Her shoulders ached. Not in the way they did last year, or the year before that, because she knew this wasn't tired-aching anymore. She felt stronger. Pouring every spare moment into whatever sport or fitness regime caught her fancy at the time used to take so much more out of her; kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, Sambo, once she mastered one it was on to another. Now, the aches in her shoulders and thighs were comforting, more like a glow in her bones than a pain. Her own progress was only half the satisfaction of her tutoring at her studio, but it still gave her a precious sense of pride to see a practice dummy buckle under her kicks.
Diana rolled her neck as she stepped out of the studio and into the street. It was a warm afternoon, early enough for the streets to be near empty and the sun almost directly over her head. It seemed to get even warmer as she turned each corner. She was still crowned with sweat from her morning's workout and the heat wasn't doing her any favours.
She started fanning herself with both hands as she reached another crossing.
Halfway home.
Another ten minutes on the other side of that road.
She knew she was flushed. She knew the older woman standing facing her at the opposing crossing could see the stains on her shirt. She knew her hair was a mess under her cap. But those thoughts weren't registering as worries. Diana's mind was focussed solely on getting herself back to her apartment, into her shower and onto her sofa.
Her head swum. Her sofa. For all she loved her jogs and her time in the studio, an hour before her tv could do wonders.
Finally the lights changed and Diana broke into a half-jog to cross the road. Reaching the other side she slowed to fan herself again but her face remained steely with determination.
Home. Then shower. Then a book maybe.
A hand shot out before her face. Diana skidded to a halt, stopping a moment before her nose could touch the stranger's palm.
"Ah! You look tired. Exhausted, even. Now I know a woman like you is busy, busy, busy, but I also know a day like this can take it out of you."
The small, rosy lady blocking her path brightened with Diana's attention.
She continued. "It's just so bleedin' warm! You look like a woman with somewhere to be, something to be doing, am I right? Come right in and we can cool you down right away! Do you like ice-cream?"
Diana glanced behind the enthusiastic woman to read the bubbly pink lettering above her head. "Trev's Frozen Wonderland"
"Ice-cream?"
"Yes, madam! The best in town!" The woman clapped and grinned.
Diana smiled but shook her head. "I'm so sorry. You certainly know how to sell it but I have no time. Maybe another day." She said, hopping around the woman and speeding up again down the street.
Etta wilted as she watched Diana's retreating figure from the parlour steps. Not letting this get her down, she puffed her chest out and turned her gaze to the next prospective customer approaching her. Anyway, it was a beautiful day and anything could happen.
Twenty paces away from the ice cream parlour, Diana fanned herself again. The heat had doubled, almost unbelievably, once she turned her back on that woman. She could practically feel the heat radiating off the pavement through the soles of the trainers, the sky was blue enough to convince her that the sun had burnt any trace of a cloud away with its heat. Sunlight was bounced off shopfronts and windscreens, making her blink and squint. She swept her cap off her head and tried fanning herself with the rim, to little effect. The warm air was only buffeted into her face faster this way.
Diana paused. Perhaps the heat had scrambled her brain, but she felt she had made a wrong turning. The stores around her were wrong, but familiar.
She frowned, but then a realisation washed over her and she sighed. The heat had indeed driven her into some kind of madness. She'd not only forgotten to cross at the right road, taking a full circuit around the block, but had only stopped to realise this a moment before the infamous ice cream parlour. The woman at the storefront caught her eye and grinned.
Oh well, Diana thought as she stuffed her cap into her bag and continued on, I might as well indulge fate.
Etta opened her arms wide as Diana approached the door. "A change of mind, then?"
"It does look like it, doesn't it?" Diana said, pulling the baby blue painted door open. A little tingle rang out as she disturbed some unseen chimes above her.
The inside of the parlour was a clean pale blue wash, speckled by little hand-painted penguins and ice cream illustrations. No staff member could be seen anywhere in the room, and she seemed to be the only customer inside too. The left side of the room was taken up by empty rows of back-to-back cushioned benches making half a dozen booths. The right side was dominated by a glass display of multi-coloured tubs upon tubs of what Diana assumed was the produce in question. She struggled to see behind the display, it was well over the height of her chest and deeper than she first expected.
She cleared her throat, part of her hoping no worker would hear her, giving her an excuse to leave before she ruined herself on an unexpected dessert. Indeed, no one responded. After taking a step closer to the mountains of ice cream she coughed again.
A man jumped up from behind the counter, a roll of receipts caught between his teeth, a metallic scoop in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.
Diana yelped. The man choked on his receipts and stumbled back behind the display. She heard the scoop hit the floor a moment before he reappeared and grinned lopsidedly at his customer.
"Ah. Sor-sorry about that. We, well, we weren't expecting too many customers this afternoon." He said, laughing.
Diana smiled weakly, her heart still racing from the jump.
He was sweating harder than her.
Steve rubbed his brow and swallowed. "Feel free to check out our flavours, I'll be back to take your order after I…after I take care of some business." He said, sidling around the counter. Diana remained with the ice creams, bewildered, as he darted out the front door to where Etta lurked with a wide grin.
He exhaled deeply. Then inhaled, and dropped his hand onto Etta's shoulders.
"What did you do?"
Etta glowed up at him. "She's here, isn't she?
"Etta Etta Etta…I dropped the scoop. She thinks I'm crazy or something. If I wanted you to get me a date I'd have asked." Steve said.
"And how long would that take?" She asked. "You've been watching her walk past this place for weeks."
Steve rubbed his eyes. "Not like this…definitely not." He began to reach for the door as Etta opened her mouth to speak again. He held up a finger to silence her. "It's none of your business. Just watch, it'll be a complete mess. I'm a mess. And it's your fault." He went back inside.
Etta hid a smile. He sounded upset but she knew he didn't mean it. She also knew it wasn't her fault, nothing like it. It was the fault of that wonderful woman indoors.
The tingle rang again. Diana turned eagerly. "Strawberry I think. And rose water, please."
"Uh…yeah." Steve stuttered. Even if her hair was messy and had clearly been stuffed under the cap earlier, the one she was usually wearing, she still had that power to silence him. Just one look, the one she was giving him now, as normal as it may have been to her was freezing him to that spot. His chest tightened as she tilted her head in question.
He swallowed again. "I'll get that for you right now." He said hurriedly. He slipped behind the counter and got to work, trying not to meet her gaze but catching glimpses of her folded hands through the glass. She worked out, that was obvious enough, but as opposed to those who trained for the sake of their fitness, she gave the aura of one who took a kind of pride in her strength. It was admirable and was making him feel more and more like he could fall right through the floor at any moment.
"A cone or a tub?" He asked.
"Umm. What's that one?" Diana pointed up at the wall above Steve's head.
Steve squinted at the cheerful illustrations of sundaes and varieties of splits. Most were small and marketed to children, limited to a scoop or two, but some were real monsters of desserts. A couple were larger than his microwave at home, and twice as heavy.
"That one's called The Pantheon. It's kinda large." He didn't want to sound like he was insulting her choice, only implying that it was the farthest from her idea of healthy in the entire parlour.
Diana smiled and looked back down at Steve. "I think I can manage it."
His heart climbed up into his throat. "Right."
The scoops piled up, covered by a blanket of whipped cream, then a layer of caramel, then more cream, then a quick topping of strawberry sauce, then finally a flurry of multi-coloured flakes and sprinkles. Diana reached out to take it but was stopped by Steve holding out a hand. He rustled through a collection of jars of chocolate straws and mini umbrellas and numerous other colourful decorations, finally settling on one and dropped it onto the top of the sundae.
"Ready." He said, flourishing his hands over his work with a smile. He was rather proud of himself; not making much of a mess despite his shaking hands.
Diana leant forwards to see the mini decoration crowning the ice cream. A tiny sword and shield, in Ancient Greek style. Fitting of the dessert's name, she figured.
"It looks wonderful." She said.
"That's what I want my ice cream to be." He said. "Beautiful."
They locked eyes.
Steve inhaled and shuffled his feet. "That'll be five ninety-nine."
"Ah. Of course." Diana broke her eyes away from his and dropped a handful of coins on the counter. Taking the glass bowl in both hands she retreated to one of the nearby booths. It was heavier than she first expected and was dropped onto her table with a glassy clunk. After a short search she found a small metal spoon tucked behind a scoop of strawberry waiting for her and took it up in her fingers. She inspected the mounds of ice cream, not quite sure where to start. It wasn't that she was intimidated, not at all, only that every time she thought she had found the perfect spot to begin a new scoop with even more sprinkles presented itself. She wielded the spoon as a miniature sword in her hand and steeled herself.
Steve watched her from behind the display's top, peeping between pots of spoons and bottles of sauces. She seemed to be having some problems with the sheer mass of the dessert, to be expected, and had taken to spinning the bowl around in its place to find a more advantageous angle. Feeling another pair of eyes on him he turned to see Etta grinning madly at him through the windows. He pursed his lips and busied himself with cleaning up behind the counter.
A small crash disturbed him and he looked up over the top of the display.
Diana stared back at him with a powerful look, an inch from his face. She had a small splodge of whipped cream on the tip of her nose, a tiny flake of green sprinkle sitting amongst it. Steve blinked. It had only been a matter of seconds since he looked away from her at the booth. She moves fast.
"This is the most remarkable thing I have ever tasted." Her eyes shone as she spoke. "Not only the ice cream itself, but the entire work, is superb. The choice of sauces, the vivid flavour of the ice creams, everything is just an experience on another level."
Steve blinked again. No one had ever been close to this enthusiastic about his ice cream.
She clasped his hands in hers. "You should be proud of this sundae."
The two stood in a soft silence for a few seconds, broken only by the sound of gentle wind chimes outside and distant car engines.
Diana loosened her grip and gathered herself. "I will be visiting this parlour again." She said. Then quickly added, "For more of these desserts.".
Steve's mind took a couple seconds to catch up to Diana's breakneck speed. "Oh. Thanks." He felt his ears burning, although the place where her hands held his felt startlingly cold.
Outside, Etta sat with her back to the parlour and her hands neatly folded on her knees. She felt more than a little proud of herself, and felt no sympathy for Steve. It was about time he did something about his little 'distraction' and talk to her for once. If he made a fool of himself in the process then there was very little she would be able to do this time to help him. And anyway…
Etta glanced over her shoulder to see Diana back in her booth furiously shovelling ice cream into her mouth, her cheeks flushed and eyes carefully avoiding Steve's direction.
She had a feeling this girl could teach him a few things.
Diana landed a heavy blow to the dummy.
She hadn't gone to the parlour again as she promised. She wasn't avoiding it, but the thought of returning gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. An odd kind of anxiety, one she hadn't felt before. She didn't like not knowing, because then it wasn't something she could defeat so easily.
She dealt another kick.
But she could forgive herself. It had only been a few days anyway; maybe he hadn't forgotten about her just yet. She decided right then that she'd go back inside that parlour that afternoon. She'd ask for another Pantheon and enjoy it. She'd go back for the ice cream.
Thud.
The dummy collapsed at her feet.
Because she certainly loved ice cream.
Taking her gear off, she heard the other girls giggling behind her. Being a curious one, she raised an eyebrow at their amusement, which only set them off more.
"Don't worry. It's good news." One of the others had approached her quietly from behind. "They just found it before you."
"Found what?" Diana asked, baffled.
The girl smiled. "It's waiting for you through the other room." She said, jabbing a thumb behind her. "And it's about time."
Diana's frown deepened. She was lost.
"Congratulations. You have an admirer." She said.
The other room was small. The name 'other room' was placeholder; it was simply the only room the girls never used for practice or for gearing up. Someone could call it a 'reception' but there were rarely any visitors who weren't members to be 'received' anyway.
Diana didn't need to look hard to find it.
It sat on the edge of the reception's only table top, next to the phone and phonebook, a bright pink and blue spot in a room painted mainly steel blue and grey. She rested a hand on the ice cream tub, cheerful lettering proclaiming 'TREV'S FROZEN WONDERLAND; ROSE WATER' under a small penguin shaped sticky note.
His handwriting is awful, she thought, I can barely make out his number.
It hadn't been sitting there long; it was still cool under her hand. He had made sure to place it on the top out of the way of the sunlight which was beginning to make its way across the room as the day grew into afternoon.
And she thought, thank god, I was beginning to feel a bit too warm.