The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street: A Novel

by Susan Jane Gilman

  Yet developing these frozen novelties proved challenging. The artificial Brandy Alexander, Kahlúa, amaretto, and vodka had to taste exactly like their real, forty-proof namesakes. But the different chemicals created odd inconsistencies in the ice cream. The hours I spent in the laboratory with our chemists! And the consumer taste tests, oh, such a pain in my ass. It used to be, of course, that Bert and I would just cook up something in our kitchen in Bellmore, serve it to our customers, and watch their faces when they ate it. But now it had become a national industry. Focus groups. Market analysts. Everyone from Tarrytown to Topeka was suddenly a goddamn critic.

  It had taken me almost three years to get six Mocktails ready for the market. Yet now, as my son stared at the advertisements sent over from Promovox, his face contorted into a sculpture of unease. Why couldn’t he be on my side more? I wondered. The two of us, we were all we had left now.

  “After all my work, now you’re expressing doubts?”

  “I’m just worried, Ma. You’ve seen the numbers. Most people looking to open an ice cream shop are now going with Häagen—” He caught himself. “Super-premium ice cream is what’s ‘in.’”

  I thumped the poster board. “The public wants richer, more ‘sophisticated’ ice cream? So this is how we give it to them. These milk shakes taste expensive. And fancy. But they can still be made with your father’s machine. Why do you keep resisting this?”

  “It’s just— Do you really think that Mocktail Milkshakes are the right product for us? They just seem so…” Isaac’s voice trailed off as he searched for the words. “So cheap. And racy.”

  “Cheap and racy is good,” I told him. “Cheap and racy is exactly right. Look around you, for Chrissakes. It’s 1979.”

  Just as I predicted, our Mocktail Milkshakes were a great sensation, thank you very much. In the spring of 1980, we offered them “for a limited time only” at our northeastern franchises between D.C. and Boston. Everyone went mad for them; their exclusivity only fueled their cachet. The White Russian, amaretto, and margarita flavors proved particularly popular. Take that, Umlaut, I thought as I reviewed our sales figures. Internally, I sent out a company-wide memo, too, extolling our preliminary success—lest anyone still underestimated me.

  During my weekly dinner at Isaac and Rita’s, I announced that Dunkle’s was ready to take Mocktail Milkshakes national. “I want us to launch them from coast to coast with a huge campaign. ‘Mocktail parties’ everywhere. Billboards on Times Square and Sunset Boulevard reading: ‘It’s Mocktail Hour.’ Advertisements on prime time.”

  Isaac stared at the half-eaten roast on his plate. Rita got up quietly and went to the sideboard for more wine. Only Jason spoke. “Can I have wine, too?”

  When Rita said no, he pushed back his chair. “I don’t know why you all have to be such fascists about it. Sixteen is the drinking age in Europe you know.”

  “We’re not in Europe. And you’re not sixteen yet.”

  After Jason stomped off, the glugging of the Bordeaux into my glass was the only sound in the dining room. The silence felt damning.

  “Well,” I said, dropping my napkin onto my plate. “Don’t everyone start cheering at once, darlings. Don’t anyone say, ‘Nice job, Lillian.’ It’s only our biggest goddamn product launch in years.” I, too, stood up.

  Jason was sprawled on the floor in the parlor with his chin in his hands, his silhouette glazed by the iridescence of the television.

  “Well, it seems we’ve both been banished to the rumpus room,” I announced, lowering myself onto the sofa behind him. Two police officers with guns were chasing a man down a busy city sidewalk. “Is this your program?”

  “Nah,” Jason said, still staring at the screen. “I’m just watching. There's nothing good on.”

  Predictably, the cops knocked over a fruit cart. The only street peddlers I ever saw nowadays were in police dramas.

  “Tateleh,” I said after a moment. “Let me ask you something. What I was talking about before. Our Mocktail Milkshakes. You don’t care for them?”

  Slowly, Jason rolled over. He sat up and twisted from side to side, cracking his back. Then he stretched out his arms with an “Urrrahh” before letting them flop to the carpet. “Well,” he said diplomatically, “I like the taste, I guess.”

  “But?” I prompted. “Tell me. Please. You’re the only one with any goddamn sense around here.”

  Jason shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, though his face brightened. I had anointed him; the privilege of my trust was not lost on him.

  “Well,” he said carefully, “I just don’t understand why you’d, like, sell an alcohol-flavored milk shake with no, like, actual alcohol in it.”

  From the dining room came a sudden crash of dishes, followed by a volley of bickering. Jason and I exchanged naughty, delighted glances.

  “The problem with adding real alcohol, tateleh—” I said.

  “Grandma?” Jason twisted around to face me. “It’s not even that, really. I mean, no offense, but a lot of Dunkle’s stuff is just really cheesy. Like, Nilla Rilla? Spreckles the Clown?”

  “Oh.” I shook my head. “That goddamn clown. Is he ever a pain in my ass—”

  Jason gave a whinnying, dopey laugh. “You know what you should have instead? A punk-rock clown. In a leather jacket like the Ramones. With a Mohawk. He could snarl instead of smile, and throw ice cream at the kids, and terrorize people, and smash his guitar.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said, straightening up. “It’s nice to get an honest opinion around here for a change.”

  “Or a kung fu clown. How awesome would that be?” Sensing my unhappiness, however, his expression shifted like clouds. “It’s not like your shakes aren’t good and all,” he said sympathetically. “I just think they sound really lame.”

  His eyes scanned mine, darting back and forth, in a way that suggested he was testing my waters, trusting me with confidential information. For the first time, I saw, my grandson was willing to regard me as more than an old lady with powdery hair, dried fruit for a face. A pact was being forged. “I mean, like, most of the kids at school and stuff?” he said in a low voice. “If they want to get high, they do, like, coke. Or ’ludes. Or ’shrooms. Or we drink vodka and beer. Nobody ever says ‘cocktails.’ And Mocktails? Yucch. That’s the stuff they used to serve us at bar mitzvahs.”

  “So you think they’re stodgy,” I said plainly.

  “Yeah. I guess,” Jason said, cracking his knuckles. “Like, if I was going to market them—and okay, I’m just a sophomore, so what do I know?—but I wouldn’t try to make them sound tame at all. People actually like stuff a lot more when they think it’s kind of bad for them.”

  I stared at him, astounded. My grandson. My beautiful, impossible grandson.

  Two days later, borrowing from his vocabulary, I announced to Promovox that I wanted our new advertising campaign revamped to be “cooler, more happening, and edgy.”

  “Let’s portray our new milk shakes as a sort of an illicit pleasure,” I said. “Decadent. Dangerous, even.”

  “Lillian, I’m not sure that’s such a wise move.” The head of accounts crossed his arms and leaned back in his leather chair. “It’s certainly not in keeping with your brand.” His skepticism spread around the table like a contagion. Accounts men began explaining vehemently why such an approach was “a huge misstep” and “entirely wrong for Dunkle’s.” Excuse me, Lillian, one of them clucked. But has your son signed off on this?

  At the new firm I hired, MKG, there seemed to be nobody over the age of twenty-three. Their offices were in a warehouse on seedy Union Square. Big framed silk screens on the walls. Furniture that looked like TinkerToys. Not a carpet or a piece of upholstery in sight. Jason, I sensed, would approve. And at this agency, they listened to me.

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Dunkle,” they said, nodding. “Frankly, your company’s advertising screams for an overhaul. It looks like it hasn’t been dusted off since 1953. You want something slick. Radical.
Provocative. We’re going to come up with a campaign that’s totally cutting-edge.”

  First MKG suggested renaming the Mocktails “Shake-Ups.” This was “so much hipper,” they insisted—and I agreed. “Why not?” I laughed. “Shake things up.” When I ran it by Jason later as a litmus test, he said, “Those I would totally drink.”

  True to their word, MKG came up with advertisements unlike anything Dunkle’s had ever done before. No Spreckles. No bucolic American family. No flags or Lady Liberty. Not even me. These ads were elegant. Stark. One of the top fashion photographers in the business did the shoots. All they showed was a close-up of a milk shake in a new, clear take-out cup with “Dunkle’s” spelled out on it in sleek, modern letters. The cup was sparkling and sweating with condensation. A straw rose up from the froth invitingly. A pair of glistening red lips parted above it seductively, with the deep pink hint of a tongue. That was it. Foaming, tantalizing milk shake. Erect straw. Shimmering mouth. “Are You Old Enough?” the headlines read. “Controlled Substance.” “Highly Addictive.” “You’ll Want It Again and Again.” “Once Is Never Enough.” “Do You Dare?” and “Ice-stasy.” Along the bottom was always the same tag: “Dunkle’s New Shake-Ups: Ice Cream as You’ve Never Had It Before.”

  So, okay: Subtle they were not.

  Yet the advertisements were so adult and sophisticated that I could hardly believe them. Isaac, of course, protested that they were too risqué. Yet Jason declared them “awesome.” And Bert, I was sure, would have adored them. They were like works of pop art. Besides, what was wrong with a little sex? I wondered. I was seventy-three goddamn years old. I should be able to sell my product any way I wanted. Have a little fun for a change that did not involve a clown and an albino gorilla.

  I placed the blowups around my office like paintings in a gallery, then leaned back in my swivel chair, admiring them.

  “Wow!” My secretary whistled when she entered with some letters.

  “My son thinks they’re too forward. What do you think?” I said.

  “Well, they sure are eye-catching,” she said uncertainly.

  “I think they’re marvelous. So very modern, yes?”

  For the first time since Bert had died, I woke up each morning feeling energized, expectant. For the first time in my life, the public would finally recognize me for the innovator I had always been. People would see that I, Lillian Dunkle, had been just as integral and as vital to the ice cream industry as my husband had—not just a genial, motherly cripple doing shtick—or a lovable TV personality whose husband financed her kiddie show. I would be given my rightful place in the great pantheon of ice cream makers across the ages who had evolved the confection from mere sugar and snow into the most marvelous and beloved food on earth. Arabs making sherbet. Giambattista della Porta freezing wine. Nancy Johnson inventing the hand-cranked freezer. Christian K. Nelson creating the Eskimo Pie. Ernest Hamwi and Abe Doumar and all those Middle Eastern immigrants cooking up wafer cones at the 1904 World’s Fair. Bert with his marvelous soft ice cream machines and formulas. And now, finally. Rightly. Me. Lillian Dunkle. It was I, more than anyone else, who had given ice cream its modern-day whimsy. Its endless variety. And now, oh, darlings, its panache.

  As I clipped on my earrings at my dressing table and sprayed myself with Shalimar, I listened to Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” on the hi-fi in my bedroom, then the sound track from Saturday Night Fever, which I thought was quite marvelous. Our Shake-Ups were going to breathe fresh life into Dunkle’s. They were going to renew the company and put us back on top. They tasted rich yet were cheap to make. We were going to beat our competition at its own game.

  If Isaac still had reservations, he wisely kept them to himself. Naysaying has no place in sales, and the new products were delicious. Even he had to admit that.

  I introduced Shake-Ups to our franchises at special regional meetings. As I gave the pitch from the podium, attractive young servers in satin vests and sequined bow ties fanned out across the conference room with trays full of miniature Shake-Ups for our franchise owners to sample. “To Shake-Ups,” I toasted, lifting my glass. Isaac pulled a cord, and the new promotional posters were revealed. Whistles. Murmurs. Cheers. Gasps. The room erupted in chatter. I was so breathless I could barely register anything: only fragments of smiles, swallows of astonishment, people tugging at my sleeve. No one seemed to be without an opinion. From the corner of my eye, I noticed one of our owners from Chattanooga swigging down the miniature frozen Kamikazes like bar shots, waylaying the servers for more. The entire room seemed animated, a great beast come to life. Never had a new product created such a stir. The heat, the lights, the noise—it was suddenly overwhelming. I had worked so hard, for so long.

  “Ma, are you all right?” Isaac asked. My hands and arms, they were quivering.

  “Mrs. Dunkle.” Someone pushed up to us, waving a tiny empty glass. “Are you sure there’s no tequila in this? I’ve got to tell you, this margarita flavor? It taste like it’s eighty proof!”

  “Oh, now. Please.” I grinned unsteadily, adjusting my eyeglasses. “There’s nothing in these milk shakes that I wouldn’t serve to my very own grandson.”

  “Check the labels,” Isaac added quickly, pointing. “We’ve got printout sheets listing all the ingredients right over there on the tables.”

  “I don’t know.” Another franchise owner chuckled warily, in a way that suggested that he did know, but was simply unwilling to concede it. “I drink piña coladas all the time on vacation. This certainly tastes like rum to me.”

  “Then our chemists have simply done their jobs,” Isaac said a little hotly.

  “You need proof?” I smiled. “Keep drinking them. See how drunk you do not get.”

  There was a gust of laughter.

  “I need some air,” I whispered to Isaac.

  He handed me my cane—a red lacquered one for the occasion, to match the lips on the posters.

  “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Limping into the foyer, I fanned myself rapidly with my hand. Inside the ladies’ room, I plunked down on the little cushioned bench. It took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I glanced around. The mirrored lounge, with its fake Oriental vase and satiny orchids and brass Kleenex holder, was perfectly still. A Muzak version of “Have You Never Been Mellow” filtered in softly over a speaker recessed in the ceiling. The air smelled of peach room deodorizer. For a moment, as I sat there, I became aware of the ventilators wheezing in tandem with my breath.

  Then I unclasped my pocketbook and removed my little flask. Once I had a few sips, I knew, my hands would be steadier.

  Lifting the bottle, I toasted the air. “Bert,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. “I did it.”

  Chapter 16

  Well, by now, I suppose, you all know what happened next, darlings.

  The first weeks of our nationwide product launch—when our advertisements hit the newsstands and billboards, when our commercials aired on prime time, when banners flapped across the fronts of our franchises—TRY OUR GREAT NEW SHAKE-UPS!!!—our stores, they couldn’t keep up. Indeed, we had to rush extra shipments of the formulas. Our posters instantly became collectors’ items as well; people removed them from the sides of bus shelters in New York, Chicago, Boston, trying to “collect the whole set of flavors.” Advertising Age ran a cover story: “Dunkle’s: A Makeover & Milk Shake for the ’80s.” Supermarkets selling limited-edition pints of our Shake-Up flavors could not keep enough stocked in their freezers either. Everyone, everyone, it seemed, loved the unearthly taste of liquor blended into the velvetiness of ice cream. The slight sting contrasting with the cold, milky sweetness. The tease of naughtiness.

  It was not until three weeks after our launch that I found a stack of letters on my desk blotter with a note from Isaac: “Thought you should see these. I’m afraid there are more.”

  “Dear Dunkle’s,” the letter began, “I have been a faithful franchise owner since
1953. If I had wanted to be in the liquor business, however, I’d have opened a roadhouse.”

  The one beneath it declared, “I don’t care how profitable these things are. These products are WRONG, and I refuse to sell them. Booze and ice cream shouldn’t mix.”

  “How many more did he bring up?” I said to my secretary. (This one, whom I believe was named Melissa, was a pixieish girl with a wounded look and spidery black eyeliner. I once caught her polishing her nails with Wite-Out. Oh, how I missed Mrs. Preminger.)

  Melissa directed her pointed little chin to a large pile of mail atop the file cabinet: manila envelopes, pale pink stationery, a few typed leaves of tissuey onionskin. One was even made of cutout magazine letters, like a ransom note.

  “Those idiots!” I cried. All our commercials for Shake-Ups had a disclaimer running across a ribbon at the bottom: CONTAINS NO ACTUAL ALCOHOL. Could it be any clearer? “Do they actually think we’re slipping Kahlúa and brandy into our products? At this price point? Don’t any of these dingbats read?”

  Other franchise owners wrote letters protesting our updated logo and look. “They’re completely out of line with the Dunkle’s tradition,” complained a man in Michigan. “Our customers don’t like it. Why didn’t you consult us?”

  “Who the hell is the boss here?” I said aloud. “These people should know better.” If a flavor like maple walnut no longer sold well, we retired it. If a typeface or a logo made us look stodgy, we changed it. So what? This sort of triage was necessary in business. It happened all the time. It’s what made us our fortune.

  Isaac arrived in my office clutching still more letters, including a clip from the Salt Lake City Tribune reporting that all our franchises in Utah were refusing to carry Shake-Ups on religious grounds. “Ma, we both know that Mormons are huge ice cream consumers,” he said. “If they start to see our brand as incompatible with their—”

  “Please.” I waved him over to my couch. “Disgruntled Mormons are nothing new. For years they’ve refused to sell our rum raisin or coffee flavors, either. Why do you think we invented Donny Almond for them?”