It’s so goddamn hot outside. The kind of hot where it’s hard to think straight. I knew this and tried to be thoughtful about my outfit and still, there’s little that can be managed in this kind of heat. I’ve learned that even the lightest black or white cotton will betray you, showing slivers of sweat marks in creases and folds.
My belly feels slightly distended still from a lunch outside my normal bare bones salad, but there is no way that I’m turning down ice cream. Gelato. It’s actually gelato. Sure, it’s cold and also, delicious, but really, it’s because it’s Penny’s. How can I say no to Penny’s?
When they closed their location just a mile from my house, my heart broke a little. I used to tell everyone who would listen that it was the kind of rare establishment that still made all of their flavors onsite from the freshest of ingredients, and the owner was a gem who would take requests. Actual requests. Like putting a book on hold at the library.
I found this out one day five or six years ago when I asked if they had any banana pudding gelato left.
“No,” the gentleman (who I learned is the owner) had said with a smile. “But, if you come back later this week, I’ll be sure to have it for you.”
Of course, I thought that this was merely coincidence. He restocks later in the week and I would be the beneficiary of this insider information. It wasn’t until a young woman with a tie dyed t-shirt spotted with something that looked suspiciously like rocky road, leaned across the counter and conspiratorially whispered: “He loves taking special orders from regular customers. It’s kind of his thing.”
I loved being a regular customer and I loved that he took requests for patrons such as myself.
I rewarded this customer service gold with more frequent visits. The pint or even quart size of gelato was a better deal, but then, I couldn’t come back as often. I would stop in after work, or post-evening walk, and get their smallest cup of cinnamon or coffee chip.
He was always there, Jeff. A dark green branded visor perched crookedly atop his bushy salt and pepper hair, friendly eyes and a broad smile. It was so obvious that he made everyone who walked through the doors feel special, and in turn, was rewarded with a bustling business.
It didn’t make sense when I stopped by one day to find the ‘Closed’ sign on the door. Jeff must be on vacation, I thought. But subsequent visits taught me otherwise. He vanished and no amount of internet research taught me where he had gone. I tried other places, but nothing was even remotely the same.
So, imagine my surprise when I was walking around a tiny New York upstate town and found a Penny’s smack dab in the middle of Main Street. It must be a different Penny’s, I thought. And yet, the second I stepped through the door and saw what I knew to be the script neon sign from the old shop, I knew.
And Jeff. Jeff was there, with that big, warm smile crossing his face that I remembered so fondly. I explained to my friend who Jeff was and how I had come to know Penny’s. He stood in rapt attention and told me that he had actually retired and relocated, but when he saw this space available for rent, it was hard to turn down the opportunity. “I had grown bored,” he shared with us, advising that he was never really a golf kind of guy.
“Well,” I said, “I, for one, am pleased that you decided to postpone your retirement for a moment. I had missed you. Missed your shop.”
I felt oddly choked up sharing this sentiment, but it felt strange keeping it to myself. Kim laughed at me as we walked away from his counter, cups filled with gelato in hand. “You okay over there?” she asked, in a mocking tone that I understood and resented.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m fine, it’s just strange seeing him after all this time. I think I feel relieved or something.”
And I did, feel relieved. When his shop closed, everything was a bit frenetic in my life. It was just a gelato shop and yet, I felt like I had lost a part of myself, a part of my routine. I didn’t know how to explain this to Kim without sounding insane, so I just left the rest of it hang in the air between us.
When we started planning our girl’s trip the following year, I gently pushed us to return to the same spot. I reminded Kim that the hotel had been lovely and we found that quaint little winery, and she could finally go back to the glass store to see if they still had that vase she had been obsessing over but decided to leave behind.
She was amenable and so, we returned. I tried to sound casual when I suggested that we go back to Penny’s, and yet, some part of me felt a greater sense of urgency. Somehow Penny’s had become more than just a gelato shop. It had become a beacon of something, perhaps normalcy. It was a steady state in the storm, a reliable piece of something in a sea of uncertainty.
As soon as we walked through the doors of the food hall, something felt off. The air was too warm and sticky. The Penny’s sign had some bulbs burn out and so now it just read: “Peny”. The glass counter in which Jeff’s famous gelato sat was uncharacteristically filthy, smudged with greasy fingerprints and what looked to be dribbles of peanut butter sauce and hot fudge.
The young woman who was helping us had a nose ring, purple hair and an apathy that I found enraging. I started to tell her the story about how Penny’s came into my life and she interrupted me to ask in a bored voice: “Yeah, cool, so what can I get ya?”
Kim, sensing my aggravation, placed a cool hand on my forearm and firmly, but firmly recited our order to her. Just as she finished, asking her not to bother with lids, I saw Jeff emerge from a back door.
Instantly, my heart splintered. He looked entirely disheveled. His visor, normally off kilter, was more uneven than usual. The edges were frayed and it looked like whatever filth was dotted on the glass counter was splashed across the Penny’s logo on the front. His face was wrinkled in a way that seemed scientifically impossible for the span of just one year. Jeff looked unkempt. Untidy. Messy. He was messy. I stared in a way that felt unavoidable and also, intensely rude.
“Hi,” he said.
“Oh, hi,” I replied.
I could feel Kim’s eyes boring into the side of my face. She wanted to leave. She felt my discomfort and believed that leaving would be the solution. She didn’t know. How could she?
Everything was ruined now.
Everything.
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