Stay Sweet

by Siobhan Vivian

  Near the end of the evening, a little before eleven, Amelia has four gallons of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla completed, as well as several bases of Home Sweet Home steeping. They’ll be ready to put through the machine tomorrow morning.

  She goes upstairs to see if Grady can give her a ride down to the stand with the new stock. It’s been quiet, and she wonders if she’s going to catch him asleep on the couch. She actually hopes she will, just to scare him, because it will be funny.

  But Grady isn’t asleep. He’s on the floor, with his back up against the couch, his mother’s letters spread out in front of him.

  Amelia tiptoes backward, but he looks up. “Hey.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “No, you’re not.” He beckons her closer. She sits next to him, leans against him.

  He has opened every one.

  “I was so little when she died,” he tells her. “I don’t have that many memories of her beyond that summer I spent with her here. It’s been nice learning about her, in her own voice.”

  “Tell me.”

  He does, pointing out some small thing in each and every letter: his mother’s terrific penmanship, how she was funny, quick to make a joke, smart. There’s never a clunky sentence, or a half-formed thought.

  Also, she loved her son. Every letter had some proud mention of him—how alert he was as a baby, how early he started to walk, how much he enjoyed being read to at night.

  “And I was going to throw these away,” he says, almost in disbelief.

  Grady’s mother also dropped plenty of delicate hints of tension in her marriage to Grady’s father, mentioning how hard he worked, how his desire for success often left her and Grady in the shadows. She made excuses as to why plans to visit Molly evaporated for one reason or another—a new acquisition, a meeting that couldn’t be rescheduled. He wanted to give his family the world, provide for them, but it came at a cost.

  “I’m nineteen years old. And do you know I’ve barely had one conversation with my dad about my mom? Like, how screwed up is that?”

  “It doesn’t sound like he made it easy on you.”

  “Oh, he definitely didn’t. Talking about my mom made him uncomfortable, but that shouldn’t have stopped me from doing it. My stepmom wouldn’t have cared. For a while, she was the one who’d remind me when it was my mom’s birthday.” Amelia can see the anger building in him, a little pulsing vein in his neck, fire reddening his cheeks.

  He picks up a letter. “He knew my mom was sick when she and I came to Meade Creamery that summer before she died. I thought he didn’t. I thought he found out after and that’s why he couldn’t come with us.”

  “Oh, Grady. I’m sorry.”

  “I mean, does he regret that? Knowing his wife was sick and not being with her? Not stepping away from work?”

  “You could talk about it with him. Tell him what you found. It might start to change things between you and your dad.”

  “Maybe,” he says, gathering up the letters, though Amelia isn’t sure he believes it.

  Amelia gets a text. It’s Cate.

  Are you working late?

  No.

  Then can you come down for couple of minutes? I can give you a ride home.

  On my way!

  Grady helps Amelia pack up the Cadillac with the ice cream, and then he drives her down to the stand. Popping open the trunk, he pauses, taking it in.

  “Where were those boards you said were rotting?”

  Amelia had forgotten about the repairs the stand needed. Things have been so crazy. “Over here.” She has to use the light of her cell phone to show him which ones.

  “And there was something else, right?”

  “The roof tiles. A bunch of them are loose and broken. But if you do anything up there, please don’t throw any away.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say.” Grady’s phone rings. It’s his dad. He puts it to voice mail. “You sure I can’t drive you home? I really don’t mind.”

  “Cate’s got me tonight. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He helps her carry the ice cream inside. All the girls are in the office. Not just the ones on shift. All of them. They’re laughing and talking, though when they see Grady, things get hushed.

  “Thanks for the help,” Amelia says.

  “Of course.” He looks like he wants to kiss her, and of course she would love him to. Instead, he gives her hand a quick squeeze.

  Amelia walks into the office.

  Cate says, “Ugh. Is he gone?”

  Amelia’s heart lurches, but she tries not to let it show. Though lots of things are changing, Grady is still their enemy. “Yeah. What’s going on?”

  “Staff meeting. Girls only.” Cate claps her hands. “Okay, girls! I know we’ve had quite a rocky start to this summer. The ice cream drama, Grady . . . and, of course, Bern’s unfortunate sparkler incident last night.”

  At this, all the girls crack up, and Bern acts indignant but then joins in. Amelia smiles, even though she doesn’t know the story.

  “But some big, breaking news today. Amelia has taken over ice cream production.” Cate gestures to Amelia, and there’s a smattering of applause. “And”—Cate flicks her hair off her shoulder, so that the Head Girl pin is visible—“I’ll be taking over down here.”

  The girls gasp and rush over to Cate, examining the pin on her collar.

  Amelia bites the inside of her cheek.

  “To me, being a Meade Creamery girl has always been about hanging out and having fun with some of the coolest girls I’ve ever met. Yes, we busted our butts, we earned every penny in our paychecks, but we always had a blast doing it. So much so that it almost didn’t feel like work at all, you know?” Cate sighs wistfully. “But that’s the exact opposite of how it’s felt around here this summer. In fact, I’m kind of shocked that none of you have quit yet.”

  A few of the girls laugh nervously, like they’ve been outed. Amelia forces down a swallow, though her throat and mouth are bone dry. Did it really come close to that? Girls quitting? It seems unfathomable to her.

  Glancing around, Amelia realizes no one will look at her. Not a single girl.

  Maybe she is to blame, Amelia thinks. By leaving them short-staffed all those shifts. By not throwing any parties, planning any adventures. Amelia never showed up with a cool lipstick for everyone to try. She was too busy pestering them to clean.

  “But today’s a fresh start.” Cate looks over at Amelia and winks. “Today, we’re taking our summer back.”

  Amelia thinks if the fresh start Cate’s promising will help hit the reset button on everyone’s perception of her, then she’s all for it. So when she sees her chore chart crumpled in the trash, Amelia makes herself look somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  WHEN IT COMES TO MAKING ice cream, Amelia is getting better, faster, more efficient. Like this morning, instead of plucking individual honeysuckle flowers, she’s in the driveway using a pair of pruning shears to snip blossom-laden branches, putting those glass vases inside Molly Meade’s cabinets to good use.

  “Amelia! Can you come here for a sec?” Cate is standing half out the side stand door, waving her hands.

  Amelia sets down her bundle and heads to the stand.

  She’s thinking maybe Cate has a question for her about something stand-related. She’s probably diving into the things Amelia has been neglecting. “How’s it going?”

  “Terrific!”

  Amelia looks at the tip jar. It’s bursting with money. “Looks like you’re killing it today.”

  “Customers are happy again, now that all the flavors are back.” Cate smiles, pleased, and dumps the jar out on the desk. “You should talk to Grady. However long he’s going to have you up at the house, you’re losing out on tips.” She starts smoothing out her bills.

  “That’s true,” Amelia says, though she has no intention of talk
ing to Grady about that. She has been happy working up at the house. On the corner of the desk, she notices a stack of papers.

  Newbie applications. There are maybe fifty, filled out.

  “I put them out yesterday,” Cate says, and then winks. “Word travels fast.”

  “You’re hiring newbies? But summer’s half over.”

  “Um, yeah! How else is the legacy supposed to go on? You want Bern or Sophie to have to hire and train five girls next summer?”

  “That’s true.”

  Cate peels the top application off the stack. It’s been flagged with a little pink Post-it. “Listen to what this girl wrote for why she wants to work here. Mostly looking to up my tolerance for ice cream headaches. Also, cash money.” Cate giggles. “You know she’s going to be fun to work with.”

  “She sounds like a young you,” Amelia says.

  “That wouldn’t be the worst thing. Double the big tip earners!” Cate shuffles some papers to the next one she’s flagged. “And listen to this one.” She clears her throat. “I’m brand-new to Sand Lake and I have no friends. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ll take any shift you’ve got. I’ve seriously got nothing else to do this summer.” Cate puts down the paper. “How great would this be for her? She’ll meet people, she’ll get to arrive at high school next year and have friends. This summer could change her life.”

  Amelia smiles. Cate’s right. This is important. A job at Meade Creamery could completely change someone’s life.

  Cate picks a third newbie résumé out of the pile for a reason she does not share. Then she lifts the receiver of the black telephone.

  “Wait. I’m just wondering if maybe you shouldn’t clear these with Grady first.” Cate frowns, and Amelia treads lightly. “I just don’t want him to raise any objections after the fact.”

  Cate bristles at the suggestion. “That’s not how it’s ever worked. The Head Girl makes the call. And that’s me.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Cate dials her first pick. She uses a low voice to say, “Kimmy Fox, you have been chosen as a Meade Creamery girl. Get ready to have the best summer of your life.”

  Amelia can hear giggling and screaming on the other end.

  As Cate phones her next girl, Amelia remembers when she got the call.

  It came in as her family sat down to dinner. Amelia had gotten some texts from friends who’d just heard Cate Kopernick had been hired for one of the two openings.

  If Cate was the kind of girl they were looking for, then Amelia knew she had no chance. But she still waited with hope during the next few minutes for her phone to ring, before slowly setting her hot dog down, nudging her dinner plate away, and lowering her forehead to the table.

  Her dream, dashed.

  “I guess it was naive of us to think she wouldn’t start acting like a high schooler until September,” her mom said, a bite of salad hanging from her fork. Her dad, who was turned sideways from the table so he could see the baseball game on the television in the living room, laughed.

  And then her phone rang.

  She pushed back hard from the table, knocking her mom’s lemonade over. Amelia said sorrysorrysorry before bolting out the back door and across the lawn to the shed. Leaning against it, she took a deep breath before answering.

  The girl on the other end didn’t introduce herself, though Amelia knows now it was Frankie Ko. All she said was “You’re in. See you tomorrow at eleven sharp.”  Then the line went dead.

  Later that night, she got a text from Cate. Amelia still isn’t sure who gave Cate her number. She was friendly with Cate, but no one would have called them friends. Cate was in the group of girls who took a limo to the eighth-grade dinner dance. But they texted the entire night, all caps and exclamation marks. Even if they weren’t close, they knew that by the end of that summer they would be. That was the magic of Meade Creamery.

  “You call the last girl?” Cate says, holding out the receiver.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Amelia! Come on. Don’t you want to be a part of this?”

  She does. And it is nice of Cate to include her. Amelia takes the phone while Cate dials.

  “What’s her name?” Amelia asks, but the girl picks up before Cate can tell her.

  “Hello?” comes a small voice.

  Amelia tries to hang up the phone, because she hasn’t even thought about what to say, but Cate pushes her hand away, laughing.

  “Hello?” the girl says.

  Amelia clears her throat and makes her voice low, but it gets stuck somewhere in her throat. “Hello. You’ve been hired at Meade Creamery for this summer.” The girl on the other end sounds like she’s going to hyperventilate. Amelia swears she can hear her smiling. “Be here tomorrow at noon o’clock.” Noon o’clock? Amelia looks at Cate, who busts up laughing and tries to muffle it by pressing her face into one of the love seat cushions.

  “Wait. Is this a joke?” the girl on the phone asks.

  “No. Not a joke. See you tomorrow,” Amelia says, back in her normal voice, and then quickly hangs up.

  Cate is still dying. “Noon o’clock!”

  “Oh my God, I suck!”

  * * *

  The pink Cadillac pulls in as Amelia’s leaving. Grady has the trunk open and filled with lumber, the backseat with brand-new tools.

  “What’s all this?”

  “I was up early, looking at the stand. It’s actually in worse shape than you thought. It’s kind of a miracle this place is still standing.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to replace all the rotting boards, seal the concrete, and try to figure out a fix for the roof that keeps those signatures in place. A Home Depot guy was talking about this water sealant I can try. And when I’m done, the stand will be good as new.”

  “You’ve got time for this? With all your schoolwork? And the stand stuff?” That said, she understands his urgency. Grady’s avoided dealing with his mother’s death for too long. Fortifying the stand is a chance for him to right some of those wrongs.

  Grady’s cell phone rings. He quickly puts the call through to voice mail, and the look on his face when he does it tells Amelia exactly who it is. “Yeah. This is important.”

  * * *

  Later that day, Amelia makes herself a dish of ice cream and takes it out to the front stairs of Molly’s house. The echo of Grady’s hammer can be heard all the way up here. She opens the diary on her lap.

  July 30, 1945

  It’s the night before I’ll be selling the ice cream at our farm stand. I’ve tried my best to prepare, get familiar with my new machine, which only arrived three days ago. Tiggy stayed so late tonight, helping me to get everything set up. She’s never worked harder in her life but she didn’t complain, not once.

  I love her so much.

  Meanwhile, every time Mother sees my ice cream machine, she frowns. And she tells everyone exactly how expensive it was.

  If this ice cream thing doesn’t work, I told her I’ll sell it. She says I’ll have to, or else I’ll be marrying Wayne in a Sunday dress in the fields.

  She says that to scare me, but if that’s the worst thing that happens, I think I’ll be fine.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  AMELIA TRIES HER BEST TO keep Molly’s Cadillac centered on the driveway as she drives down to the stand with a trunk full of ice cream, but this proves an unfortunately difficult task for someone who can barely see over the dashboard. The vehicle rocks over the lumpy dirt—an off-kilter pink tank—and every time the brush scrapes and claws like fingers against the doors, Amelia shrieks.

  Grady has started keeping the car keys on the table near the entryway for her, so Amelia can use it when she needs to. She is surprised at how rusty she feels behind the wheel, though she probably shouldn’t be. Amelia got her license this past spring but she hardly ever drives. She gets around fine on her bike, since her family only has one car. Plus, Cate’s always around to drive them wherever they need to go.
But the speed with which her heart races on these trips up and down the driveway, compared to the speedometer needle fluttering at just under five miles per hour, is probably a sign she should practice more.

  Amelia parks alongside Cate’s truck, but she doesn’t find Cate in the stand with the other girls.

  “Is she here?”

  “Yeah,” Jen says, thumbing outside. “She’s waiting for the newbies.”

  Amelia walks outside to the front of the stand. And there is Cate, perched on the picnic table, her blond hair long and catching the breeze. She’s wearing makeup—eyeliner winged, a touch of pink blush, cherry-red lip gloss—and her arms and legs are coated in her favorite vanilla bean lotion, the one that has a bit of sparkle mixed in. Her Keds are new and spotless.

  “You look amazing.”

  “Thanks. You know, I’ve wanted to do this, to be this girl, ever since our first summer,” Cate sheepishly admits.

  “Do you need help with anything?”

  “Nope,” Cate says. “Though, if you could get Grady out of here, that’d be amazing. There are all these huge holes in the stand now. It’s embarrassing.”

  Over her shoulder, Amelia watches Grady determinedly yanking off wooden boards with a crowbar. From a distance, he looks like he knows what he’s doing, but Amelia knows better. He has Band-Aids on every finger. When she turns back, the three newbies are approaching. One comes by bicycle, and the other two are dropped off by a grandpa-type. She lingers, wanting to see Cate do her thing.

  Cate tosses them each a polo shirt. “Okay, girls, I know I don’t have to tell you how special this place is.” Grinning, Cate leans back, resting her weight on her elbows. “But trust me that it’s even more special once you’re behind the counter with us. If you prove yourself worthy over the next few days, you’ll never be a plain old customer again. You’ll be a Meade Creamery girl. And that lasts forever.”

  Amelia is happy to hear Cate say it. Sometimes it feels like they don’t hold Meade Creamery in the same regard.

  Cate goes on, “We take care of each other in here, the way sisters do. No one risks sneaking off to text their boyfriend when a school bus full of campers might pull up. No one’s going to wimp out and not empty the trash cans even if there are bees around. We may not always get along perfectly, but not one girl here would ever think of taking the last tampon out of the box in the office without dropping off a new box the next day, whether they were on the schedule or not. You know what I mean?”