Ice Cream

Rose had driven by it perhaps a hundred times, never realizing that was the place. Her car slowed, and she found herself pulling into the hidden parking lot. She remembered, but only a distant memory, maybe even a memory of a memory. For a brief moment her eyes saw a different time, a different life. A blistering day, the sun beat down on a pair of tired bikes, cooking in the blaze. A large oak stood in front of the girl, who leapt behind it when the boy started singing a song about birds he had learned at camp. Her embarrassment made the oak blush with her. The boy pulled her to the picnic table where they sat, hand in hand, eating their ice cream. The young girl playfully dabbed the ice cream off the tip of the boy’s nose, and licked it off her finger while he gave her that sly, impish grin, that only mischievous boys can do. They restlessly wiggled, until they could no longer stand the thought of sitting. Singing songs from their favorite band, they took off on their bikes, racing each other down a hill that surveyed a soccer game below. They gazed down at the players, seemingly unaware of the heat pulsing around them, focusing only on the ball, which flew from one goal to the other. After the game ended they rode home together, talking animately and laughing about nothing.
A startling ring brought her back to the present, and Rose fumbled for her phone.
“Hey honey, how’s my favorite girl?” the all too familiar voice rang out over the line.
“Oh good, how are you?” she said
“I’m doing great, what are you up to?”
“Nothing, just, nothing really. I thought I’d stop for some ice cream on the way home.”
“That’s real nice of you, the kids will really love that. I just finished making dinner, and we’re just waiting on you. What kind of ice cream were you thinking of getting?”
“Just a little place, you’ve never heard of it, but I think you’d like it, I think you might, it tastes like childhood, and a late summer afternoon.”