Ice Cream Land

I twined my hand with Dahlia’s. We were walking down the street to find an ice cream stand, desperate to fight off the raging South Florida heat. She blew a strand of hair out of her face, but it stubbornly floated back down, right over her eye. I laughed and turned to brush it away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She smiled, and I felt my own face brightening in return. 

Turning the corner, we came to the part of the stretch of shops along the beach I liked to call “Ice Cream Land.” Sometimes I thought that this had to be the coldest part in all of Florida. The shops all liked to leave their doors open a crack, to entice people to come in and open their wallets for even a brief respite from the sweltering heat. Dahlia shivered a bit, and I laughed. 

“If I had known we were coming to Ice Cream Land, I would have brought a jacket. Or worn pants,” She huffed, smoothing her free hand down her short, flouncy skirt. I smiled and pulled her closer to me. 

“We always come to Ice Cream Land when we’re going to the beach, especially when it’s over 100 out.”

“Hey! Who told you that you could be smart? It wasn’t me.” She stuck her lips out in a pout. 

“Hmmm, I don’t know. I’ll think about it and get back to you. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to continue being so smart.” She playfully narrowed her eyes at me and opened the door to the first shop. There were so many on this stretch of road that we tried to sample a new one every time we came. It was going on year three of near-weekly outings, and so far it seemed like we had barely made a dent. This one was called “Joe’s Cream.” Admittedly, it wasn’t the best name, but the displays looked good, and the line wasn’t too long. 

Dahlia led the way, pulling me in behind her. We waited patiently in the line, peeking around the other customers to see what flavors looked best. Dahlia seemed particularly drawn to a pineapple sorbet, but I was more partial to the lemon-blueberry. 

We finally reached to counter, practically salivating after seeing all the delicious creations the people before us had gotten. The man behind the counter was round, balding, and his face seemed locked into a state of permanent annoyance. Dahlia looked at me, her shyness taking over, and I knew I would have to be the one to order for both of us. 

“Hi! How are you? Could we get a small pineapple and a lemon-blueberry?”

“I can’t serve you.”

“What? You’re not closed are you? It’s only 2.”

“No, we’re not closed.” His mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes devoid of any sympathy. For someone surrounded by so much dessert, the sweetness certainly hadn’t seemed to rub off on him. 

“ Is there a reason why? We just want some ice cream.”

“I can only serve law-abiding citizens.”

“Law-abiding? I didn’t think that wanting ice cream on a hot day was a crime.”

“That’s not it.” He shot a pointed glance to our interlaced hands and gave us both a slow look up and down. A heat began to creep up my cheeks, and a lump formed in my throat. 

“Then what is it?” Dahlia asked, taking a step closer to the counter. Her voice had a shaky quality to it. “We have a right to know why you’re refusing to serve us.” I started pulling her towards the door, trying to escape the situation before it got worse. When the man behind the counter yelled a slur, I yanked harder on Dahlia’s arm, practically dragging her out of the shop. By the time I got her outside, her face was red and angry tears were streaming down her face. I reached up to brush them away. 

“Holly, what was that? What just happened?” She looked up into my eyes, and she looked so sad, so broken, that I wanted nothing more than to find her the biggest, most obnoxious ice cream I could for her. Something so full of artificial dyes that it would stain her tongue, and overflowing with ridiculous toppings like a massive cookie or lollipop. Anything that would make her eyes light up and her nose crinkle the way it did when she laughed. 

“Don’t worry about it. Joe sucks, and I’m sure his cream is even worse. We can do better.” I squeezed her hand, but her smile was weak. I swung our linked hands back and forth as we continued down the street, but there was something different about the shop windows today. In the corner of all of them, nestled under the “open” signs and the notices about flavors of the week and daily specials, was a picture of the familiar rainbow flag with a glaring black “X” through the middle. I pulled Dahlia along faster, hoping she wouldn’t see. Surely they couldn’t all have that sign. There were a million ice cream shops on the street and it had only been a week since our last visit to Ice Cream Land. There was no way everything could change that fast, right?

After passing a seemingly endless number of shops, all with the hateful flag on display, Dahlia tugged me to a stop. “We can’t. There’s nowhere for us. Not anymore.” Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes downcast. The utter portrait of defeat. I hated everything about it. 

“Hey, don’t think like that.” I said, desperately trying to put hope back into her lifeless eyes. 

“I’m not thinking, Holly, they’ve all made it pretty clear. Ice Cream Land isn’t for us anymore. We should just leave.”

“I will not let them take Ice Cream Land away from us. It’s ours. It’s been ours for years.”

“What are you going to do about it? We can’t even go into a shop together.”

“Fine. Then we won’t go in together. You go in first, get yours, and then I’ll go in and get mine. That way they can’t do anything about it.” Dahlia looked unsure, but after some more prodding she pulled open the door to “Glacial Creamdom” while I waited outside. I could see her through the glass, shuffling her feet and rubbing her arm as she crawled through the line. The worker behind the counter was younger than in Joe’s, a middle-aged woman with a gray streak running through her dark hair. It was hard to gauge how friendly she would be from where I was, but I hoped, for Dahlia’s sake. 

When Dahlia reached the counter, she talked longer to the woman behind the counter than the other customers had. The woman behind the counter kept shaking her head, and Dahlia started making animated hand gestures. I prayed that it was just a very complicated ice cream order and turned away from the door, taking a breath and rolling out some of the stiffness from my shoulders. I heard a door slam behind me and when I turned around Dahlia was there, fuming. There was no ice cream in her hand. 

I nodded and told her to wait there and walked into the most friendly-looking shop I could see, “Stuffed Cones”. The shop was decorated with stuffed animals hanging all around the walls and the displays, and the counter was pink and glittery. I took a deep breath and smiled as I stepped up to the counter to order. 

“Hi! Could I get a medium chocolate teddy bear deluxe in a cone?” The girl behind the counter looked me up and down, her eyes snagging on my board shorts and the button-down that hung around my shoulders, and sighed.

“Sorry. I can’t. The new rules, you know.”

“New rules about what?” She lowered her voice. 

“People like you.”

“I’m just a girl that wants some ice cream. There can’t be any rules against that.”

“They warned us about you.”

“What? Who warned you about what?”

“You and your girlfriend. Please leave before you cause a scene. I can’t do anything about the rules. They’ve just been handed down from the big bosses. Something about promoting ‘good old-fashioned family values’ and all that.There’s no one on this strip that will be able to serve you now.” I felt my hands tighten into fists.

“But it’s just ice cream!”

“Ma’am, please calm down. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Then who can? Who is so angry that they would dictate who can and can’t have ice cream? I’m just a customer like everyone else here. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“It’s really not my problem. These are just the new regulations sent out to us. You can read the notice online if you want. It’s on the city’s page.” I turned on my heel and marched out of the store, ignoring the looks being thrown my way by the other patrons. 

Dahlia was outside, pacing up and down the street. When she saw me come out, she grabbed my hand and pulled me along towards the end of the street. “They were ‘warned’ there too, huh?” Her face was pinched and she wouldn’t meet my eyes. My nod only added fuel to her rage. “While you were in there I talked to some of the people on the street. No one thinks this is a problem, no one cares, no one will even listen to me. One guy told me that I shouldn’t get so worked up over ice cream. Holly, can you believe this?”

As I listened to her I looked around. The other people on the street all seemed to be looking at us, and their expressions were full of menace. As we neared the end of the street, a crowd started gathering, blocking the way out of the enclosed ice cream strip. Dahlia’s grip on my hand grew tighter and she walked faster, directly towards the center of the group. They refused to budge. 

“Excuse me.” At Dahlia’s words, the crowd erupted. Dahlia squeezed my hand even tighter and ducked, yanking me through the screaming throng. Knees knocked into my chest, and hands swatted at our intertwined fingers. I heard Dahlia scream, and then we were through and running, the sounds of slurs and hatred at our backs.