I went to live with Aunt Maria the summer my mom went to rehab, not knowing she had become a paranoid survivalist since we’d last met. It was fine, though. Maria kept to herself as she lined the basement with canned food and ammunition. She left the television running during the day, burbling through the thin guest bedroom walls with reports of imminent crop failure and rising tides. If I thought it was ironic that she would still hang on to her little beach town bungalow in the current climate, I dismissed the thought when I learned she had been trying to sell the house for years, to no avail. No one of moderate means was stupid enough to buy a house on the beach these days.

I moped in bed for a few days. I was tired of the TV and of my aunt’s constant puttering around, always dusting and cleaning, trying to make the house seem less run-down than it was in case someone stopped by for a showing. Maria never left the house except for groceries, living off of the life insurance and lawsuit payouts from her late husband’s work accident. A terrible way to live, except now I was living that way, too.

So, I got a job at the only ice cream place in town.

Nordenville Creamery stood on equal parts sand and crabgrass, all papery blue siding and hand-painted signage. The fifteen-minute walk--no car, no bike, but at least my aunt’s place was close--had sweat dripping down the neck of my polo, but I was as presentable as I was ever going to be.

Bells chimed upon my entrance. Behind the display case, a blonde girl with a visor and smudged eyeliner--not the aging owner I’d interviewed with--whipped her head up.

“You the new hire? Jacqueline?”

I nodded, hands shoved thoroughly in pockets. “I go by Jack.”

Her eyes flicked down my figure once, one eyebrow arched. “Katie. Come on back, then, and I’ll show you the ropes.”

Ropes were shown, and there weren’t many. I wouldn’t be expected to make anything fancy. No cakes, this wasn’t Dairy Queen. One to three scoops in a cup or cone, toppings of your choice, and that was that.

Katie thwacked a scooper against one of the oversized sponges at the end of her tutorial. “Show me what you got. Three scoops of strawberries and cream, waffle cone and fudge.”

I uncrossed my hands from behind my back and grabbed a scoop of my own. Suddenly afflicted with a case of butterfingers, my hand slipped as I dug the scoop into the frozen tub, letting the scoop clatter to the bottom of the case. My ears went red. Katie watched in silence, save for a breath I could’ve mistaken as a sigh.

My nerves won out in the end. Fudge dripped down the sides, running over my fingers onto the palm I cupped underneath it.

“Now what?” I said.

“Try it, if you’d like. It’s on me.”

“I can’t have dairy.”

“You’re not serious,” Katie barked out. “At least try the fudge.”

I licked my hands after tossing it and drew back in awe. “Oh my god, what’s in this stuff?”

“I don’t know, I just work here.”

On the first shift, there were two customers. Katie had the radio playing Top 40 as she sat by the window, looking out wistfully for that first idle hour--then, somehow, sensed their approaching silhouettes and hit a button that changed the station to 50’s doo-wop. They were a middle-aged couple, each in faded Hawaiian shirts. They both bought vanilla sundaes.

Around 3 pm, Katie sighed deeply and stood to inform me, hand on my shoulder, that she would be taking a break. I didn’t know what she would be taking a break from, but she just laughed.

She went out back, so I couldn’t see her, but when she returned she smelled of cigarettes, the way my mom did after her late shifts.

“Held down the fort?” she asked, sagging into her chair and spraying cherry scent on her neck.

“Barely,” I said. Katie snorted. She had a really ugly way of laughing, and I kind of liked it.

“You’re funny, Jack.” She drummed her fingers against the windowsill, spared me the honor of protesting by barreling on: “You staying here long?”

“Just the summer.”

“Figured,” she said. “You know, it may not look it, but this town isn’t so bad.”

Could’ve fooled me. Half the shops I’d passed walking here were out of business; the houses on Aunt Maria’s street were more foreclosures than homes. The beaches were rocky, scarcely inhabited even on weekends, and the blue-black ocean roiled on the precipice of violence just beyond, visible over the peak of every building.

“Really?” I croaked, keeping my observations to myself.

Katie hummed. “Let me show you around sometime. You new kids never know where to look.”

I’d like that, I thought. But the bell over the door clanged to life before I could say it. I repeated it to myself as if I would forget, while I scooped out vanilla kiddie cones (one rainbow sprinkle, one chocolate) for the woman and her children. This time, my hands were steady.

Abigail J. Burns is the pseudonym of a college student. She lives in Connecticut. You can follow her on Twitter @AJBurnsWrites

Copyedited by Tah Ai Jia