma. “What does that training manual say about an ice cream shop’s chance of making it in the snowbelt? Nobody eats as much ice cream as we do, Ma, especially not when the weather is colder than ice cream.”
“The Inside Scoop says there are plenty of four-season consumers around here,” Ma answered. “It all comes down to the ‘razzle-dazzle factor’: making our shop an entertaining experience for everyone who walks through the door. And we’ll offer prepacked products too, so folks can grab and go when they’re freezing their patooties off.”
“You think it’s that simple?”