It was, by all accounts, the hottest ice cream parlor in the country. And business was booming.
De Smeltkroes had a neon sign shaped like a dripping cone, but the neon was broken. It flickered red and orange, making the shop look less like a place for dessert and more like the entrance to a blast furnace. The owner was a man named Bennie. Bennie believed that air conditioning was for the weak. He believed that a real ice cream experience should involve contrast . een hete ijssalon
The freezer units were groaning, clearly on their last legs. Inside the display case, the ice cream wasn’t so much scooped as poured. The pistachio had slumped into the hazelnut. The strawberry had formed a pink lake around a lone, melting cone. It was, by all accounts, the hottest ice
By the time he handed it to Mila, the ice cream had achieved the consistency of warm pudding. The first drop landed on her sandal. The second ran down her wrist. Within thirty seconds, the entire scoop had liquefied, cascaded over her hand, and formed a brown puddle at her feet. It flickered red and orange, making the shop
Mila, a nine-year-old with red pigtails and a stubborn streak, dragged her father past the inviting chill of Siberia and straight to De Smeltkroes . The glass door handle was sticky. Inside, the air was thick as soup. Bennie stood behind the counter in a sweat-stained tank top, mopping his brow with a dishrag.
“Welcome to the heat!” he boomed. “What’ll it be?”
Kees looked at the flood of dairy, the broken mop, the defeated Bennie sitting in a puddle of his own inventory. He sighed.