Brooklyn in Love

by Amy Thomas

  But the couple has managed to not only maintain Ample Hills’ authenticity while growing to national recognition, but has also done it all while raising their two kids, now ten and seven. In the early days, Jackie was still teaching and she’d come to the original location in Prospect Heights after school, to run the front of the house and deal with staffing and resourcing. Later on, Brian would go pick the kids up from school and bring them to the shop, where they would do homework at the counter, and he developed ice cream flavors and products in the kitchen. When Jackie finally left her job at the school and joined Ample Hills full-time in 2015, she created internships for her old students to be “Amployees” at their scoop shops. In every way possible, Brian and Jackie have remained committed to running the business as a true family and community affair, and it’s an investment that has paid off.

  • • •

  The other side of commitment is having the strength to each be alone—which has always been one of the things I love about Andrew. Once we were on firm ground, confident in where we stood with each other, he never begrudged my occasional desire for a solo outing, be it an afternoon to myself, a weekend with girlfriends…or a trip to Paris.

  That spring, somewhere between clearing all the genetic tests and throwing a wedding, I flew to Paris for a week. It was something that we had talked about doing together, but Andrew had a restrictive vacation allotment and, truthfully, not as much of a burn to go. He decided he should save his vacation time for our honeymoon, but he encouraged me to go.

  So I went. I ate. I Vélib’d. I got to share my news about being pregnant in person with friends who always knew me as a proud single girl. When I told Mel, she laughed loudly and threw her arms around me. “When is she due?” she asked with her witchy sixth sense, not having been told yet that it was a girl. She had always had faith that I’d meet someone and get pregnant, and it was so gratifying to see her genuine delight.

  These were the moments that filled my soul. It reminded me of how much happiness I had found in Paris. But I had also had seriously low moments when I wondered what I was doing with my life—if I were destined to be alone, and if becoming a mother would ever be an option to me. It seemed almost surreal that I was now back with these questions happily answered.

  Yet visiting was also bittersweet. Being there made me realize that Paris was firmly in the past. Yes, my past, my story, but the city didn’t belong to me the same way it used to. When I’d first visited Paris after moving home to New York, it was always a great feeling of reunification. I saw friends and acquaintances, went back to favorite places, and felt wonderful and comfortable, things not having changed that much. I knew Paris was part of me and that even though I had chosen to leave it, I still had a rightful place there; a couple of years as a resident had given me an insider’s access and status.

  But it had now been two years since that rocky trip with Andrew, four years since I had lived there. So much had changed, and I felt my place and voice in Paris was but a blip, replaced by a new generation of expats who blogged and tweeted about it. They had inroads and friends, and were part of the fabric and scene that had evolved so much that it was foreign to me. I realized I no longer had that intimate familiarity; I didn’t have credibility or connections the way I used to.

  It was a bit sad but mostly liberating. More than anything, being in Paris alone, pregnant, knowing it was likely my last time to be there solo was a gift. I had wanted to reconnect with “my” city, to indulge in old behaviors, relive memories, and spend quality time there. And I did, and loved every minute of it.

  But I was excited to go back home. To return to Brooklyn. To Andrew. To my future chapter.

  • • •

  Back from Paris, it was back to reality. I was a pregnant woman and it was time to go for a level-two scan, when they do an intensive ultrasound to make sure the fetus’s skeleton, body parts, and internal organs are developing as they should be.

  Andrew hadn’t yet accompanied me to a doctor’s appointment, which so far had been pretty quick and rote. But this one warranted his presence. After all, it’s a whole different ball game when you hear a teeny heart beating at warp speed or see that alien-like object floating around the screen in front of you. I felt like a pro by now, hopping up on the table, leaning back into the crinkly paper, and folding my top up and pants down, so the technician could smear my belly with the gel that helped guide the ultrasound’s wand.

  In the darkened room, she quietly explained everything she was looking at on the screen. “There’s the left chamber, and there’s the right—that’s the heart,” the technician said, pointing out this itty-bitty pulsating bit on the screen. Andrew and I looked at each other in disbelief, like we did for nearly an hour, as the technician zoomed in and out, identifying and documenting the limbs and backbone, kidney and brain, mouth and nose that were suddenly, frighteningly human.

  “Incredible.” Andrew kept shaking his head. When he came home from work that night, the first thing he said was, “That was an amazing morning, babe.” The pregnancy was getting more real for both of us. It was like we still weren’t used to the idea that there was an actual baby growing inside of me. That we were going to be parents. Life kept chugging along like normal, but soon it was going to be unlike anything we had ever imagined.

  We had started a Sunday-night ritual. We’d get into bed, and Andrew would pull out the bestselling pregnancy tome What to Expect When You’re Expecting. He’d place his hand on my belly, which was now convex even when I was lying down, with a contented smile. “Up the fruit chain,” he would say as the book breaks down the development and growth by the week, relaying the size of the fetus to a fruit or vegetable. Our baby girl evolved from a blueberry to a kiwi to a grapefruit, as she developed eyelids and fingernails, and started sucking her thumb, getting the hiccups, and taking naps, all while I blithely rode back and forth on the subway, typing away on my computer, going about daily life.

  “Just rest your hand right there,” I told Andrew one of those nights as we read in bed. So he did, placing his left his hand on the bottom part of my belly where I had directed. We both laid there, quiet for a minute. Then Andrew jumped.

  “Did you feel it?” I asked.

  “Oh my God! That’s so weird!”

  I had just started feeling her move—first, little blips that felt like the ping of carbonation against a can of club soda and then more definitive thrusts against my skin. Andrew had just felt one of those thrusts. “That was her moving?” Andrew asked. “Do you feel that all the time?”

  “I’m starting to. Pretty weird, isn’t it?” We were both laughing. It was all so insane: three years ago, we were strangers to each other. Then we met, online of all places. Now we had built a home together and there was a little person that we had created growing inside of me.

  “Weird.” Andrew kissed me tenderly. “And wonderful.”

  When I turned out the light to go to bed, I couldn’t help but think how apropos it all was—my nontraditional love story: wonderful and weird.

  THE OVER-THE-TOP ICE CREAM SCENE

  Everyone screams for ice cream. Especially artisanal, small-batch, wild, and eccentric ice cream. As this new generation of scoop shops attest, Ample Hills was really on the forefront of a big boom.

  In 2009, a Big Gay Ice Cream truck started cruising Manhattan. It offered creations like the Bea Arthur, vanilla soft serve with dulce de leche and crushed Nilla Wafers, and the Salty Pimp, vanilla soft serve with dulce de leche, chocolate dip, and sea salt. In the fall of 2011, Big Gay partners Douglas Quint and Bryan Petroff opened their first of three brick-and-mortar shops in the city and continue to do awesome philanthropic work for the LBGTQ community through the business.

  Former pastry chef Sam Mason opened OddFellows in Williamsburg with two business partners in 2013 and has since developed upwards of two hundred ice cream flavors. Many aren’t for the faint of heart: cho
rizo caramel swirl, prosciutto mellon, and butter, to name a few. Good thing there are saner options in the mix like peanut butter & jelly, s’mores, and English toffee.

  A retro scoop shop off Bowery, Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream has been bringing fanciful flavors to mature palates since opening in 2014. Creator Nicholas Morgenstern, who hails from the restaurant world, makes small batches of elevated offerings such as strawberry pistachio pesto, lemon espresso, and Vietnamese coffee.

  Ice & Vice hails from the Brooklyn Night Bazaar in Greenpoint, and owners Paul Kim and Ken Lo brought it to the Lower East Side in 2015. Another shop devoted to quality small batches, along with weird and wacky flavors, you’ll find innovations like Farmer Boy, black currant ice cream with goat milk and buckwheat streusel, and Movie Night, buttered popcorn–flavored ice cream with toasted raisins and chocolate chips.

  CHAPTER 9

  It’s Not a Party without Cake

  It. Was. Amazing.

  Whenever anyone had said their wedding was the best day of their life, I thought they were just being dramatic. But as I lounged on the soft white beaches of Saint Bart’s in the days following our wedding, I found it hard to disagree. Our wedding was a weekend of overwhelming emotion, celebration, and bliss. I had never felt so loved, honored, and excited—so certain about exactly where I was and what I was doing with my life.

  In the end, Andrew and I managed to steer clear of many industry norms and surprised our guests with choices like my navy-blue bridesmaid dress instead of a traditional bridal gown and, in lieu of a sit-down dinner, plying everyone with mini lobster rolls and barbecue sliders in honor of our Connecticut and Kansas City roots. We created a ceremony that replaced religion with what’s most meaningful to us: family. Our parents and siblings gave speeches as the foundation of our ceremony, and they were the most incredible words ever spoken. AJ gave an amazing opening speech and Andrew’s brother, Dustin, officiated. Andrew and I wrote and recited our own vows to each other. Grown men cried. We let good food, booze, and music do the rest, everyone dancing until midnight with a full moon illuminating Manhattan’s skyline outside. And at the end of it all, holy cow, I was a married woman!

  Here’s how it all went down:

  The venue: The space at the New Museum was essentially a modern white box overlooking the downtown skyline. The new Freedom Tower and century-old Woolworth Building, along with the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges over the East River and all the myriad office towers and apartment buildings with their iconic water tanks in between were visible from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings could be seen from the wraparound balcony. We added some cocktail tables and chairs inside and outside, a few floral arrangements, and called the decorations done.

  The ceremony setup: There was no wedding aisle or pomp and circumstance. We had everyone come to the museum for happy hour. Guests simply stepped out of the oversized elevators and into a room full of friends, family, and the shadows of the setting sun outside. After about an hour, Dustin graciously ushered everyone together in the center of the room and welcomed them before ceding the mic to AJ.

  The speeches: In addition to having Dustin officiate, we had AJ, my mom, dad, and brother, Chris, and Andrew’s mother all share their words, thoughts, and memories. It was the best part of the whole wedding.

  AJ: Plagued by a certain level of insecurity in high school and college, AJ was a changed woman after getting her MBA and moving to Germany. There, she launched her career as a leadership development coach, traveling to such places as Moscow and Vienna to train C-level executives in how to be more effective in their jobs. In other words, she’s now a powerful and self-assured speaker. Even knowing that, having witnessed her transformation throughout the years, I was blown away.

  Without any notes, totally calm, poised, and beautiful, AJ walked among the gathering, offering an ode to our thirty years of friendship. She spoke about how our lives have paralleled each other since meeting in junior high and how much richer they are as a result. She brought Andrew in bit by bit, sharing small but pivotal moments like when we played cards with her mom and grandma, and how Andrew impressed them all with his cleverness and smarts—as a bona fide card shark. “And did you see that hair?” she asked more than once to cheers all around.

  My mom: A born-and-raised Yankee, my mom was not the kind of parent who tried to be your best friend, asking who was dating whom, where friends were going to college, how everyone was getting along. She’s warm and polite, thoughtful beyond belief, but she’s generally reserved, especially in group settings, so I was a bit nervous about her speaking before all the guests. I shouldn’t have been—she nailed it.

  Again, without any note cards—in fact, no one used notes, which is mind boggling—Mom shared her journey about having had Chris forty-five years earlier, knowing from the moment she found out she was pregnant that it was a boy. But she didn’t know when she was pregnant with me. Even after the nurses in the labor room told her it (I) was a girl, she didn’t believe them because she had wanted a girl so badly. She was so, so happy, and as I got older and started walking about, she was so excited to have her little princess to dress up in pink ruffles and Mary Janes, but I wouldn’t have it. I went wherever Chris went. I followed him and insisted on wearing the same work boots he did because I loved and admired him so. It was the story of motherhood made sweeter knowing that I was pregnant with a girl.

  My brother: Fittingly, Chris came next and, with restrained tears after my mom’s speech, confessed that the admiration and respect with which I always looked at him had at some point flipped; I was now the one he admired and respected. He said throughout my twenties and thirties, he always knew this day would come, when I would have found my match, someone to make me happy—as he knew Andrew did.

  Andrew’s mom: A warm, charismatic woman whom everyone always loves after one conversation, including me, Mary Jo gave a wonderful speech about how everyone thinks their child is “special”—but Andrew really is. She spoke proudly and lovingly about Andrew’s steady and sure path through life, his unique intelligence and compassion, and that the two of us doing what we love together truly brings out the best in him.

  My dad: Wrapping up the family portion of the ceremony, my dad, always good for some laughs, shared his inside joke that Andrew is actually “Prince Andrew,” covertly protecting a sprawling estate in Great Britain, complete with royal heritage and family crest. Then turning to proud-papa mode, he recounted how I’ve always exceeded his expectations academically and career-wise, moving to San Francisco on a whim after college and then giving all of that up to move to New York, doing it again to move to Paris, and now look where we were.

  The ceremony itself: “Who we love is a mystery,” Dustin said. “Trusting that love is a choice.” Dustin took the time to understand the path of Andrew and I coming together and wrote a beautiful ceremony honoring it. Filled with honesty and tenderness, weaving in many themes and memories, he recognized not just our love for each other but the importance of our friends and family. “This day, this moment, their wedding is their time to pause, be thankful, and celebrate with the people they love.” Amen.

  The vows: It was incredible how well the vows that Andrew and I wrote paralleled each other. We both emphasized our admiration and respect for each other and how being together makes each of us, and our lives, so much more complete. Andrew choked up near the end of reading his, and afterward, everyone kept saying how they cried—if it wasn’t Andrew who got them, it was one of the others. I couldn’t agree more.

  The videographer: My one regret is not having hired a videographer or tasking someone with recording that ceremony. It was seriously the most beautiful thing, more moving and meaningful than I ever could have hoped for. And except for the few notes I took to remember the night by, it’s all gone.

  The dress: In the end, I wore a strapless navy bridesmaid dress. Teenagers today
wear fancier dresses to their proms and probably try on ten times as many as I did. But I never saw myself in a billowy ball gown or body-con sheath. Shades of white and cream do nothing for my fair and freckled skin. The only gown I’ve ever coveted is a navy-and-white-striped Oscar de la Renta original that was once on the cover of InStyle magazine—not remotely in my price range even if I could track one down. Besides, you just have to wear what feels natural and what you feel fabulous in, and a navy-blue bridesmaid dress did it for me.

  The music: Our music was all over the place, in the best way possible. When guests first arrived at the museum, jazz was playing. But not just any jazz—it was Russ Long, Andrew’s uncle who was a well-known composer, singer, and pianist back in Kansas City before passing away in 2006. For our first dance, Andrew and I chose “At Last,” to acknowledge our late-in-life meeting, and opted for Beyoncé’s rendition to bring a modern edge to the Etta James classic.

  From then on, it was a full-on dance fest. From Blondie to Rihanna, Phoenix to Journey, the Cure to JAY-Z, we broke out the hits, with everyone young and old representing. My ten-year-old niece did the running man in the middle of a dance circle, Andrew’s parents made the Pointer Sisters look cool, my dear friend from San Francisco did a solo performance to Spandau Ballet’s “Gold,” and Chris, Dustin, and seemingly every other guy on the floor broke out their fiercest air guitar. But I was perhaps most impressed by my new husband, who busted out dance moves even I’d never seen before, slaying us all with his hip-hop style.