When she finishes cleaning up, there’s about ten minutes left on the timer. She goes upstairs to Molly’s office.
She could, and probably should, sort through the contents of one more banker’s box. But her mind hinges back to the diary.
May 27, 1945
After V-E Day, everyone in Sand Lake is cautiously optimistic that the war will end soon. But fear still darkens me most days.
Here are my three greatest worries.
1. Wayne will die and we will never be married.
2. One or both of my brothers will die and my family—my mother in particular—will never recover.
3. Our dairy will not survive.
On a good day, I can mostly push them out of my head. But lately, it’s been harder. And this week, I’ve been in a sheer panic.
I haven’t gotten a letter from Wayne since the beginning of May.
The girls go out of their way to tell me what a mess the mail service is over there, with the boys getting moved around so much. Or how Sylvia Schur hadn’t heard from Neil George for weeks, only to get a bundle of five letters at once.
I have kept writing to him anyway. That’s the only thing I can do. I write my brothers, too, every Sunday, even though they never write me back, just Mother.
Making ice cream for the girls is my only relief right now. When I’m not, I’m sour as a lemon. And I know I’ve been terrible to Tiggy. Bless her, she lets me have my moments.
If I get a letter, everything will be OK .
Please, God, send him home to me.
When the batch is done, Amelia scoops a ball into a teacup and brings it upstairs. Grady is back at work in the living room, intensely typing on his laptop; his brow is furrowed, and he’s muttering quietly to himself. He reminds her of how her mom and her dad look every year around tax time. Like they are having no fun at all.
“I have something for you to try.”
“Hey!” He shuts his laptop. “Is that what I think it is?” His blues brighten as he bolts up, hurdles the coffee table, and races over to her.
“Please don’t be excited. I mean, it’s edible. But it’s not very good.”
He takes the spoon. “Amelia! What are you talking about? This is great! You’ve conquered vanilla!”
“It’s not,” she insists. “Take another taste, but this time, rub the ice cream against the roof of your mouth.” Grady does as instructed. “Do you taste those little waxy pieces?”
“Yeah.”
“That means I let it churn too long. Also, it barely tastes like vanilla. Molly’s vanilla was like . . . pow. Mine is a whisper.” She sighs. “I want to cook up another batch, but I need more ingredients.”
“I’ll head to the store right now,” and his enthusiasm makes her laugh. “Anything else I can do?”
“Keep looking for the recipes when you get back,” Amelia says. “And pray for rain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TURNS OUT THERE ARE LOTS of ways to screw up ice cream. Turns out it’s not easy to make something not just good, but deliciously good. Molly’s ice creams, Amelia realizes now, are deceptively simple. There’s chocolate and then there’s chocolate, like comparing a Hershey’s Kiss with a Godiva truffle. And though her failures gives her a newfound respect for Molly, it’s also incredibly frustrating, because she is so painfully far from getting it right.
Still, she keeps at it for the rest of the day, batch after batch, cycling through all aspects of the process, cooking up a new base with ingredients slightly tweaked from the last, while another batch cools in the blast chiller, while another one churns inside the ice cream maker. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Her arms feel heavier than after gym class push-ups, and her lower back aches from standing. And yet, time passes like magic. Hours feel like minutes, minutes feel like nothing.
If the learning curve weren’t so steep, Amelia might believe she was getting somewhere.
There is no eyeballing, no freestyling, the way her dad likes to in the kitchen, a pinch of this, a glug of that. Making ice cream isn’t cooking, it’s chemistry. Unfortunately, Amelia got a B in chemistry her sophomore year, unjustly she believed, and she never forgave Mr. Dunlap for it, returning his hellos with a frown for the rest of high school once she got her report card. Now she knows a B was too generous. Cringing, she thinks about apologizing to him the next time he comes to the stand, maybe even paying for his order out of her tips.
Take chocolate. Add too much of Molly’s homemade fudge sauce and the ice cream is thin and runny. Too little, and the chocolate flavor is nothing but an undertone, muted by other ingredients. Or it might taste decent as a finished base out of the blast chiller, but once it goes through the ice cream machine, the flavor is cloudy.
And that’s just the flavoring. If the measurement of any ingredient isn’t just right, the ice cream comes out gritty, or buttery, or eggy.
Timing is also a huge issue. Churn it too little in the ice cream machine and it pours out a slushy mess that won’t ever firm up, no matter how long you put it in the deep freezer. Churn it too long and the ice cream comes out solid as a brick, hard enough to snap a plastic spoon in half.
It’s an almost-impossible puzzle that Amelia must solve three different times, for vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.
And Home Sweet Home? She doesn’t even know where to start with that one.
The clock is ticking, and the remaining stock dwindling.
Grady comes down looking somber. “I have bad news.”
“What?” Amelia doesn’t take her eyes off the whirling ice cream machine, like a kid too close to the television. The batch she’s churning now is the closest she’s come. Good dark color, good depth of chocolateyness when the base went in.
“I’ve gone through all the boxes upstairs. No recipes.” His voice is almost toneless, resigned.
It’s all on her now.
Amelia pushes the lever and a stream of ice cream comes sliding out the chute.
Grady asks, “Can I try?”
But Amelia sees something she doesn’t like. The color is . . . off. She takes a taste and knows immediately. It’s tainted. “I forgot to clean the machine out from the last batch of strawberry I ran.”
“Chocolate and strawberries go together, though, right? That’s a thing!” Grady says, trying to be helpful.
She bites her lip and stares up at the ceiling, hoping to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling down her cheeks. She made a dumb mistake because she’s tired. But there’s no time for dumb mistakes. She takes the entire drum over to the sink and turns on the hot water full blast so the ice cream breaks apart and sinks down the drain.
“Amelia, wait! It could have been good—”
“No. I screwed it up.”
He softens his tone when he sees how near to tears she is. “At this point, I think we give up on right and aim for good enough.”
Amelia shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
The front doorbell rings.
Jogging upstairs, he says, “You can’t let this get personal. It’s business.”
Amelia leans her hands against the counter, stretches her back. Everything about this business is becoming very personal to her.
“So this is where the magic happens.” Cate comes down the stairs.
Amelia rushes over and almost tackles her in a hug. “Cate!”
“I’ve been texting you all afternoon.” Cate squeezes her back, then peels away, concerned. “You’re soaked.”
Amelia glances down at herself. There are sweat marks on her shirt, from her armpits down to her waist.
“No air-conditioning.” She feels woozy and leans against the refrigerator. It’s cool against her skin. “What time is it?”
“Six thirty.” Cate’s tone is clipped. “Have you had dinner yet? Or even lunch?”
“I’ll order us some pizza,” Grady volunteers, having only made it halfway down the stairs before he pivots and heads back up.
“She might not
want pizza,” Cate calls back, snippy. And then, to Amelia, “You’ve been working for how long today? Have you taken even one break?”
“Nine hours? Ten?” Amelia says. “And no, not yet.”
Grady descends the basement steps, uneasy. “Pizza’s on the way. Cate, do you want to join us?”
“I don’t think so,” Cate says.
“Oh, and Amelia, I can drive you home tonight, whenever you want to call it quits,” Grady offers.
Cate gives a thin-lipped smile to Grady. To Amelia, she says sharply, “Walk me out?”
It feels disorienting to be outside after spending hours in Molly Meade’s basement. Amelia takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air and the pinkish evening light. “Thanks. I think you’re right. I needed this to clear my head.”
“Is something going on between you and Grady?”
Amelia startles. “No. I’m . . . just trying to help the stand.”
“How do you see this ending?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
Cate takes her by the shoulders. “Well, maybe you should? Before you get trapped up here, making ice cream day in and day out like Molly Meade.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I know you. You’re sensitive, you’re caring, and you’ll do anything for anybody. Those are the things I love best about you, Amelia, but they also make you vulnerable to getting taken advantage of. You are so invested in this ice cream stand and helping Grady be a success. And you’ve known him for what? A couple of weeks?”
“I . . . want to figure this out.”
Cate shakes her head. “If I’d known it would be like this . . .”
“Like what?”
“Let me ask you something: Is this the summer you wanted? Because I gotta be honest. It’s not the one I wanted. I mean, sure, I’m having fun with all the girls, but I wish you were with me.”
A lump rises in Amelia’s throat. “I know. I do too.” Has she let Grady take advantage of her niceness?
“We’ve worked one week with each other this summer. One. Week. We’re short-staffed, I’m picking up all your slack, trying to keep everyone happy and having fun for no thanks, no extra pay. And the reason why I came back was so that we could hang out together! I mean, that’s how you said it would be.”
“I’m sorry,” Amelia whispers.
“What are you even doing down there? Just, like, Frankensteining a bunch of random recipes together?”
“Basically.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“Except it’s really not. Sure, I’m tired. I’m frustrated. But I’m having fun trying to solve this puzzle.”
“It’s sounds like you have Stockholm syndrome.”
“I think I’m getting close.”
“To Home Sweet Home?”
“No. I haven’t even attempted that one. I’m talking about chocolate. Less so on strawberry. Every batch comes out icy. And with vanilla, I’m still—”
“Will you please listen to yourself? You sound ridiculous!”
Amelia gazes down at her Keds. Yes, she looks terrible. And yes, she was just crying. But this is important to her, and she doesn’t understand why Cate’s dismissing that. “If I can’t get this right, Meade Creamery is going to close. All the girls will be out of jobs.”
“When Molly died, I got another job that same day. We can get other jobs. So who cares?”
Amelia nods like she concedes Cate’s point, even though she does care. She can’t explain why, but she cares so freaking much.
Cate continues, “And to be honest, I doubt any of the girls will want to come back after this summer. The freezer is almost empty. You’re totally MIA. They know something’s up. I’m doing my best to keep Grady’s secret, but there’s a major undercurrent of what the hell is going on here.”
Amelia’s phone alarm begins to chime. Another batch is ready to go into the ice cream machine. Another chance, hopefully another step closer.
“I promise I will make this up to you! And all the girls, too!” Amelia says, backing away from Cate. But making amends will have to happen later.
Back in the basement, she finds Grady waiting for her, wringing his hands. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.”
“You don’t have to stay. I know this is my problem. And I don’t want to cause trouble between you and Cate.”
“I want to stay,” Amelia says. And it feels good to tell someone, even if it’s just Grady, that tiny truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AMELIA LETS HERSELF IN THE next morning. She’s halfway to the basement door when Grady grabs her hand. “Hey. How about some breakfast? You’ll see I wasn’t lying about being good at eggs.” He pulls her one, two steps toward the kitchen, with a friendly smile.
Amelia imagines Grady in the Truman dorms, the morning after a frat party, making the same pitch to get a girl to cut class and watch TV in his twin bed.
In the next second, she imagines she is that girl.
The thought is intoxicating but also scary. Having that freedom, no parents around watching to make sure she’s sleeping in her own bed at night.
But Grady is off-limits. And if there’s any line that Amelia absolutely, positively cannot cross, it’s that one.
“I’m good, thanks. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
Before starting up another batch, Amelia opens Molly’s diary and consults the last entry she read before falling asleep the night before.
June 5, 1945
One of my mother’s bridge friends told me about a trick yesterday afternoon. You know you’ve got a real diamond in your engagement ring if it’ll scratch glass.
When I told Tiggy, she said, “Maybe you should check yours.”
And I said, “Wayne Lumsden would never propose marriage to me with a fake diamond.”
“So, try it,” she teased. “Unless you’re scared.”
The only thing that scared me was how much Tiggy seemed to want my diamond to be fake.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. The truth is that Tiggy and Wayne have never gotten along.
Tiggy thinks Wayne’s cocky. She’s not wrong. He is. But I’ve always loved his confidence. He seems so much stronger than any of the boys in our grade. I think it’s because of what he went through in his family, left to fend for himself at such a young age. When it’s just me and him, he’s sweet as a kitten, but I’ve seen him get hot-tempered plenty. Since he shipped out, I’ve come to think of this as a blessing, because I know Wayne can handle whatever comes his way over there.
But boy oh boy, does he love to tease Tiggy. I wish I’d never told him that it bothers her, because once I did, he seemed to enjoy doing it even more. Sometimes he’ll even rib her in the letters he sends to me, knowing I read them out loud to the other girls. Near the end, he’ll write something like, “Tell Tig I’ve been passing her picture around to the single guys in my unit. So far, no takers besides our cook. He’s sixty and only has three fingers, but beggars can’t be choosers.” I am always careful to skip over those parts.
I honestly think they’re a bit jealous of each other. Which is silly. I can have room in my life for a best friend and a husband.
Anyway, Tiggy wouldn’t let it drop, so I slid the ring off my finger and went to the basement window. But before I made a scratch, I told Tig that, real diamond or not, Wayne and I were getting married.
And in my next letter, I’m telling Wayne that Tig’s agreed to be my maid of honor.
If I get my way, the three of us (plus Tig’s future husband, whoever he may be) are going to live Happily Ever After, here in Sand Lake, for the rest of our days.
Setting down the diary, Amelia pulls back the curtains on every basement window until she finds the etching on the glass.
Mrs. Wayne Lumsden.
There’s a loud rumble. Amelia shifts her focus from the scratches to the horizon, thinking it might be a storm rolling in. But the sun is out, there’s not a
cloud in the sky. Then she realizes the rumbling is Grady’s feet on the floor above her, louder as he runs from the living room down the hallway and pulls open the basement door.
Amelia lets go of the curtain. She doesn’t have time to hide the diary before Grady’s hopping down the stairs two at a time. It’s in plain sight, right on the couch.
Luckily, he’s too frantic to notice.
“Amelia, I need your help right now.” He takes her hand and pulls her back the way he just came.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I just got a text from my dad. He’s back in the States. He’s on his way over here to check up on me. And if he thinks I’m not doing a good job, he’s going to make me sell the place.”
Her stomach lurches. “Are you serious? I thought your family lived in Chicago.”
“He’s part of this private jet club. He can go anywhere at any time!” He shakes his head, panting, “Everything needs to be perfect. And I need to look like I’m in charge.”
“You are in charge,” Amelia reminds him, pointing to the misaligned buttons on his shirt.
Grady gives her a pained stare. “Please help me. If he finds out about the ice cream, that we’re days from going out of business . . .”
Amelia wants him to finish. But he’s so panicked, her own heart starts to race.
Grady and Amelia grab all his papers and textbooks, shove the pile into the Cadillac, and together they drive everything down to the stand. He can’t bear to look at the jalopy of a food truck, still parked in the same place it’s been since the day he bought it.
Cate’s in the office, her bare feet up on the desk, painting her toenails. She’s so startled, she flinches and the bottle almost topples over. “Jesus!”
Luckily, Amelia grabs it just in time. She caps the bottle, opens the window, and tries to waft the smell out. “Grady needs to be in here.”
“What?” Cate says, indignant. “Why?”
Grady pushes into the office. “Someone very important is coming.” As soon as Cate stands up, he sits down at the desk. He takes out his laptop, spreads out some papers and his textbooks, and smooths his hair, which he has wet and combed down in a way Amelia has not seen before. After frantically assessing the desk, he pulls out the calculator and a pad, then jumps up and grabs the morning receipts, which have already been calculated, but then spreads them out as if they haven’t. Sitting back down, he swings a skinny navy necktie around his neck and ties it faster than Amelia would have thought possible.