“Not a lot of takers at ten a.m.,” he said. “The truth is my car broke down again, so I took this to work last night.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You drove an ice cream truck to a nursing home?”
“I’m very popular with the residents,” he said, flashing that gap in his teeth again.
“I bet you’re popular with everyone.”
“That’s my charm, though,” he corrected me. “Not my access to frozen desserts.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I replied, patting his back.
“Oh, I will.”
I was too busy laughing, at first, to realize how easily we’d fallen into this rapid-fire exchange. Like when I was with him, I wasn’t a stranger after all.
“Whydoyou work so much?” I asked. “Are you saving for something?”
“College,” he replied.
Of course. I felt my face get hot: I was always getting this wrong. “Oh, yeah. You mentioned journalism school in your five sentences.”
“Yup,” he said, pulling a hand through his hair again. “I’m the editor of the paper at school this year. It got me into it. There’s a good program at the U, actually, if I stay in-state. Which I probably will. It’s cheaper.”
I was beginning to realize that not thinking about money was a luxury, and one I should have been appreciating more.
“With all these jobs,” I said now, “how do you even remember where to be and at what time?”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Alerts. Lots of them. If you hear a beep, it’s probably me.”
“Good to know,” I said as he walked over, sliding open the door to the truck and stepping back.
“Watch your step,” he said. “It’s perennially sticky.”
I climbed in, my footsteps clanking on the metal floor. “This is so cool.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Until you get mobbed by a bunch of damp kids all screaming for sugar. Then, not so much.”
“Tell me there’s a little song you turn on as you drive.”
He smiled, pointing to a white box with some buttons installed above the driver’s seat. “Four melodies total, with a choice of tempos.”
“Can you play one now?”
“No, because someone will want ice cream and I’m not on the clock,” he said.
I looked out the window. The lot was empty. “There’s no one around.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s like a dog whistle. If you play it, they will come.” He stepped around me, into the narrowwalkway that led back into the truck. “You can have something, though, if you’re an ice-cream-at-ten-a.m. person.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Well, me, for one. But again, different strokes.” He bent over a built-in cooler, turning a handle and then pushing it open. “Pick your poison.”
I stepped closer, peering inside at a huge selection of offerings, all individually wrapped and organized by category: frozen candy bars, push-ups, cookie sandwiches, Sundae in a Cup. Even if you didn’t like ice cream—and I did—you’d have to be excited by such a selection, at ten a.m. or, really, anytime.
“This one,” I said, pulling out a Choco-wich, two chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream between them. It was cold in my hands. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he replied, sliding the cooler shut. He leaned back, arms crossed over his chest, as I unwrapped it and took a bite.
