Rocky Road (28 page)

Then, with a shockingly loud honk from a bazooka, the clowns got busy, shouting out jokes, squirting water guns, and twisting balloons into animal shapes.

I’d never seen so many kids giggle at once. “Me! Me!” they squealed when Silly Billy asked for an assistant for a hat trick. Nearby, two older girls in softball uniforms pressed their faces against the jukebox, studying the song selections.

Not that you could hear the music very well. The door was propped open, and the Salty Old Dogs were drawing crowds on the sidewalk with their upbeat Tejano tunes. Winnie and Melvin stood in front singing, and three gray-haired men sat
behind them playing drums, a trumpet, and a fiddle. (I recognized Sam on trumpet from Ma’s test-market session.) Every so often Melvin picked up a harmonica and started playing that too, just like I told him the mariachis do back home. They all wore matching wide-brimmed hats and silver-studded
charro
jackets.

“Next customer, please!” Gabby called.

I thought of Ma. If she was here, she’d say the line of customers was growing faster than a weed after a month’s rain. People were getting antsy with the wait. A short lady with big hair and an even bigger mouth started complaining. Feeling pressured, I rushed to pack a double scoop of pistachio and crushed the cone in my hand.

“This long a wait, they must be milking the cows out back!” the lady whined to the man in front of her.

I felt my stomach knot. Then Ma’s voice channeling the
Inside Scoop
played in my head.
No matter what, the customer is always right
.

But before I could say a word, someone with a cultured voice spoke. “I’ve heard this ice cream is certainly worth the wait.”

I looked up to see a lady with a pinstripe blazer and a Louis Vuitton bag on her shoulder. Victoria! I waved at her, and she returned a glamorous smile.

“We’ll be with you as soon as possible, ma’am,” I said to the Complainer with my best soothing smile. The truth was I felt like spraying whipped cream in her beehive.

We needed another scooper fast. But who? Jordan was
playing with Lucky in the storage room (and he wouldn’t hear customers anyway), Winnie was singing with the band, and Chief was in the street manning the concession stand, as he called it, with his own long line of customers to deal with.

I glanced across the dining area, where kids’ eyes were glued to Silly Billy pulling handkerchiefs from a hat. Son of Clown was standing off to the side with his arms folded, watching. Hmm … maybe he could take a break from clowning?

I tapped him on his polka-dotted shoulder. “Excuse me. I’m desperate. Could you pitch in behind the counter until Pete gets back? We can’t keep up.”

He smiled and adjusted his red nose. “Sure thing, Desperate.”

Pronto, Son of Clown tied an apron over his jumpsuit and started S&P’ing alongside us. He caught on quickly. Watching him, customers seemed to forget they were miserable waiting. Especially the little kids.

“Look, Mommy. The clown’s making ice cream!” squealed a little girl holding a balloon. Soon lots of kids were telling their parents, “I want the clown to make
my
ice cream!”

Five minutes later Pete returned. “Spoons R Us!” he shouted as he worked his way behind the counter with a bag and put his paper server’s hat back on.

“Are we glad to see you! We were so panicky, we recruited a clown,” I whispered, wiping splattered cream from my face with the sleeve of my smocked top. Looking down at my fudge-stained apron, I wondered why I’d worn my new clothes.

“Sounds like the crowd’s getting testy. Miz D. warned me
this might happen. Time to dig deep into my soda-jerk training and bring out the shtick.”

With that, Pete ran over to the karaoke machine and grabbed the microphone. “Greetings, ladies, gents, and wee widdle ones. I’m Pete Chutkin, official soda jerk at A Cherry on Top. No, not
jerk
like the guy who cut you off in traffic, or the boy who stuck a
KICK ME
sign on your back. Once upon a time, I was the coolest cat in the ice cream biz. The master of the milk shake. The prince of the phosphate. And speaking of cool, get set for the Soda-Jerk Swing!”

Then, without one ounce of humiliation or the tiniest trace of reserve, Pete adjusted his bow tie and started tapping his shoes, rocking back and forth, and rapping.

Just when it couldn’t get lamer, Pete busted out the moves, break-dancing, spinning on his heels, and even adding a cartwheel that looked good until he crashed into the jukebox. And then Son of Clown charged from behind the counter and joined in as Pete’s backup dancer, shaking his wig, swinging his arms, and kicking his legs Charleston-style.

For the closing stance Pete blasted out the lyrics even louder:

The middle-school me was so embarrassed, I was tempted to dive into the dipping cabinet and die of brain freeze. But as shop manager, I
liked
all this razzle-dazzle. The cash register was ringing, and customers kept smiling cheek to cheek like the wait was fine and dandy. Two little girls started copying Pete’s dance moves in front of the jukebox, shaking their hearts out along with all the braids on their heads. And even the Complainer flashed a teeny smile when the Soda-Jerk Swingers took their final bow.

T
he Cinco de Mayo parade got under way at eleven. Mr. Bianco led the way down State Street, holding a baton and strutting in a skin-tight velvet blazer that Mrs. Bianco said fit him back in Sicily, thirty years and forty pounds ago. The Save Their Tails Animal Protective Society followed, with rows of dogs yapping and sniffing and lifting their legs at fire hydrants along the way.

The Rotary Club came next, wearing their own pit-bull scowls
suggesting they thought the parade order had gone to the dogs. Next up were the Schenectady Light Opera Company, the Boy Scouts, preschool ballerinas pliéing along, and World War II veterans propped high in convertibles and waving tiny flags.

General Electric’s Young Inventors Club drew the most cheers. A bunch of brainy-looking kids in shirts and ties waved lightbulbs, cameras, and pictures of telegraphs. I overheard a lady explaining to her daughter the story of how Thomas Edison founded his company here and helped the city prosper.
Back in those days the streets of Schenectady were paved with gold
, I thought, remembering Pete’s words.

Ma had designed the parade route to travel west on State Street past Proctor’s Theater, turn right on Broadway, cross Erie Boulevard, and down to Union Street before looping back. Initially the RSSA wanted it to lap around Jay Street to please the mayor inside city hall, but Ma convinced them to have it pass through more struggling neighborhoods instead. “They need the extra TLC,” she said.

If this parade was a train, then the Salty Old Dogs were the caboose, walking in the rear as they sang and rattled tambourines. Only Winnie’s parade appearance came to an abrupt halt. The brisk pace got to her before she’d gone five hundred yards. From the window I saw her huffing and puffing as she clomped along in her heels. Worried that she’d faint, Pete and I ran outside with a water bottle.

“You okay?” I asked, gently pulling her out of the parade formation to a bench on the sidewalk.

“Never been crankier,” she said, guzzling the water and
squeezing my hand as if to say thanks. “I love all this whoop-de-doing, but me and exercise never have gotten along.”

I smiled back. I hadn’t told Winnie about Ma being sick yet. Now wasn’t the time; she needed to catch her breath. She’d been on her feet performing for hours.

“People are raving about the Salty Old Dogs, Winnie. A kid from my school grabbed your flyer and asked his dad to book you for his bar mitzvah.”

“That so?” Winnie said, looking pleased.

“Yup! Diana Ross, eat your heart out—and gain some weight!” I shouted.

Now
that
brought a smile to her chestnut cheeks.

Honk-honk
. Chief’s truck pulled up beside us. “Here to pick up the diva!” he shouted, flashing a parade-float permit. “Hop in and we’ll catch up with the rest of the Salty Old Dogs. They might want a ride by now too. I’ve got special authorization to chauffeur the senior talent.”

“God bless the U.S. Navy!” Winnie shouted, standing up.

Chief piled blankets into the back of his truck to make it more comfortable for Winnie. That way they’d be visible to parade watchers. But just before she got in, she rested her tambourine on the grass. “Wait just a minute,” she told Chief, and she turned back to A Cherry on Top.

“I’ve got to get my little James Brown,” she said, inside the shop. “I know Jordan would love being in the parade and shaking his groove thing to the beat.”

We went back for Jordan. His eyes lit up when he heard the news. But then he signed, “Lucky come?”

Winnie shook her head. “Too loud. Lucky will be scared.”

“Jordan no go. Stay with Lucky,” he signed, looking like he’d burst into tears.

The line for ice cream was growing long again. Gabby and Pete were struggling to keep up. I had to get back to work. “Go, Jordan,” I signed quickly. “I’ll watch Lucky.” I pointed toward the counter. “Bring him to me, covered, so customers don’t see.”

“Promise you take care of my turtle?”

I pressed my index finger to my mouth and then placed my palm down against my other fist. “Promise.”

So Jordan brought me the bowl, discreetly covered with a towel, and I tucked it under the counter on a shelf near the extra cups. Then he and Winnie left to catch up with the parade.

The crowd inside the shop thinned out after another hour, especially when Mr. Harley announced that the grand raffle would be drawn at the jewelry store shortly. So Gabby, Pete, and I used the downtime to clean tables, restock topping jars, and replace empty ice cream tubs. Then Pete made a sandwich run to Barley’s, and we sat down to eat with the clowns.

Noticing a Lego toy left on a chair, Son of Clown told us he was crazy about Legos. “I just built the
Star Wars Millennium Falcon
, and
that
used five thousand pieces. Took me six months,” he said, and I thought about how long I’d been working on the piano-bench cushion for Winnie.

I tried to avoid making eye contact with Son of Clown, knowing how he must’ve been dying a thousand deaths wearing that wig. But the funny thing was, he didn’t seem embarrassed. He was boasting about how his dad graduated at the top of clown
school. And they both beamed when they talked about “the family business.”

With only half my sandwich finished, I glanced up at the clock. The mayor would be arriving in thirty minutes for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. I had to get this place set up pronto—a TV reporter was coming too. And I had to think about what to say. I needed to sound informed and squared away, as Chief would call it.

So as the others continued talking, I started arranging rows of chairs for the audience and a makeshift podium with a microphone for Mayor Legato to use for his speech. Worry must’ve been smeared across my face like fudge sauce, because Gabby, Pete, and the clowns cut their lunch short and came over to help.

I pointed to the
Inside Scoop
lying on the counter beside the napkin dispenser and turned to Pete. “Did you study that training manual like my ma did?”

“You bet your egg cream I did. All two hundred fifty-six pages, including the yawner part on milk pasteurization and homogenization.”

“Can you summarize all that in five minutes or less? I need to sound like an expert around the reporter.”