Melt
Every Tuesday and Thursday I take the sad, rusted-on-the-edges yellow cart to the museum. Over cracked concrete and slivers of grass I roll; park myself under shady trees and listen to the hundreds of stories that whisper my way. My uncle owns at least fifteen ice cream carts; all rusty, all yellow, all like crooked bones about to break. They keep the ice cream cold and that’s all that matters. Hair sticky to his head and calculator fingers always on the table; he’s a real businessman. Dress pants with pleats and circles of rain under his arms, just like in the movies. He wears shoes that sparkle and eyes too; white Chiclet teeth and perfect Barbie eyebrows that my aunt Tia fixes for him. He is who he is and so I let him be, pleated pants and all. That’s because he gives me a job so I can buy novels and new ballet shoes when I need to. All of heaven knows I’d be lost without the novels and shoes to dance in. The Grandmother says I need Flamenco shoes. Those are the real dancing shoes. She tells me that my hips are meant for swaying not sticking. “Yes, child, they are much too wide for sticking.“
“Is that so?” I ask. And then I answer my own question. “That is certainly not so.” The old-fashioned grandmother does not know about my dancing, my ballet dancing; she only knows about drinking too much coffee and what it is to live with a brain smaller than two-stacked pennies.
Uncle Ray knows that people like ice cream so much they don’t even notice when he hikes up the price threefold the market value. They’ll buy it just the same. $3.50 for a lousy ice cream sandwich, no problem. “Kids, do you want one? Give me four.” the men with the bellies and women with the babies screech.
“Convenience.” Uncle Ray says.
I say “Lazy”
It works out pretty good though, the ice cream cart business. Because between my cousins and brothers and sisters and everyone else who works for the rich uncle, there are enough carts to go around. Not him though, he just counts the money. “One, ten, twenty dollars. You didn’t sell enough ice cream.” He complains. I shrug like I don’t care. I don’t care. I tell him we’re in a recession and also that people want better ice cream. They want the kind with the good chocolate and with real gumballs at the bottom of the cup. I might be a kid, no diploma in my hand, but kids know ice cream.
I like selling at the museum best. People walking around, not complaining too much; my kind of people. I figure if you spend twenty-two dollars just to look at stuff in clear boxes you probably don’t have too much to worry about. People who pay to look at “things” are happy and probably have office jobs and convertibles and spare bedrooms. They are also dumb, because if they were smart they would know to just get on the Internet for free and Google search all those images. They’re on vacation though, not thinking too much about the economics of frugality. They’re high from vacation laughter. It’s the kind of laughing that comes from turning off cell phones and listening to your family.
I try not to judge too harshly though; they are blind and happy and carry small bills. At home, they are stoic and angry, glued to excel spreadsheets and lukewarm television dinners. They have air conditioning inside their homes and fake shutters on their windows. They buy fancy running shoes with reflective tape on the sides for and extra measure of security even though they never run at night. They are on vacation and so they are different. I smile and nod and think about these things as they walk over to my cart to buy overpriced ice cream.
The man with the curly hair and heavy glasses talks to me today. Is full of questions and comments and small smiles. Asks me this and that, does not ask me for my phone number. He’s on vacation like the others- only he doesn’t wear sneakers with reflective tape on the sides. He doesn’t buy ice cream either. Instead he talks about calories and frozen fruit. Most men don’t talk about calories or fruit. Most men also try to get my telephone number.
This man, the one with the curly hair sits next to me under the spidery shade tree. His friends line the edge of the concrete as they wait for bus 151. A boy with jeans not wide enough for real legs and two girls that I have no opinion of laugh an uncomfortable laugh as the curly one invites strangers to buy ice cream from my cart. No one comes, but I do not mind.
People at the museum aren’t counting pennies to buy their kids Butterfinger ice cream treats. No, not like down at the park, where I’d rather not sell for Uncle Ray. Everybody knows the worst place to sell ice cream is at the park by the water where the people with no jobs go sit. I always ask Tico, my cousin-friend to take the park.
What does he care? He does not care. Just as long as he gets to finish his Geometry homework before the shift is over, that’s all Tico cares about.
The boys at the park come close and pretend to be interested in my ice cream. They know how to pretend, fumble their hands in their pockets and never buy anything at all. They make small promises of pizza dinners and what it would be like to be their girl. I ignore all of it. “Angel face” they say. “I am not yours.” I make myself clear. I am mine and mine alone. With my novels and French music and gentle ballerina feet, I am not theirs. Tattoos on their necks and nothing in their heads, I don’t want anything to do with the park boys. Bandannas and bad news, I’d rather keep my distance. I’d rather keep my head in the clouds where I store a Rolodex of all the people I want to be before I die.
Tomorrow I’ll be the first female President. The next day I don’t know. Maybe I’ll want to be Madeline Albright or Joan of Arc. Right now though, right now, in this very moment I’ll be the girl who sells ice cream and talks to the man with the curly hair. I’ll sit under the shade tree waiting for it to be six o’ clock when Uncle Ray comes with the tired blue truck to pick me up.
