#IceCreamSundae

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Alexi carefully arranged the banana slices around the edges of the glass bowl. There wasn’t much time before the ice cream started dripping, but they had to get this right. Once they were satisfied, they added the drizzle of hot fudge sauce and a delicate sprinkling of chopped nuts. It took another fifteen seconds that dragged on like five minutes to get their creation into proper lighting in the back room. Then they pulled out their phone, angled it to seem like they were sitting at a table casually snapping a pic, and took half a dozen shots, each slightly different from the rest.

“Is it safe to move around now?” Ivan asked.

“Yes, I’m not gonna go Christian Bale on you for messing up my lights,” Alexi said, plopping down into the chair and stabbing a spoon into the scoop of Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Ivan rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to at least put a sign up if you’re gonna do your obsessive food-Instagraming thing,” he said. “The rest of us have to work too.”

Alexi had no plans to make that big of a deal about what they were doing. They scrolled back and forth between the pictures they had taken until they decided on the best one. “There’s no customers and I’m on my break. I can do what I want. That includes fussing over making the perfect BanaNut Bowl.”

“As much as my dad appreciates your attention to detail and your dedication to the craft, I think this is taking it too far.” Ivan’s dad was Hank Duckworth, owner and operator of Duckworth’s Ice Cream Parlor in Hawley, Pennsylvania. Alexi had been working there for years, first as a side job while they were in high school, then full-time after they graduated. It was a family-run store, but Hank knew and trusted Alexi enough to promote them to a management position a couple years ago. Ivan, who was working here while he was out of college for the summer, constantly tried to act like Alexi’s boss just because it was his family’s shop. Alexi wasn’t one to get riled so easily though.

“Again, this is on my personal time.” They took a bite of their ice cream, making sure to get a little of all the toppings on it. “Gimme twenty minutes and I’ll go back to being a more mediocre professional.”

Ivan rolled his eyes again. “Whatever, I’m busy.”

Alexi resisted the urge to childishly stick their tongue out at him. They licked the fudge sauce off their spoon instead and scooped up a bite of the Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl ice cream this time. With Ivan gone, they went back to uploading their new post to Foodspotting. It was a sort of secret project they had been working on for the past couple months. They had been using the app ever since the Android version came out, but it had only occurred to them to use it for advertising purposes this spring.

Foodspotting was essentially a crowd-sourced picture menu and review app. Users posted photos of food they ordered, listed where they had gotten it, and tagged what kind of food it was so others could find it. In this case, anyone coming to Lake Wallenpaupack, or even just traveling through as they explored the Poconos, could type in that they were looking for ice cream and Alexi’s pictures would pop right up, along with pictures from other people who had eaten at Duckworth’s. It wasn’t the most well-known app, since more people used Yelp instead, but if it could bring in customers then Alexi was willing to try it.

However, Alexi didn’t want Hank finding out about this. Hank was always so proud of the reputation the parlor had on its own, based on the work he had put into it and his father before him and so on. He barely even maintained the shop’s f*******: page. It had their hours and location on it and a few pictures of him and his kids posing by the storefront, but if Tiffany, his older daughter, tried to set up online coupons or anything else he considered “gimmicky” then Alexi would have to put up with Hank’s grumbling and griping for at least a week. Alexi wouldn’t hear the end of it if anyone found out this wasn’t for their i********: and word got back to Hank. There was nothing stopping customers from posting pictures though, and Alexi’s Foodspotting account was, like half their social media accounts, under the name they considered going by if they ever wanted to transition and try to pass as a girl, Cassandra.

To seem less suspicious, Alexi never made two posts about Duckworth’s back-to-back. Their previous posts were from a restaurant they ate at a few nights ago and the café that added some new items to their menu for the first wave of tourists that were flocking in. Even so, the app remembered all the information about Duckworth’s and the tags Alexi had used before. Ice cream, dessert, sundae, ice cream sundae, treat.

Once the post went through, Alexi wolfed down their ice cream. It was soft enough around the edges for them to finish the whole thing by the time their break was over. The BanaNut wasn’t their favorite, but it was one they hadn’t posted yet and there were a few bananas that were getting overripe. Something about the texture of raw bananas never sat with Alexi well. Banana bread was fine, and somehow peanut butter-honey-banana sandwiches didn’t bother them either, but their favorite sundae topping was the one they had never seen at any other ice cream parlor: warm apple pie filling. The American Dream sundae was the first Alexi had posted on Foodspotting. It was three scoops of whatever flavors the customer wanted, topped with gooey cinnamon-soaked apple chunks, whipped cream, and the proverbial cherry on top. It was also their post with the most “Want” and “Great Find!” notes.

With one last check to see if there was any activity on their latest posting, Alexi cleaned up from their break and headed back out onto the floor.

* * * *

The house stank when Alexi got home. Normally they could excuse this, but they had explained to their dad time and time again that that smell made them queasy. They sighed and dropped their keys in the bowl by the door. “Dad!” they called out. “I told you to do that in the basement!”

Their dad’s gruff guffaw came from the kitchen. “I have the stove fan on!” he called back.

“Yeah, well clearly it isn’t working!” Alexi trudged into the kitchen, already dreading what they would find. There was their dad, Niko Petrakis, a half-smoked joint in one hand and a piece of tzatziki-dipped pita in the other. The tub of tzatziki on the counter in front of him was nearly empty. “Dad, c’mon, I just bought that. Were you going to save any for me?”

“Of course, but uh…you know how it goes.”

Alexi frowned. “How many joints have you had today?”

Mr. Petrakis shrugged. “Just the two. Or is this the third…Eh, as I said, hard to keep track of things like this.”

“Then don’t—Never mind. You’re getting cut off.” Alexi took the tzatziki and the remnants of the pita on the plate beside it and dug in. They weren’t particularly hungry, but this could be their only chance to enjoy some of it before their dad’s munchies made short work of it.

Mr. Petrakis took a drag of his joint. “I’ll buy a new one, promise.”

Alexi bounced their leg under the counter. “It’s fine. How was it at the Maddock place today?”

“Oh, fine, fine.” Mr. Petrakis finished off the last of his pita. “I um…I put up barriers and a tarp so hopefully no one will walk on the concrete until it dries. Should be fine by the time they get here next week, but…deer, squirrels, you know.”

“Yes, dad, I know.”

Mr. Petrakis took another drag and coughed. “How was it at the parlor today?”

“Getting busier. I’m kind of enjoying the level that it’s at right now, no long stretches of boredom but there’s enough downtime to take care of stuff behind the counter between customers.”

Mr. Petrakis nodded. “Yes, it’s the perfect time of year. Everything is warm again, days are longer, work is more plentiful, but we’re not sweating our asses off and wishing people would give us a break already.”

Alexi chuckled. “Yeah, it’s great.”

Then came the question Alexi was dreading, the one their dad asked them every time he got high. “Any cuties today?”

Alexi didn’t even bother hiding their displeasure to this question. Even though their dad had accepted that they were queer in both gender and sexuality, it was his deep-rooted opinion that because Alexi had a p***s it was their duty to marry a nice girl and have children someday. Since Alexi’s life mainly consisted of work, helping their dad with his work, and hanging out with the handful of other LGBT people in the area, that meant their best bet to find that future wife was at the ice cream parlor. “No, Dad, no cuties.”

“Eh, they’ll come.” Mr. Petrakis finished his joint and got up to snuff it in the sink. “The Eriksons want me to set up their pool for them by the twenty-third, if you’re interested in coming along.”

“Maybe,” Alexi said. “We’re training a few more summer hires and Mr. Duckworth might want me to come in and help on one of my days off.”

Mr. Petrakis nodded. “Alright, I’ll let you know when I go, and if you want to come with…”

“Mhm.” Alexi mopped up the last of the tzatziki in the tub. They took their time chewing the pita so they wouldn’t have to say anything else. At this point it was a game of roulette, guessing which topic their dad would bring up next. He might give Alexi dating advice, or tell them about repaving the Maddocks’ path again, or, worst of all, give Alexi the same lecture on the importance of family and a future that they got at least twice a week.

Instead, Mr. Petrakis went on about the royal baby. “If this baby’s dirty diapers end up making headlines, there’s no hope for the world,” he grumbled. “People get all riled up over someone else’s baby just because the parents are famous. The kid could grow up to be terrible! I mean look at you! Not saying you’re terrible, but when you were born, we never knew you’d turn out like this! All these people excited for a prince, but what if one day the kid says ‘I’d rather be a princess’? Imagine the scandal then!”

“I would hope that, by that time, queer and trans identities will be more widely accepted,” Alexi said. They were hoping they could find a way out of this conversation so they could go back to their room and get some work done, but at the same time it was best to keep an eye on their dad until they could park him in front of the TV or somewhere else that he could occupy himself until the high wore off.

“Yes, yes, we’ve all got hopes that people will stop being assholes in the future, especially your generation. But the next thing you know you’ll be my age, and your kids will think you’re an asshole because of something you never thought was bad.” Mr. Petrakis paused for a moment, blinking into space. “If you found a good girl this summer maybe you could have a kid by the time you’re thirty.”

And there it was. “Dad, we’ve been over this. I’m not ready for kids.”

“Phah, just you wait. You’ll find a girl and she’ll get baby crazy the moment you get married and you’ll have no say in the matter.”

Alexi grabbed their bag up off the floor. “Nope. We’re not going through this again. Go lie down, drink some water, I’ll see you for dinner.” They left their dad in his semi-stupor and swiftly turned the corner into the hallway to their room.

No new commissions today. Since they had already painted their nails this week and it wasn’t time to redo them, Alexi pulled out their warm-up drawing pad just to have something to do to take their mind off their dad. When he was sober, he knew better than to pester Alexi about their love life. They had flirted with summer customers before, dated a couple here and there, but they certainly weren’t getting married any time soon, let alone having children. Someday they might adopt, but that had to be after they were in a stable situation and weren’t already supporting their aging father. Alexi doodled a hand. Like most artists, they struggled with hands a lot so when they really needed a distraction they would focus on drawing hands making different gestures. Any frustration they felt that day would then be channeled into sketch after sketch of weird hands.

After an hour or so, they finally had something acceptable. Fittingly enough, it was a hand making the OK sign. They tossed aside their sketchpad and hopped on their computer instead to check social media, maybe interact with some strangers who didn’t know them or their life. The first place they went was Foodspotting to see if there was any activity on their post about the BanaNut Bowl sundae. So far four people had marked it as “Want”, one had marked it as “Love”, and two had also marked it as “Great Shot!” Alexi smiled. The “Great Shot!”s were the notes they enjoyed the most. It meant the effort they put into taking their photos didn’t go unappreciated. They really enjoyed how, unlike i********: or f*******:, Foodspotting allowed users to indicate why they liked a post instead of just slapping a thumbs-up or heart on a post and moving on. Viewers had the option of indicating if they “Want” the food, had “Tried” the food, or if they “Love” the food, as well as complimenting the person who posted it with either a “Great Shot!” or “Great Find!”

The smell of roasting garlic signaled that their dad was already cooking dinner. He should have come down enough by now, but Alexi closed everything for the time being and got up to go help in case he wandered off to watch TV and let dinner burn, again. The wide world would wait until they got back. For now, they had their duties to attend to.