A Taste of Something Sweet

chapter one

The Pierce Family Ice Cream Company had a long, illustrious history in and around New York City. Its reputation as a maker of extraordinarily delicious frozen confections was well-known throughout the city's five boroughs, handed down through several generations by its founders, Andrew and Philomena Pierce, to their children, William and Samantha Pierce, then to their son Pierce and his wife Whitney, and now to Pierce's daughter - a blonde, blue-eyed, constantly spinning ball of charm and delightfully infectious enthusiasm named Brittany.

There were two things Brittany Pierce loved more than anything else in the world: ice cream and dancing. In fact, when she was growing up, her parents had felt real concern that she would choose dance over the family business. She was amazingly talented, and while it would have saddened the Pierce parents to turn over control of the company to someone else one day, they couldn't deny that there was a distinct possibility that Brittany would choose her love of dance over the family legacy – but there was no question that if she did, they would love and support her just the same. They would encourage her to go for what she wanted and do whatever else it might take to help make her dream of becoming a professional dancer a reality.

Growing up, Brittany herself had felt conflicted over her two great passions. She loved dancing, she really did, and she knew that she was good enough to make a career out of it if she chose to pursue it. Yet she also loved the business that had given her family a very comfortable life, and the city they called home. If she decided to become a dancer, she would probably need to move out to Los Angeles or Hollywood one day, auditioning day in and day out for spots in music videos, TV shows and movies, or even on national music tours, and while that was exciting to her, she was so much a New York girl at heart that it was difficult for her to imagine being anywhere else. She loved the subways and the buses and the noisy, crowded streets and the life of the city, the energy that moved her as much as any song ever had. Brittany was about motion, about the pulse and the flow and the pounding beat of every day in New York, and she just couldn't picture herself absorbing the energy of another city in the same visceral way that she'd always experienced the city of her birth.

Unfortunately, the choice was made for her one tragic day, not long after she turned seventeen. She could still remember the scene vividly, still recall the excruciating pain and anguish she'd felt on that day in dance class, when the slightest of incorrectly executed movements had blown her left knee – and her dreams of dancing for a living – to bits. Several surgeries and interminable rounds of intense, grueling physical therapy and rehabilitation later, and even now, five years later, that knee still announced its hurt angrily whenever bad weather threatened, and on those days, she could hardly walk without whimpering every time she took a step.

But Brittany was not one to look back in anger, or to dwell with regret upon what might have been. Yes, she had grieved, she had mourned the loss of her dream, cried herself to sleep more than a few times; but she refused to allow herself to get lost inside that grief, to become bitter and angry at the world for denying her. Instead, knowing that there was nothing she could do to change things, she simply accepted the situation as it was, shrugged and moved on.

So it was that she announced to her parents her decision to go to college for business after she graduated from high school, and when she finished with that, she would happily take over the company's flagship store near the city's fabled theater district. Of course, the irony of that was not lost upon her when she realized how many professional dancers were making their living on stage eight times a week there, and how many of them she was likely to meet working at and running the store. She vowed then that she wouldn't let even that bother her, and now, four years later, that resolve held firm. The store was wildly popular, the beneficiary of a steady stream of tourists, theatergoers and students from the nearby New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, or NYADA for short, and Brittany was proud of its success.

She couldn't have known that her sweet and tasty desserts would eventually bring something even sweeter and more fulfilling into her life.

It was another incredibly ordinary day at the store, scooping out frozen deliciousness to all manner of customers, from the very young to the very old and all ages in between, when a short young woman with long, lustrous brown hair and the deepest, largest brown eyes Brittany had ever seen came strolling into the place with the most intriguing expression on her pretty face, a look somewhere between amusement and grave concern. She was wearing a black short-sleeved top with a print of a large yellow bow across the front of it, a remarkably short red skirt, black socks and red shoes, and she walked up to the counter with the kind of graceful ease that Brittany instantly recognized as that of one who had extensive dance training.

"You have quite an array of interesting flavors on offer here," she began. "I admire the diversity, but I must say that it makes choosing what to get extraordinarily difficult. I'm usually a fruit sorbet kind of girl, but today I'm feeling...I don't know, like I want something different, but I don't know what. There are just so many things, and sometimes I feel as though I want all of them, because if I don't taste everything, then I'm sure I'll be missing out on something amazing. Like, what if the thing I don't choose is exactly the thing that will make my day absolutely perfect? Wouldn't that be terrible? But then again, how would I know if that were the case? It's impossible to determine that, really. My best friend would tell me I'm overthinking things, and maybe I am, but I feel strongly that one should always take every option into consideration when faced with a difficult decision."

Brittany's eyes widened in astonishment. She had never heard anyone say so much in just a single breath. Nor had she ever heard anyone cast the choice of what type of ice cream to eat in such dramatic terms. She wanted to laugh at the incredibly serious look on the girl's face, yet she found it kind of adorable and endearing. Plus, she was so small that Brittany wanted to scoop her up and carry her home in her purse.

The girl continued to stare up at the list of flavors on the signboard on the wall behind the counter, as though one of them was going to light up and announce itself as the winner of today's daily contest. Brittany watched the gears turning in the girl's head as she weighed the pros and cons of each flavor. After taking care of the only other customer in the store, Sugar, Brittany's appropriately named assistant, ambled over to Brittany's side to observe the silent struggle, and Brittany's fascination with it. The gum-chewing redhead looked at Brittany in confusion, then at the girl, and then at Brittany again before shrugging her shoulders and shuffling off into the back room without saying a word.

After a few more moments, Brittany decided that she just couldn't take it anymore. "Cookies and cream," she blurted out.

As though awakening from a trance, the girl shook her head, blinked twice and said, "I'm sorry?"

"Cookies and cream," Brittany repeated. "That's your flavor. That's your perfect thing for today."

"Really?" the girl asked, as though she didn't quite trust whatever process had brought Brittany to this conclusion. "How...how do you know?"

Brittany smiled sweetly at the girl's perplexed, slightly distrustful expression. "It's my job to know these things," she explained. "I know people, and I know ice cream, and this business is about bringing the two together. You have the look of someone whose favorite flavor is cookies and cream, but just doesn't know it yet."

She grabbed a small cup and scooped some cookies and cream ice cream into it, then stuck a spoon into the ice cream and set the cup on the counter in front of the still puzzled looking girl.

"Here. Try it. On the house. That way, if I'm wrong, no harm, no foul." She smiled again, wider this time, truly enjoying the girl's bewilderment. "But I'm almost never wrong about these things."

The girl's eyes narrowed, but she took the treat-filled cup anyway. "So you're...like, what, an ice cream psychic?"

Now Brittany actually did laugh. She couldn't help it – this girl was so unusual, so different from anyone she'd ever met before. "Something like that," she answered, handing the girl a napkin. "Now, go sit over there and try your ice cream before it all melts." She pointed to one of several small booths over by the front window, against the wall, beneath a large framed photograph of the Pierce Family Ice Cream Company's founders. "Go on. Scoot."

The girl looked at her ice cream as though it were some foreign, unknown substance, then back at Brittany's reassuring smile, and moved off to sit at the small table.

Sugar emerged from the back room once again as the strange, small girl sat down. She stood beside Brittany and watched as the girl poked at the ice cream with her spoon as though examining it.

"What is that chick's deal?" Sugar whispered. "And why do you attract all the weird ones?"

"Shush. She's about to try her cookies and cream."

"I take it back. You're the weird one."

Suddenly a loud moan filled the entire store, and both proprietor and assistant blushed in embarrassment at the long, drawn out sound. Brittany in particular was glad that there were no other customers in the place at the moment. Sugar looked down, covering her mouth with one hand to keep from laughing.

"Oh my god!" the girl exclaimed. "You were right! This is wonderful! Absolutely the perfect taste for today. For any day, really," she gushed between enthusiastic bites. "I still don't know how you knew I would love this, but I do. I really do!"

Then she looked at her watch and a frown replaced the beatific smile that had lit up her face only a moment earlier. "Oh, dear. It's almost time for my Vocal Studies class. If I don't leave now, I'll only be ten minutes early, and that just won't do. I'm always at least fifteen minutes early for class. If it's good to be on time, it's even better to be ahead of time, my fathers always told me."

The girl slid out from her chair and hurried over to the door, tossing the cup, napkin and spoon into the trash receptacle all at once. Then she turned and said, with the brightest, widest smile Brittany had ever seen, "I'm Rachel Berry, and that was the most delightfully delicious frozen item I have ever enjoyed. I would like you to know that I will most assuredly return to enjoy it, or perhaps another of your wonderful flavors, again soon. And now I really must be going. Goodbye, and thank you very much!"

And with that, she was gone, quick as the warm breeze that followed through the door in her wake.

"Wow," said Sugar. "That girl was, like, way out there. You really think she'll be back?"

Brittany's gaze remained pinned to the spot by the door where Rachel had stood, feeling not quite sure of what had just happened. The whole episode had been so surreal, it almost seemed like a dream to her. A weird, but very pleasant dream.

"I hope so. I really hope so."