My smile widened against my will. “Occasionally.”
He shook his head. “That is not often enough.”
I stiffened. He didn’t even know me, but he was commenting on how much I smiled?
“Are you looking for someone here?” I asked. “Or are you a new dance student?”
His laugh was an exploding “Ha!” Totally uninhibited, but also magnetic. “I am picking up some paperwork for my mother. I am a gelatician. Not a dancer.”
“Oh. Right.” I wasn’t about to let on that I didn’t have a clue what a gelatician was. “That’s … interesting.”
“More delicious than interesting.” His eyes twinkled, and I wondered if he saw through my charade. “But you are a dancer. A serious one.”
I swallowed uncomfortably. “What makes you say that?”
“I saw you dancing as I walked in,” he replied.
Right. My fouettés. This whole conversation was making me incredibly self-conscious, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. I checked my watch. Oh no! How had I lost track of so much time? It was running into this boy (literally). He’d made me lose every rational thought in my brain.
“Once upon a Scoop!” I snatched up my dance bag from the floor. “I have to go! I’m late! Mom’s going to kill me.”
Lanz laughed. “It cannot be so bad as that?”
I didn’t answer. I was already barreling through the door, then running down Main Street through the balmy late-morning heat, dreading having to face Mom.
I entered Once upon a Scoop through the kitchen’s back door. The hum of the giant silver machine in the middle of the room meant that Mom had started a batch of fresh ice cream. I saw containers of chocolate and coconut flavors on the counter. She must have been making Coconut Castle—one of the parlor’s signature flavors.
I pulled my ruffled purple apron over my head and then checked the timer. The ice cream had five minutes left before I could empty it into five-gallon storage containers and move those to the flash freezer.
“Malie?” Mom’s voice was a command, blasting from the front of the parlor.
“Coming!” I called, slipping on the fairy wings that finished off my “uniform.” I walked through the swinging door into the pastel-blue room with its castle mural and white café tables.
Once upon a Scoop had a prime location on Ocean Lane, the biggest beach thoroughfare in downtown Marina Springs. The parlor offered a sprawling view of the pale sand and azure waves of the Gulf Coast. Dotted with mangroves and palms, the beach, about thirty steps from the parlor’s front door, brought in a steady stream of customers. Some lived in Marina Springs full-time, relishing its warmth and sun. Others were what we Floridians called “snowbirds,” visitors who came south for a few months each year to escape harsh northeast winters.
With the boutiques and outdoor restaurants, and the pink bougainvillea lining the sidewalks, our small town was a perfect vacation spot. The view from the shop’s window was one of the things I liked about working at Once upon a Scoop, but today I only had a millisecond to take it in before Mom blocked it with her stern gaze.
“You’re fifteen minutes late.” Her voice was granite.
“I didn’t mean to be. Ms. Faraday made a big announcement—”
“Malie, you always have an excuse. I’m not in the mood today.” Mom turned and hurried behind the counter. “Help me put these flavors in the freezer before we open.”
“Okay,” I said, following her. I’d tell her about Ms. Faraday’s big news later.
Mom handed me a tub of Snow White, its white-chocolate ice cream dotted with chunks of cheesecake and yogurt-covered pretzels. I dutifully placed the tub into the display freezer.
“When you started taking the advanced dance classes at the conservatory,” Mom said, handing me another tub, “it was under the condition that it wouldn’t interfere with your schoolwork or with Once upon a Scoop, but now … I thought you’d outgrow this dance phase.”
I frowned. “It’s not a phase. It’s what I love.” I’d said it before. So many times. My talks with Mom lately were like a glitch in a song—we started out fresh at the beginning, but inevitably hit a faulty chord and skipped back to the same spot, over and over again. It always came down to dance.
Mom sighed. “Your responsibilities here come first.”
“I don’t get it,” I persisted. “When Dad was here, you never complained about my ballet. You wanted me to take lessons!”
The worry lines on Mom’s forehead deepened. “Some things were simpler then.”
Like money, I thought. The Marina Springs Conservatory was considered the best ballet school in west-central Florida. It had an aura about it—an atmosphere of gravity and respect that emanated from the very floor and walls. When I’d auditioned in kindergarten and been accepted, I’d been beyond thrilled. Ever since then, I’d imagined going all the way, joining a professional ballet company someday. But I didn’t understand back then what a stretch it was for my parents to pay the conservatory’s tuition. And since the divorce, it had only gotten tougher.
“I never thought you’d stick with ballet this long. And when your dad was here, he could help out at the parlor. Now I’m—” Mom stopped before adding, by myself. She was thinking it, though. I’d overheard her talking on the phone with Tutu, my grandma in Oahu. It was the only time Mom had admitted that being a single parent was tough. She never said it to me.
“I want her to grow up without having to worry about me,” she’d said to Tutu. “Lots of people raise children on their own, with less than what we have. If they can do it, I can, too.”
I worried, though, especially whenever Mom got the look she wore now—the carrying-the-weight-of-the-world-on-her-shoulders look. That look swept the wind right out of my arguing sails. It made me pull her into a hug and give her a peck on the cheek.
“It will be okay, Mom. I won’t be late again.”
“I’m being
