Chapter 13 #2
“I hope you’re ready for some hard work.”
Sophie’s eyebrows lifted. “Are we churning it by hand or something?”
Zoe laughed. “No, but there’s definitely some heavy lifting involved.” She patted her shoulder. “Nothing you’re not up for, though.”
Ten minutes later, they were in the basement of The Latest Scoop, and Sophie was goggling at the three industrial-sized ice cream making machines Zoe had down there. The first one had been bought by her parents as an investment in her dream, the second and third by the profits of her store.
“Okay,” she told Sophie. “Making ice cream actually is pretty easy when you have a machine like these beasts. You just have to get the ratios right, and load everything into the machine properly. But first, hygiene.”
She reached for a couple of disposable hair nets from a box on the stainless-steel counter and handed one to Sophie before fitting one on herself. “Gotta look gorgeous,” she quipped while grimacing. Sophie gingerly put the hairnet over her French braid.
“And wash hands,” Zoe continued, before they took turns at the sink, washing their hands and then patting them dry.
“Okay, now for the ingredients.” She nodded toward a stack of sacks in the corner of the room.
“First we need the base. One pack per machine.” She waited, hands on her hips, while Sophie stared at her uncertainly.
“You want me to go get it?” she asked after a few seconds, and Zoe nodded.
“You need to earn your keep,” she informed her with mock sternness.
Sophie went over to the pile in the corner and, in an ungainly fashion, slung a sealed plastic sack over her shoulder and brought it back to the first machine.
“Okay, now what?”
“Now we pour this—which is essentially fat, water, and sugar—into the machine.” She nodded toward a funnel on top of the machine. “You can pour the mix, and then we’ll figure out the flavors.”
With Sophie looking apprehensive about her part in this process, Zoe took a pair of work scissors from a drawer and snipped the top of the heavy sack of base. “Okay, pour,” she said cheerfully, before helping Sophie empty the sack’s contents into the machine.
“Okay, now for flavor,” she said, consulting her list. “I have about twenty flavors I do on rotation, but today I think we’re looking at praline caramel crunch or salty dog, which is caramel and pretzels, with a ribbon of fudge. What do you think?”
“Praline caramel crunch sounds good,” Sophie said eagerly.
“Great. I’ll show you where the mixes are.
” Zoe guided Sophie over to her makeshift pantry, which was no more than a set of metal shelves that had all her flavor ingredients separated into plastic canisters.
“For praline caramel crunch we need some vanilla and caramel pieces,” she told her.
“We add the praline later, so it stays crunchy.” She ran her finger along the canister before she found the right one. “Here you go.”
While Zoe watched, Sophie emptied the canister into the funnel.
“Okay, perfect,” she said. “Now we have one more ingredient, which is very important.”
“What’s that?”
“Air.” Zoe enjoyed the way Sophie’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Ice cream needs air, otherwise it would be rock solid and not very fun to eat. But fortunately that’s added by the ice cream churn in the drum.
” She opened the second machine to show Sophie where the ice cream would be made.
“We put five gallons of base and flavoring in, and we should get eight gallons of ice cream out.” She programmed the machine and then stepped aside for Sophie to press start.
She did, cautiously, and then jumped back when the machine started up with a loud whirr.
“In about thirty minutes,” Zoe told her, “we’ll have our first batch of ice cream.
It will come out in a soft-serve consistency, and we’ll need to chill it for a couple of hours before it’s ready to be served to customers.
That’s why we have to start so early. When it’s gotten going, you can have a peek through the funnel to see what’s going on. Shall we move on to the next one?”
They made chocolate peanut butter swirl next and then mint madness for the third.
By the time they had all three machines going, the first batch was ready to be put into containers, and Zoe enjoyed watching Sophie manage the machine, and then scoop the soft-serve ice cream into containers to put into the walk-in freezer where she stored all her stock.
Then it was time to get the second batch, and then the third, and it was past ten in the morning before they were all finished, and time to start opening the store.
“This is so cool,” Sophie exclaimed once they’d put all the containers away.
“Literally,” Zoe teased as she closed the door on the freezer.
“How did you get started?” Sophie gave her a surprisingly appraising glance for a fourteen-year-old. “Aren’t you kind of young to own your own business?”
Zoe laughed wryly. “I suppose I am, but I had help. My parents funded a lot of it with some of their savings.” It still brought a lump to her throat to remember just how much her parents had believed in her.
She really was incredibly lucky and blessed.
“And I took out a small business loan,” she told Sophie.
“Plus I was fortunate that the first summer I was in business, we had a heat wave and everyone wanted ice cream.”
“Still…”
“I also try to keep my costs down,” Zoe told her as they headed upstairs. “I pretty much run this like a one-woman show, save for you.”
Sophie ducked her head. “So when I asked you for a job, you were really being nice in saying yes,” she half-mumbled, looking embarrassed, and Zoe’s heart melted just a little bit.
“Well, you have been very helpful,” she told her. “And I usually hire someone in the summer, but she wasn’t available, so really, you did me a favor.” Sophie brightened at that, and Zoe gave her a quick smile before she flipped on the lights upstairs and started getting ready to open up.
Sophie watched her for a few seconds and then blurted, “Are you going to date my dad?”
Wait… what? Zoe stilled in the process of refilling the napkin dispenser. “Where did that come from?” she asked in what she hoped was a mild voice. Inside all sorts of feelings were pinging around and she didn’t want to examine any of them that closely.
“Last night…” Sophie hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. There was a weird vibe.”
“We were just talking about the logos, Sophie.”
“I’m not dumb,” Sophie told her. “And I’m fourteen.” Zoe had to choke back a laugh. “I can tell when there’s a vibe.”
Zoe was silent as she continued to refill the napkin dispenser. She didn’t know how to answer Sophie; she wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear, and she didn’t know herself what she wanted to say.
“All I’m saying,” Sophie said after a few seconds had passed, “is that, you know, I think I’d be all right with it. I mean, it would be super weird, but you know, kind of… I don’t know. Okay.” She shrugged, ducking her head as a blush tinted her cheeks.
So this was a new direction, Zoe thought.
Instead of dealing with a teenager’s jealousy and hostility, which she had anticipated last night, she might disappoint Sophie by not getting together with her dad.
Unexpected, but also kind of understandable.
Sophie clearly needed a woman’s presence in her life.
“Maybe there was a vibe,” Zoe said carefully, and watched the girl’s eyes gleam in response, “but that’s all it was. My life is a little complicated for anything to happen, and I think maybe your dad’s is as well.”
Sophie’s lower lip came out in a pout. “Why is your life complicated?” she asked, sounding like she suspected Zoe had just been trotting out a line.
“For a variety of reasons,” Zoe told her in the parental tone of someone who did not want to be asked any more questions.
Sophie’s pouted deepened. “I don’t get it,” she said. “How can life be too complicated to date someone? I mean, shouldn’t dating someone make whatever is complicating your life easier?” She spoke like it was obvious while Zoe stared at her in befuddlement.
“What…”
“Because it’s someone to share the complicated stuff with,” she explained like it was obvious, and once again all Zoe could do was stare.
Sometimes, she thought, fourteen-year-olds made a surprising amount of sense.