carefully everywhere descending

by L. B. Bedford

  By the time we pull up to the strip mall and pull into a parking spot, I’m feeling pretty tense. I keep running excuses through my head why we should just cut out the ice cream trip, but before I can formulate one that is both a) coherent and b) urgent enough to work immediately, she gets out of the car. I unbuckle and exit as well.

  We meet at the rear of the car and she grasps my shoulders and ducks a little to look me in the eyes, startling me.

  “Now, there are a couple of things you need to know to make the best decisions in there, Audrey,” she says, nodding her head at the Italian bistro storefront like she’s my commanding officer. “First, gelato is very rich, but if your taste buds can handle it, there is no ice cream that is not improved by brownies or Oreos. Next, some rookies fill up on the light stuff—marshmallows or cereal toppings, because they think they’ll be satisfied with them since they weigh less, and therefore cost less. Don’t be fooled! Know thy topping tastes. Point three: target your toppings for the best flavor combinations. Lemon cake with Rice Krispies Treats is a disaster in your mouth. And above all, never. Never opt for gummy bears as your topping. The cold makes them too tough to chew. There are some people, namely star running back Chad Decker, who argue in favor of them and think that gummy bears are a choice worth making. But Chad Decker is a well-known idiot and not to be trusted. Now, soldier, are you ready?”

  I’m torn between laughing and being bewildered.

  “Well, that was a good orientation, except for the fact that it told me nothing,” I say with a smile.

  Scarlett sighs like I’ve disappointed her and drops her arms. I’m both grateful and bereft at the loss of her hands. She heads toward the entrance. I follow.

  “You get to pick your flavor and size of gelato, and then there’s a huge toppings bar where you get to add on whatever you want,” she explains. She holds the door open. “Then they weigh it, and you pay per ounce.”

  “I think I can handle that,” I say, stepping inside. There are a number of people with kids in the gelato place. The kids are jabbering and vibrating excitedly—at the start of a sugar high.

  “Another pro-tip: avoid the fruit flavors.” Scarlett makes a face. I like strawberry ice cream and tell her so. “Different strokes. But remember that the gelato is the base of your dish. Picking an extreme flavor will limit your topping options. Hey, do you think I can write about this for my final persuasive essay? I’ve got opinions.”

  “It may not be as heavy-hitting as Mr. Welsh hopes for,” I say. “Death penalty, censorship, gay marriage, and gelato bar? You know, I take it back. I think it’s a logical next step from your other topics.”

  We line up, and I crane my neck to see my options. There are two rows of shiny gelato ice cream in displays on either side of the register.

  “Go take a look at the flavors,” says Scarlett, pulling out her phone again. “I get the same thing every time. Hazelnut. I’ll hold our spot.”

  I take in the colorful lines of ice cream. They’re in rectangle tubs and have identifying foods on top: whole strawberries, drizzles of chocolate or caramel, nuts of all families, sliced kiwis…. I spend a blissful minute narrowing them down to three and then debating if I want cake, coconut, or straight chocolate. By the time Scarlett is up at the register, I’ve landed on coconut. On my one scoop I put brownie bits, walnut pieces, sliced bananas, and bits of cheesecake. I drizzle a little caramel and hot fudge over top. Scarlett gets two scoops of hazelnut and loads it up with practically everything but fruit and gummy bears. A couple of marshmallows fall off when she sets it to be weighed.

  “Thank you for this,” I say as she pulls out her wallet from her front left pocket.

  “Pshaw. Like I said, I need to be thanking you.” She pays with the confidence of someone who never has to mentally balance a checkbook.

  We get a small table by the window, and I’m chilled before I even start eating. It’s delicious. The gelato is denser and richer than any ice cream I’ve ever had.

  “So. What are you thinking?” asks Scarlett.

  “I’m wondering about the social politics of us hanging out,” I respond. “And what people will say.”

  “Really? Well, there’s an answer I wasn’t expecting,” she says.

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I dunno. The mechanics of quantum physics or something else not remotely connected to the here and now. Not something about the likes of us lowly beings who inhabit your sphere. You never seem like you have time for the rest of us.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  She gives me an unimpressed look and starts ticking off points on her fingers. “You never accept invitations to hang out with people. You never go to any ball games, or any school events—athletic, musical, whatever. You don’t talk to people at school, except the teachers. You walk around with that scary, serious, don’t-talk-to-me-I’m-thinking expression. There was a rumor going around that you were a robot before you started hanging out with Amber Ederlee and showing human emotion.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say. All of it.”

  “Is it?” She resumes eating her gooey mound of ice cream. “You have to admit you have some rather bionic tendencies. But here: what do you like to do for fun?”

  “For fun? I like to watch TV.”

  “Yeah? What else? What hobbies do you have?”

  “Hobbies?” I’m staring at her blankly, and she starts to look concerned.

  “This wasn’t meant to be a stumper. I just wanted to get to know you as a person and disprove the whole robot thing once and for all. So, the weekend’s coming up, right? So pretend it’s Saturday morning. You wake up and…. What? What do you usually do on Saturday and Sunday when you don’t have to worry about school?”

  I always have to worry about school.

  “Weekends… I volunteer sometimes. I jog. Sometimes I play chess. I like to read. And watch TV. Or movies, when they’re on TV. Or I babysit for the McCullums or the Uzuns.” I would prefer a steady part-time job, but nobody within walking distance has been hiring.

  “Okay.” She drops her plastic spoon into her Styrofoam bowl. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that all is incredibly depressing.”

  “It is not!”

  “I think I know the problem.” She steeples her fingers and regards me over the tops with a scientific air. “It’s not that you don’t like to have fun. It’s that you don’t know how. What you need is a fun guru to guide you down the path of entertainment. A merriment Sherpa. And it just so happens that I am your gal.”

  “You are, are you?” I’m this odd combination of offended and charmed. My ice cream is half-melted, and I scoop up some as an afterthought. “And how are you going to do that?”

  “Well, let’s narrow down your choices. I’ll throw out things and you rank them on a scale of one to five—one low, five high—of how fun you think they sound. Ready?”

  I nod.

  “Go-karts.”

  “Four.”

  “Knitting.”

  “One.”

  “Scrapbooking.”

  “One.”

  “Mountain climbing.”

  “Two.”

  “Flying a plane.”

  “Five.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously! You get to soar through the air, completely in control. It’s like a dream.”

  “Like a nightmare, you mean. I hate flying. Hate it. Okay, you seem to have a thing for speed. So…. NASCAR fan.”

  “Two.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re just watching, not doing it. Not very exciting.”

  “NASCAR driver.”

  “Four.”

  “Playing sports.”

  “Mmm, two. I don’t like competitive sports. Cross-country wouldn’t be bad, though.”

  “Science lab experiments.”

  “Uh…. Two if I have to use the school’s lab, four if I had a university-level one.”

  “Fair enough. Musical instru
ment of your choice.”

  “Hmm…. It would be a nice skill to have, but interest level…. One-point-five.”

  “You can’t distort the scale like that! You’re endangering the integrity of the experiment!”

  “Sorry,” I say, laughing. “But if the experiment is to help me find hobbies, I think it’s inherently flawed to begin with. There’s no way I’m picking up flight lessons.”

  “Why not?” she challenges. “You could be the next Amelia Earhart. Without the whole ‘disappearing and never to be seen again’ thing.”

  “It’s just not in my options right now,” I say, because I don’t want to say I can’t afford anything dealing with aviation beyond a model airplane at the dollar store.

  Scarlett’s bright eyes narrow, and she opens her mouth to argue, and that’s when the guy at the table next to ours gets up and punches his companion in the face.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I DON’T shriek, but I do have to forcibly tamp down on the instinct to. Instead I brace myself against the table with one hand and grab my bag at my feet, ready to bolt. There are surprised noises coming from all around, including Scarlett, who is on her feet.

  “I can’t believe you’re sleeping with her!” repeatedly screams the man who slugged the dazed guy currently sprawled on the floor. Blood is pouring from the fallen man’s nose and he’s trying to stem the flow, almost absently.

  “Mitchell…,” he pleads, but his companion won’t be placated. Instead he grabs their small, stylish table and upends it. It crashes to the ground, spilling the contents. Ice cream splatters and a soda sprays open, the fizzing drink spewing all over the shoes of the terrified mother next to the counter, holding her crying toddler with a hand on the back of his head. The employees behind the counter, all about my age, are all standing in stupid shock, unprepared for the violent confrontation in the middle of their shift.

  The man—Mitchell—turns our way and starts stalking toward us. I drop my bag and bolt up, ready to retreat. He’s two steps away and suddenly Scarlett is in front of me, her shoulders and head obstructing my view.

  “Calm down,” Scarlett says, holding out her hand in the same way she had to me earlier. “Calm down. You’re upsetting people.”

  “I’m upsetting people? Do you know what I just found out?” The man looks almost deranged. His face is bright red, going on purple, and veins are popping out of his forehead. “I just found out my whole life is a lie. Don’t you dare talk to me about who’s upsetting who, you little twit.”

  “I understand why you’re angry,” Scarlett continues firmly. “But you need to take this outside.”

  “Don’t you tell me—”

  “Mitchell.” The other man is staggering to his feet. “Please. Let’s go outside. We’re disturbing people. Let these nice kids get back to their date.”

  “Oh, we’re not—” I start but snap my mouth shut. Because seriously, Audrey. Not the time.

  Mitchell spins around and storms outside. His bloody… not-friend goes after him. They stand outside the glass door, and Mitchell starts screaming again while everyone in the gelato bar stares in open fascination.

  “Good God,” says the mother with the toddler, who now has a fist shoved in his mouth and is watching the duo outside with huge eyes.

  Scarlett’s shoulders release some of their tension. She looks over her shoulder and says, “Let’s get out of here.”

  We skirt the employees picking up the fallen table and dump our trash in the waste bin. Scarlett goes first out the door, and we pass the still-irate Mitchell. The guy seems like he could do anything in his erratic state.

  “…thought I could trust you! I thought I could trust you both!” Mitchell spots us scurrying past and yells after us, “I hope you enjoyed the freak show!”

  It’s not until we’re back at Scarlett’s silver car that I realize she has her hand wrapped firmly around my wrist.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting that in my day,” she says, releasing me and fishing her keys out of her pocket. They tremble in her hand. “Geez.”

  “I know,” I say, opening the passenger door. I feel as unsettled as Scarlett looks, though you think I’d be used to loud conflicts, overhearing as many as I do in my neighborhood. It was the proximity that was so alarming.

  We dissect the altercation minutely as we drive, until the shock fades and our overwhelming emotion, we both agree, is the allure that comes with watching a car crash. Horrible, but irresistible to look away from. We don’t get tired of recounting the scene beat-by-beat and our reactions to each moment, even though they never change with each retelling (“And I couldn’t believe it was happening! Right next to us!” “I know, me neither!”).

  For me, another emotion takes over the farther we get away from downtown and toward the residential west side of Reedsburg where I live. It has just dawned on me that, by virtue of dropping me off, Scarlett will see where I live. I battle with a tide of embarrassment as I direct her down my street.

  I love my family, but our house is… unkempt. Neglected. Weedy. The closer we get, the more out of place Scarlett’s new car becomes.

  I clear my throat. “You can just let me off here. I can walk the rest of the way.”

  “Are you crazy? What’s the point of getting a ride home if you have to walk part of the way?”

  I jiggle my leg and then settle, resigned. Why do I care so much what Scarlett thinks, anyway? I wasn’t this concerned when I invited Amber over for the first time, for Pete’s sake, and I value her opinion much more than I do Scarlett West’s.

  “Turn right and then go down the street almost to the end,” I instruct. “Slow up. I’m there, on the right.” I point. “The gray house.”

  Scarlett nods but doesn’t say anything. She pulls carefully up to the curb and idles as I grab my bag and unbuckle.

  “Thank you again for the ice cream,” I say. “And the ride.”

  “Forget about it,” she says. “Or else we’ll be stuck in this perpetual cycle of thanking each other.”

  I smile and reach for the door, pulling the handle and opening it a sliver. “See you Monday.”

  “Sure…. Can we meet at the same time and place for the next drafts?”

  I sink back in my seat and look at her skeptically. “Sure. If you think you’ll be ready by then.”

  She shrugs, index fingers tapping out a syncopated beat on the steering wheel. “I have to be. Mr. Welsh’s deadline is next Wednesday.”

  “Then, yes. Absolutely.”

  “Great. Awesome. I can’t believe you’re being this nice.”

  It takes a second, but then my goodwill toward her starts to evaporate. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know. You were there. You were just so cold last time I asked,” she says, oblivious to my mounting anger. “I was sure when I asked you yesterday, you would bite my head off again.”

  I close the door with a deliberate and firm click. “First of all, there is a huge difference between sitting down with you and talking through your paper and actually doing your homework. How can you not see that? It would have been cheating, Scarlett!”

  “I know! All right? I’m not saying I wasn’t wrong,” she says, cheeks reddening slightly. “But you just shut me down and insulted me for good measure.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “‘You can’t expect people to just give you everything, Scarlett,’” she quotes, her voice high-pitched in a cruel parody of mine.

  “Well, what were you doing if not that?” I demand, wondering when I ended up on the defensive, and when this conversation had spun out of control.

  “I was asking for help! I told you I was desperate! And do you know what happened to me? Summer school.”

  “Oh, the horror!”

  “You’re just— Can you just climb on down from your high horse for a few minutes to stop acting so…?”

  “So what? Go on.”

  “God!” She slams her palms against the steering wheel and looks out her
window. “I don’t know why you go out of your way to infuriate me, or why I keep letting it happen.”

  “I could say the same,” I reply, gathering up my bag with hands that I’m surprised to see are shaking a little. Not out of fear, but out of all the other emotions coursing through me, too many to identify or name. I stare for a moment at my feet against her spotless car floor. There’s a blue pen that’s fallen, cap missing. “I don’t know why you asked for my help again after what I said last time,” I say, surprising myself. “But I told you I would do what I could, and I meant it. If you’re still on for Monday, I am too.”

  She looks over at me, jaw still tight.

  “I’m in,” she says.

  I nod and reach for the door again but don’t open it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “for last time. I-I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  Her rigid posture deflates a little. Her hands relax around the wheel and drop to loosely grasp the bottom of it. “I’m sorry too.”

  Her eyes flicker past me and catch on something for a long second. Then she looks at me again. Her normally bright blue gaze is dimmed, and not just from the lateness of the afternoon. If I had just left instead of saying something….

  I get out and trudge toward our peeling front door, which is piebald from exposure to the weather over time. One shutter, broken off from the window to the left of the door, is on the ground, braced against the wall. It’s been there for three years.

  I hear Scarlett’s car turning around, and soon the sound of her engine is fading away. I look up halfway to my door and that’s when I see him, the bulky, imposing figure of my father, framed in the right window.

  I groan and drop my chin to my chest. Scarlett must have observed him looming there like a bad omen. I open the door and decide to pretend like nothing’s unusual.

  “Hi, Daddy,” I say, dropping my bag and kissing him on the cheek.

  And immediately I’ve blown it: I rarely call him Daddy instead of Dad. Affecting a careless air, I shuck my coat and head toward the closet to hang it up.