Rocky Road

by Rose Kent

  “No hippo. Turtle,” he signed, sliding his thumb from under his other hand for turtle.

  I tickled his belly. “Jordan Dobson, do you ever stop thinking about turtles?”

  He shook his head. “Hungry,” he signed again. “And happy! Happy, happy!”

  “How come?”

  He pointed back at me and then signed, “Tess here.”

  “Yes, here.” I smiled and looked away, out the back window. I didn’t want him to see my teary eyes. He wouldn’t understand why I’d been avoiding this place.

  Out back in the alley, a man wearing a stained white apron was throwing garbage into the snow-covered Dumpster. I figured he worked next door at Bianco’s Pizzeria.

  I felt a draft from the door and discovered it was open a crack, so I pushed it shut, but it wouldn’t lock. Then I turned back toward Jordan, whose eyes were glued to the TV. I tapped him on his shoulder and signed, “I have to help Ma. Then we’ll eat pizza, okay?”

  Jordan’s head moved up and down like a puppet on a string. “Pizza and ice cream!” he signed.

  It took five late nights to make the window treatments, but they were well worth the fuss. I chose a lemon-yellow valance to complement the wallpaper and added a fringe with red dangling beads that resembled cherries. The fringe alone took two days because my stitching was crooked the first time and I had to rip it out. (Guess even crafty queens can get out of practice when they’re away from their equipment.) I was most proud of the lining. It was a matching yellow satin that I got on sale for $3.99 a yard, but it looked elegant, like Chinese silk.

  Ma was tickled pink with the curtains—so much so that she asked me to make matching tablecloths for the dining area and skirts to hang beneath the sinks in the restrooms to cover the rusty pipes. I told Ma too much cherry fabric in those tiny bathrooms would make customers feel like they were trapped in the Hi Ho! Cherry-O board game. But Ma said looking at fruit sure beat looking at rusty pipes any old day.

  One Saturday morning I loaded up my power drill and tools, and Jordan, Ma, and I piled into the Toyota and drove to the ice cream shop. Snow was starting to melt, and marbled, muddy slush was piled against the curbs. A fog covered State Street like a wet washcloth. My face felt damp just from the walk in from the car, and Jordan kept sniffling.

  Right away I began installing the curtains, but the plastic hardware cracked as I started drilling. Ma told me there was a hardware store a few streets west on State Street and then across Broadway.

  “I come too!” Jordan signed when he saw me leaving. He was sitting on the serving counter, arranging his tiny plastic animals around a lion that ruled from the top of a stack of ice cream cones.

  But Jordan’s nose was running, and he’d been sneezing all morning like he was coming down with something. “It’s raining. Stay here and play,” I signed, handing him a tissue.

  He stuck his lower lip out and tossed an elephant at my feet. “Tess meanie!”

  The walk to the hardware store took about ten minutes, but I practically had to hopscotch-jump the whole way, with all the smashed pop cans and fast-food wrappers on the sidewalk. It was still drizzling, and I kept my sweatshirt hood on so my hair wouldn’t get wet and frizz.

  One building after the next had empty stores and windows sprayed with graffiti. It smelled, too, like gasoline on one corner, trash on the next, and then like soup as I passed a diner (I didn’t mind that one).

  I kept thinking about what Ma had read in the Inside Scoop, how a retail shop was all about location, location, location. Well, this location was the pits. Who’d want to eat ice cream on a dirty street? Why were we fussing to create a cutesy café when it was sitting right smack in the slums?

  Seeing the hardware store, I crossed the street and went in. When I came back out, the rain had stopped. I noticed a woman with torn clothes sitting on the curb, with steam coming from a thermos bottle in her hand. Beside her was a shopping cart overflowing with recycled cans and a paper cup with “Donatiens” scribbled on it. I tossed the change from my purchase into the cup and she thanked me.

  “That you, Tess?”

  I turned around. Pete Chutkin was in the distance, riding on a bicycle built for two—only he was riding solo.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked when he caught up and stopped his bike beside me. An old-fashioned camera with a chip on the base was strapped around his neck.

  “Running an errand. My ma’s opening up a business nearby. What’re you doing here?”

  “I live here,” he said, pointing behind him to a small cluster of trailers poking out between the buildings. “I’m taking pictures. I got a nice one of a little girl eating a donut at the bus stop on Erie Boulevard, and a dog sleeping on a sewer grate. You never know what you’ll find in Schenectady.”

  I stared at his bicycle. It was white with rust patches everywhere like a spotted cow. The seats had rips, and the handlebars were wrapped in duct tape.

  “Want a ride?” he asked, oozing pride as if he was driving a BMW.

  “No thanks,” I said, beginning to walk away, but he pedaled alongside me.

  “I bet you’ve never been on something like this. It’s called a tandem bike, and it rides like you’re steering a telephone pole! Hop on. I’ll give you a tour of the city.”

  I kicked a rotten apple core. “From what I see, I don’t want the tour.”

  “Oh, we’ve got plenty of stuff worth checking out in Schenectady. And I know a place you’ll love, you being from Texas and all. It’s not far. C’mon!”

  Don’t ask why, but he had me with that bit about Texas. I hopped onto the backseat and away we went, bump-bumping along, over potholes and cracks in the street. A car beeped when we turned around suddenly because a wind gust made my shopping bag blow off the handlebars. It did feel like we were steering a telephone pole. Riding the tandem bike reminded me of the train game I used to play with Jordan. He’d grab my waist from behind me and we’d choo-choo, chug-a-chug around the kitchen.

  Pete played tour guide as we pedaled, telling me how Schenectady was originally the land of the Mohawk tribe, and how in 1690 its Dutch settlement was attacked by the French and their Indian allies in a brutal massacre.

  “Later they used to call Schenectady ‘the city that lights and hauls the world,’ on account of Thomas Edison starting his company here, which became General Electric. And American Locomotive Company was here too, and they once made all the steam and diesel trains in the country. Back in those days the streets of Schenectady were paved with gold. Not so anymore, but we’re working on that,” he said.

  We rode down Liberty Street all the way to Eastern Parkway, and then kept going until Pete stopped the bike on a side street near the entrance to a park.

  “This is Central Park. New York City is such a copycat naming their park after ours,” he said, grinning. He pointed to a huge plot of scraggy bushes muffin-topped with snow. “That’s the famous Rose Garden. Every color and type of rose in the rose alphabet blooms here. In the summertime, this place is filled with wedding parties getting photographed and lots of ‘garden angels’ pruning the bushes.”

  Pete asked me to stand beside the white trellis arch leading toward the bushes, and he took my picture. Then we followed the stone maze through the garden, and he photographed a sparrow perched atop a bench.

  He was right. This place did remind me of Texas. “I love roses,” I said, thinking out loud. Back at our house, years ago, we had a pink rosebush next to the driveway. I loved getting a whiff of that heavenly scent every time I got out of the car. The bush had a hollowed-out shape on account of the fact that Pop hit it with his truck after a night out. I remember Ma yelling at him when it happened, furious that he’d taken the wheel when he was what she called three sheets to the wind.

  Back on the bike, we pumped hard up hills, cutting through a playground and looping past a soggy field to a body of water called Iroquois Lake with a stone fountain in the middle. The fountain wasn’t working, probably because th
e lake was partly frozen. We parked the bike on the grass and walked down to the shore so Pete could get more pictures.

  The air was still, except for the melting ice on the lake, which crackled like Rice Krispies in milk.

  “How long have you been taking pictures?” I asked Pete.

  “Since I found this little beauty at the city dump last year,” he said, touching the camera strap. “This is an Olympia—top-of-the-line brand. How lucky am I!”

  “Why would somebody throw out an expensive camera?”

  “My dad says, ‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.’ He’s got an eagle eye for uncovering all kinds of good stuff. He pulled this bike out from under a moldy mattress, and he found a gas grill that only needed a few bolts tightened, hardly used otherwise. And yesterday I struck gold myself: a giant inflatable lawn Santa. Betcha no one else in our trailer park has one of them next Christmas!”

  We got back on the bike and started pedaling, until Pete stopped suddenly in front of a monument. A soldier holding a rifle horizontally was perched on top of a gigantic boulder and surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The statue was huge. It stood about fifteen feet off the ground.

  “Schenectady doesn’t have an Alamo, but we’ve got hometown heroes,” he said. I followed him over to the statue, where I read the bronze plaque. The statue was dedicated to locals who served in the Spanish-American War. Its copper had weathered to a pale green. I liked the expression on the soldier’s face: serious and determined, but kind.

  Suddenly Pete handed me his camera. “This would make an awesome photo, what with how the sun is fighting its way through the clouds behind the soldier’s back. Stand here and take my picture, okay?” Then he hopped the fence and started climbing on the rock.

  “You sure about this?” I had a feeling that climbing on giant slippery statues wasn’t on a list of suggested park recreation.

  But he didn’t answer. He kept trying to pull himself onto the rock and slipping back down because it was covered with ice patches. But neither common sense nor fear of broken bones was stopping Pete. Within a few minutes he was standing on the rock, beside the soldier, who was twice his size, pretending like they were having a conversation.

  “Should I take your picture now?” I asked, but he shook his head, and then he started climbing again. This time up the soldier.

  My heart raced. “Pete, stop. This is crazy. You’re going to get hurt!”

  Why had I come with this nutty redhead? Ma would call Pete crazy like an outhouse rat. If he slipped, he’d hit the rock, or worse, fall way down to the ground. We hadn’t seen a single person in the park to get help. I hardly knew Pete, and I might have to do CPR on him. I didn’t even know CPR!

  Pete waved his hand at me. “Quit worrying. Just take the picture when I say ‘Cheese.’”

  Now he was halfway to the top, resting his sneaker on the soldier’s elbow, and pulling hard to get up higher. The wind kept blowing snow flecks down from the evergreen branches onto Pete’s head. His face grimaced and his eyes strained like he was a gladiator.

  “Be careful!” I shouted.

  Then there he was on top, his legs straddling the soldier’s head, wobbling and beaming like he’d just scaled Mount Everest. “Cheese!”

  Click. I took the picture, and he lowered himself quickly off the soldier, down to the rock, and then to the ground, like it was easy doing. Like he’d been climbing on a little tyke’s jungle gym. Like he was an average seventh grader with ordinary, everyday hobbies.

  On the ride back, Pete gushed with excitement. “I can’t wait to develop this roll at Photography Club. I’m calling that last picture ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.’ Maybe it will get picked for the school magazine. How lucky was I to be there today!”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t end up with a concussion,” I said, but I smiled, thinking of his Mount Everest grin when I took the picture.

  As we neared the downtown shops, Pete asked me what kind of business my mother was opening. I told him about the ice cream shop.

  “Ice cream whenever you want, wow! Mind if I become your new best friend?”

  We turned back on Broadway, and I told him to drop me off near the diner. I had enough money to bring soup back for Jordan to help fight his cold.

  “You know what, Tess? If it wasn’t for you, I never would have gone to Central Park today and taken that picture. I told you, I’m the luckiest kid in Schenectady!”

  Then he waved and rode away, toward the trailers.

  For the rest of my walk, I couldn’t stop thinking about Pete. How he talked up Schenectady like it was a first-rate place. He never once tried to hide that he lived in a trailer, or that he got stuff from the dump. He called himself the luckiest kid in the city, and the thing was, he believed it.

  I thought about how I couldn’t even bring myself to get excited about Ma’s ice cream shop. How I’d turned up my nose at the surrounding neighborhood. And how I’d never used the word lucky to describe moving into Mohawk Valley Village, where we had running water and friendly neighbors.

  Maybe Pete was the one taking photos this morning, but he’d opened my eyes to a different way of looking at things too.

  Chapter 14

  A visit to your ice cream shop should be unforgettable. Razzle-dazzle your customers with a memorable eating experience.—The Inside Scoop

  It was close to one o’clock in the afternoon when I got back. Ma was holding the door open as two deliverymen carried in a long cardboard box.

  “You had me worried. I thought you got lost,” Ma said, and I explained how I met up with Pete.

  The TV was blasting from the storage room, so I knew where Jordan was.

  After the deliverymen left, Ma grabbed an X-Acto knife and opened the box. “I’ve been waiting for this baby to arrive,” she said.

  I stared at what looked like an ordinary chalkboard. “What’s it for?”

  “Our menu board. Where we’ll post one-of-a-kind, to-die-for ice cream specials in big, bold letters, just like the good book suggests.”

  “What are these one-of-a-kind specials?”

  Ma’s face lit up. “Glad you asked. For starters we’ve got the Yankee Doodle Dandy—two scoops of strawberry ice cream topped with blueberry sauce, covered with red, white, and blue sprinkles, and slathered with whipped cream. That should sell big with upstate conservatives—and liberals love it too!”

  That did sound tasty. “What else?”

  “Next up: the ‘I Loved Him Tender’ Banana Royal. Fit for the King himself.”

  I rolled my eyes. Why can’t Ma keep her Elvis obsession to herself?

  “That packs a whole pint of vanilla ice cream between Nilla wafers, nuts, and banana chunks—thick and creamy, the way the King loved his pudding.”

  “Ma!”

  “Shore ’nuff, you know I loved that boy from Memphis,” she said, clasping both hands to her chest and exaggerating her Texas drawl.

  Ma listed off more wacky specials that had me giggling. And then she announced one would be R-rated, adults only. My eyebrows jumped up, eager to hear about that.

  “I call it ‘Having a Bad Day’ Brazilian Coffee Malt, and what grown-ups haven’t had bad days?”

  “What’s in it?”

  Ma’s voice dropped to a whisper. “One cup of Brazilian coffee, three scoops of specky vanilla, soda water, shaved ice, and a bonus ingredient that’s strictly between me and the person having the bad day.”

  Bang! Bang! Machine-gun sounds from the storage room startled me. Yesterday I’d found a note in Jordan’s backpack from his teacher, encouraging more signing at home, more reading, and less TV.

  I pointed back toward the storage room. “I think you should take the TV out of there. Jordan will never get better at signing if all he does is veg out.”

  “Aw, every kid loves TV, Tess. Even you got hooked on Project Runway.” She leaned against the dipping cabinet. “Besides, it keeps Jordan from getting in trouble around here.”r />
  I didn’t agree. But I knew I wouldn’t change Ma’s mind, so I didn’t try. I grabbed the drill and climbed up the stepladder to get started on the installation.

  The metal brackets I’d bought felt more secure than the plastic ones. The left one mounted quickly, so I moved the ladder to the other side of the window. But first I took off my sweatshirt. The shop had an old radiator heater, and no matter how many times Ma tried to lower the temperature, it felt hot.

  When I finally got the curtains up, Ma dragged a small dining table and two wooden chairs over and centered them underneath the window. “This place looks straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting,” she said, clapping. “Can’t you see starry-eyed lovers slurping their shakes with those frilly curtains framing the picture?”

  I gazed at the window and grinned. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  I hadn’t even unplugged my drill before Ma handed me a paintbrush. “Okay, Artsy Annie. Now that you dolled up the windows, how ’bout dressing up the walls with ice cream art?”

  Ice cream art? Now that sounded right up my alley. “Where?” I asked, looking around at the wallpapering.

  “A spot guaranteed to get traffic, the bathrooms,” she answered, pointing toward the back.

  “Bathrooms are bathrooms. Can’t we leave them be?” I asked.

  “Where’s your selling spirit? We leave nothin’ be. I want a sundae on the men’s room door—covered with nuts; Lord knows men in my life have made me nuts—and a milk shake on the ladies’ room door. Inside, you design whatever floats your boat, as long as it sends what the Inside Scoop calls a subliminal message.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Buy more ice cream!”

  I looked over at Ma, amazed at the way her mind worked. How had she managed to sucker me into doing all this when I voted “heck, no” on the business?

  Yet this was an artistic challenge. The narrow space in the bathrooms above the hand dryers would be perfect for painting a slender ice cream soda glass with two straws sticking out. And near the ceiling, I could stencil a wraparound border of kids holding hands and licking ice cream cones. Wait … make that cartoon animals smiling and eating ice cream! Giraffes, kangaroos, tigers, even turtles. Customers might like that even better. I knew Jordan would!