“It’s like living in a museum, believe me,” he said.
“No wonder your mother thinks your father is a nobleman. We have a big house, but that’s really a mansion.”
“Home sweet home,” he muttered. “If you want, I’ll give you a tour. You just have to take off your shoes, take a shower, change into a visitor’s uniform, put a plastic cap over your hair, and put on a pair of surgical gloves before you touch anything.”
“You’re kidding, of course.”
“Yes, but if you ever did meet my mother in that house, you’d understand that I’m not exaggerating as much as you think. Okay. We’re coming to it, the best sundaes in North America, not just Pennsylvania.”
He slowed down as we approached a strip mall with half its stores already closed. A few looked empty, out of business. The mall didn’t look like anything special, so I was surprised when he pulled into the parking lot. There were very few cars.
“Here?” I asked. “The world’s best sundaes?”
“It’s a big secret. No one else at our school will know of it.” He nodded to the right at a small shop whose sign advertised toys, magazines, and stationery goods. “The owners have an old-fashioned soda fountain. You’ll see,” he said, getting out. He moved around quickly to open my door and reach for my hand. “It’s the proper way for a lady like you to get out of a royal carriage,” he said.
For a moment after I stepped out, he continued to hold my hand and then suddenly realized he was doing it and let go.
As we drew closer, I saw the place was simply called George’s.
“How did you find it?”
“I have this fountain pen my father’s younger brother gave me for my sixteenth birthday, one of those two-hundred-dollar fountain pens. George Malen, the owner, special-orders the replacement ink tubes for me. He was quite impressed with the pen when I stopped by to see if he could get the tubes, and then I saw the soda fountain and ordered a sundae. His wife, Annie, works the fountain. I think they’re both in their late sixties. This is a true mom-and-pop operation.”
He opened the door for me, and we entered what looked like a very cluttered place. The shelves were stacked with a variety of notepads, envelopes, files, and other office supplies. There were desk lamps and office wastebaskets lined up under the shelves. Another set of shelves had board games and toys for very young children. Maybe the place had started out as a toy store. Smack in the middle of it all was a soda fountain with six well-worn black vinyl stools. The counter had displays of candy, and just to the right of that was a magazine rack and a rack of paperback books. It looked like a store that was frozen in time. I saw little of technology, computer supplies, and the like.
At first, I thought there was no one there, but then I saw a man with graying light brown hair shift in a rocking chair toward the rear and look up from the magazine he was reading. His face brightened instantly, and he stood. He was wearing black slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He had muscular forearms and looked like someone who worked with his hands, rather than the owner of a small store.
“Hello, Troy,” he said. “How you doin’?”
“Fine. Mr. Malen, this is my friend Kaylee. She attends Littlefield, too.”
“How you doing, young lady?”
“Well, thank you.”
“You out of ink tubes already?” he asked Troy.
“No. We came for sundaes,” Troy said.
“Annie,” Mr. Malen called, and a woman with stark white hair brushed and tied neatly in a bun at the back of her head emerged from a room at the rear of the store. She wore an apron over a midcalf-length floral-patterned dress. “Annie’s the sundae expert,” Mr. Malen told me.
“Troy,” she said, smiling. Her nearly wrinkle-free face looked misplaced below her gray hair. “How is school?”
“Oh, it will survive,” Troy said, and indicated which stool I should take.
Mrs. Malen went around the counter.
“This is Kaylee Fitzgerald,” Troy said. “She attends Littlefield, too.”
It was apparent that he wasn’t simply an occasional customer. If he had been, he wouldn’t find it necessary to introduce me, I thought.
Mr. Malen sat on the stool beside him. There were no other customers in the store. “Where are you from, young lady?” he asked me.
“Ridgeway.”
“That’s not far,” Mrs. Malen said. “Your parents could visit often.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.