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Felix didn’t hate his job. He hated a lot of things, but his job certainly wasn’t one of them. Scooping ice cream for bratty little kids and equally bratty adults had a certain charm to it. Sylvain called it ‘romantic,’ although Felix was starting to think the man didn’t know what that word meant. Felix wasn’t romantic, and his job certainly wasn’t. He didn’t even like ice cream all that much.
The Double Scoops Ice Cream Parlor and Creamery, as it was called, was a bit of an eyesore. All pinks and whites, with suede leather booths, and high topped tables sprinkled around the cramped space. In front of the counter, barstools made a ring around the dozens of ice cream flavors cooled and kept ready to serve up each day. The building had a certain vintage air to it that Ingrid loved. No wonder she was so miffed when he’d got the job, and not her.
They were all part time college jobs, anyway. As if anything important would happen here. He’d have stories of bad customers and what not—Felix already had plenty, but earth shattering, life changing events? In some aging ice cream parlor? As if.
He drummed his fingers on the marble counter, white apron spotless as he stood, watching the clock tick second by second, minute by minute. He wore one a soda jerk hats pink lines running parallel along its length, messing up his already uncombed black hair. Some people said it looked violet under the right light, but that was just it: under violet light.
The day was all but winding down, now. A customer hadn’t come in for an hour or more, and he was starting to feel the slow onset of tiredness wash over him, in part fueled by the darkness that greeted him as he stared out the glass windows. He blinked twice, trying to wake himself back up. How late had he stayed up last night? Till two in the morning or later, he realized, with a start, studying for his organic chemistry final in two days. Felix groaned internally, the content of the course playing out in his mind, jumbled and all but background noise in his head.
The tinny ring of a bell snapped Felix back to attention, standing straighter as he looked toward the door, a customer rushing in. He glanced at the analog clock just above the door, and wanted to scream. It was five minutes before closing, and here someone was.
She was a student at Garreg Mach University, he was fairly certain. Or, well, as he thought about it, she could pass for high school, being as short as she was. The woman had bright ginger hair, more orange than Sylvain’s was. Her eyes were a gray-blue, vibrant as she looked down at the heaps of ice cream flavors and toppings. She put one hand on her chin as the woman stood, silently contemplating. Felix stood, staring at her, all customer service speak slipping his mind. He needed some damn sleep, Felix realized. He blinked again, eyes bleary.
He stood straighter, attention broken from the woman, as he fell back into ice cream parlor drone, “Hi! Welcome to Double Scoop Ice Cream Parlor and Creamery! What would you like me to scoop up for you today?” He said, the words cold and even in their intonation, due, in part to the fact that he’d recited them hundreds of times.
“I’m still trying to figure that out, actually. You have so many choices here!” She squealed, voices almost shrill as she moved left and right, leaned up close to the plastic sneeze guard. He had seen enough little kids cough or sneeze right into the thing to know why it was called that. Were her hand shaking?
Felix stayed silent, holding the counter with one hand as he waited for her to pick, running over his exam material in his head, half an ear waiting for her to start talking again.
That went on for six minutes—Felix checked—the woman humming and hawing every step of the way, until finally she spoke, bubbly tone grating on Felix, “Okay, I’ll have a scoop of rocky, rocky road, a scoop of chocolate almond, one banana nut fudge, and...um…um...one scoop of espresso,” She said, talking rapidly, words falling out of her mouth like water in a babbling brook. She looked oddly nervous, eyes catching Felix’s own.
Felix ran the order back in his head, looking again at the girl, frankly a little scrawny in her build. Four scoops? He pushed the intrusive thought out of his mind as he posed the next question, “Any toppings on that?”
“Yes, I’ll have sprinkles. The rainbow ones. Like a lot of sprinkles, okay?” She paused, looking over the assortment of toppings, held in small bins, each with a scoop attached via chain to the container, “Wait you have hot fudge here, right?” She asked, an almost devilish look on her face.
“Machine’s broken,” Felix said, not looking up as he grabbed a waffle cone from the multiple stacks arrayed before him, “You wanted all this on a cone, right?”
“Um...in a cup, actually. I always make a mess when I eat ice cream on a cone. But, like, can I have a cone on the side, or something? The cone is the best part.”
“Sure, whatever,” Felix said, figuring he’d probably put the cone on top, and she could break it into pieces or something. Grabbing the largest cup available, Felix looked back up, meeting eager eyes with steely ones, “That’s all, right?”
“Yes. I think,” The woman said, hair bobbing as she nodded.
Felix got to work, grabbing the cool metal scoop of the first flavor with his left hand, cup in the right. He had a rhythm to this now, the resistance of the ice cream as he pulled it out, the faint plunk into a cup or cone as the ice cream dropped from the scoop. Then, the next flavor, with its own scoop—no cross contamination! All in all, the process took about thirty seconds from the first flavor to the last, all four mixing together in the large cup, colored, of course, a plush pink.
He moved to the toppings next, the woman following with her eyes. Grabbing the spoon in the container he poured three onto the cup, the multicolored pellets falling like snow, spread evenly over the surface of the ice cream. “Is that enough?”
The woman spoke softly, sounding guilty, if anything, “Just a little more, please.”
“Alright,” Felix said, pouring one last heaping spoonful of sprinkles, now covered in the stuff. With a start, he pressed a waffle cone into the order, ice cream pressing up around it. Setting down the ice cream on the counter, he moved to the register, plunking out the order. Four scoops, a cone, and a topping. “That’ll be 7.78, with tax,” Felix said.
The woman pressed her lips together, pulling a wallet out of her jeans’ pocket, fiddling with the plethora of cards within, before pulling a bill. She handed it to Felix, the paper folded and creased a hundred different ways.
He popped open the register, placing the bill in its place, and grabbing the appropriate change, coins clinking in his hands as he handed them over to the woman. As she stowed them away, he grabbed the ice cream from off the counter, sticking a spoon into the icy mass.
“Thanks so much!” The woman said, grabbing the ice cream with a hunger in her eyes. She beelined to one of the stools next to the counter, spoon in her mouth as soon as she sat down.
“It’s my job, ma’am,” Felix said, shrugging. The faster he ate, the faster he could close up shop and get home for some much, much needed sleep. To hopefully not fail his exam, tomorrow. That would be a nice bonus.
“Last time I was here, the person said no to adding more sprinkles,” The woman said, through a mouth of very vibrant ice cream, “I almost gave up hope that I could keep coming here. Any less sprinkles is a tragedy, I’ll have you know,”
“It’s that important to you?” Felix asked, laughing crudely as he looked down, wiping the counter down with a wet rag, “Well, glad I could make you feel better,” He said, smirk rising on his face.
“Ice cream is my comfort food, okay? I only eat it when I’m really, really stressed. Like right now,” She said, another spoonful already in her mouth. How fast was she eating this stuff?
“Finals, I’m guessing?” Felix said, feeling the same spark of adrenaline rise in him, his senses more alert, a faint fluttering in his stomach. More equations and diagrams rattled through his head from the night before, branded into his memory.
“Yeah. That...and some. I’ve got one tomorrow that I’m really worried about. I just had to take a break from reading through the same notes over and over again, you know?”
“Sure,” Felix said, realizing with some horror that he’d done the exact same thing the night before, “Organic Chem’s been kicking my ass this semester.”
“Me too! Organic Chemistry is something they torture people with in the afterlife, I think,” The woman said, “Do you have Professor Hanneman?”
“The one and only,” Felix scoffed.
“I guess we’re in the same class? I feel like I’ve seen you before…” The woman said, trailing off, running a hand through her hair, lips bit together, “What’s your name?”
Felix tapped his enamel pin, emblazoned with his name in swirly letters, placed on his apron haphazardly. It was then he noticed that he’d pinned it on crooked.
“I guess that would’ve been a good spot to look, huh,” The woman continued, “My name’s Annette. Annette Dominic,”
“Alright, Annette. I hope you do well on your final,” Felix said, more warm than he’d anticipated. And was it getting hot in here? He hadn’t set the thermostat any higher, Felix thought. Sweat beaded from his brow, even in the face of the cold ice cream.
“You too,” Annette said, and Felix thought he could see pink staining her ears. Was she having a brain freeze? They kept their ice cream at a cooler temperature than most. She continued, sticking her spoon into the ice cream, leaning her elbows on the counter, “Do you want to study together tomorrow before the test, or something?”
It couldn’t hurt, Felix thought. He would take any chance he could get to not fail this, “Meet at the library? Pfft...Nine o’ clock?” Felix said, covering the ice cream, and closing all the topping containers.
“I’ve basically lived there this past week anyway. Nine sounds great! I love you,” Annette said, her mouth falling open, flushing as red as any girl he’d seen Sylvain bring back to their dorm, “I mean I’d love to. I’d love to study with you. Tomorrow. In the library. At 9,” she said, her voice muted, yet still prattling on at a mile a minute. She looked down, trying to hide her face in her hands, ice cream left ignored.
“If you’re going to ask me on a date, at least tell me first,” Felix said, flipping off the light over the ice cream flavors, “Love you too, Annette,” He said, words dripping in sarcasm, wicked grin spread across his face. He brushed a stray hair out of his eye, realizing maybe that was a little too harsh.
Annette shrunk further, whimpering as she huddled over her bowl of ice cream. “You villain,” She said, voice wilted, “Now everyone is gonna know...know I,” She cut out, and Felix could hear the distinct, quiet sound of sobbing.
Felix felt a sting of guilt, stopping in the middle of his cleanup. With some trepidation, he came from behind the counter, sitting in the stool beside Annette. “Sorry,” He said, voice shaky. Why was he so nervous all of the sudden? The pit in his stomach turned over and over again. The thing had probably won a gymnastics contest, “That was rude of me,” He said, placing a hand on Annette’s shoulder, warm gray hoodie loosely fitted to her.
“Thanks,” She said, through sobs. He hadn’t gone back to consider why she was crying over something so mundane, but, well, he often didn’t think through a lot of what he did, “I should probably go and get back to, you know,” Annette said, almost too fast, standing up, her cup of ice cream only half eaten, “Thanks for...” She turned, not finishing the sentence, cheeks still flushed, not even breaking stride as she exited the parlor, bell tinkling as the door slammed behind her.
He threw away her ice cream, which she had neglected to toss in her haste to leave. Had he really messed up that bad? Annette seemed nice enough, Felix thought. He pondered this, as he closed the shop for the night.
At the library tomorrow, he would try to make amends, assuming she even showed up. There was something odd about that girl, with her full smile, asking after sprinkles and scoops. There was something odd about Felix, too, for thinking about her, even into the long hours of another sleepless night.
—//—
Annette had run the events of the ice cream parlor about a dozen times in her head by the time she’d gotten home to her dorm, all the way across town. Her cheeks still burned, and her ears were certainly red.
Of course Mercedes had put her up to this and, of course, it all went wrong. What was she thinking going out and saying she loved someone she had never talked to before? Stupid, stupid, stupid. The door clicked open, the cramped dorm room still bright, fluorescent lights above humming.
She had publicly humiliated herself. Just because she had a little—really, very small—crush on the person sitting in front of her in organic chemistry didn’t mean anything. Not one. She was the same old Annette, as always. That was a fact.
Mercedes called out to Annette, voice soft, but firm, as usual, “How did it go? Is he head over heels?” She asked, holding a plate of cookies in her hands, freshly baked. It was a shame she had no appetite. If anything, she felt as if she was about to throw up.
“Totally,” She said, lying. How could she mess up something so simple? Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d finally gotten the nerve to ask him to something, and she’d screwed it up.
Of course, she knew she’d be sitting in the library at 9 o’ clock, waiting anyway, knowing he’d not be there.
“Hmm, well, if it didn’t go so great, that’s okay too!” Mercedes said, standing next to Annette, an arm on her elbow.
“Sure,” Annette said, not willing to meet her friend’s eye. A stray thought crossed her mind, something she hadn’t considered, “How did you figure out where he worked, anyway?” She asked, giggling, choking back the tears that were already starting to well up again.
“Oh, I know his roommate. We dated for a couple weeks. That was before Dedue and I met. So I just asked him,” Mercedes said, nonchalant, her hand icy against Annette’s elbow.
“That...makes sense,” Annette said, giggling further. Her emotion spilled out, nearly crying from how funny that seemed in that fleeting moment, “That makes sense,”
“See, I told you it wouldn’t be that bad,” Mercedes said, smiling, her light brown hair falling over her eyes, “We all do hard things sometimes, Annie. You know how many times I’ve blown up the kitchen,”
“That was one time. Not as many as I have,” Annette said, wiping the tears from her eyes, “You know what’s funny, Mercie?”
“What?”
“I told him I loved him,” Annette said, already feeling the heat coming back to her face. Annette figures she’ll be permanently blushing by the end of this.
“That sounds like you, Annie,” Mercedes said, a smile on her face, so soft, “Did you mean it?” Mercedes continued, stifling a laugh, her tone playful. Annette saw those eyes, and they were dead serious.
Felix had apologized, hadn’t he? Surely that meant something. Surely she hadn’t cried over nothing. Surely she...
“I don’t know,” Annette said, her stomach barreling around in her chest, heart beating rapidly, “I...don’t know.”