Page 16 of Soft Serve

It's fine. Everything is fine.

Mrs. Calder arrives at half past ten, settles onto her stool with the authority of long tenure, and surveys the shop the way she always does.

"Morning," I call over.

"Morning, mija," she says. "You look tired."

"I'm great," I say.

"Mmm." She wraps both hands around her coffee cup. "Are you eating enough?"

Beside me, I feel Charles go very slightly still.

"I'm eating fine," I say, keeping my voice easy.

"You were here before six this morning," Mrs. Calder says. "Rosie told me."

"Rosie tells everyone everything," I say, without heat, because it's true and we all know it, and Rosie, to her credit, doesn't even look up from the register.

"Someone's got to," Mrs. Calder says. "You don't."

It's not unkind. Nothing Mrs. Calder says is unkind, even when it lands somewhere tender. It's just the intimacy of a town that has watched me take on something too large and too heavy and has collectively decided that noticing out loud is a form of love.

I know that. I do.

I'm opening my mouth to say something deflecting and warm when Theo appears in the doorway, his tool belt still on, clearly on his way somewhere else and stopping here the way he stops everywhere, because Hearts Bend runs on detours.

"Hey," he says, nodding at the room generally, then at me specifically. "Have you got that back freezer looked at yet?"

"It's on the list," I say.

He leans against the doorframe. "You said that last month."

"It's still on the list."

He shakes his head, it’s a head shake of someone who has watched me manage everything alone for two years and has opinions about it. "You know you can ask for help. The shop's too much for one person."

"I have help," I say, gesturing at Rosie and Millie.

"You know what I mean," Theo says.

And the thing is, I do. And the thing is, he's right, in the way that people who love you are right when they say true things you weren't ready to hear in front of a room full of people, including a man you are aggressively not thinking about.

"She's fine," Charles says quietly. It’s like it came out before he could assess whether it should. An automatic response.

The room goes quiet, just like Hearts Bend specializes in, the held-breath quality of a town paying close attention while appearing not to.

I feel it move through me before I can stop it, a sharp, complicated heat that is partly irritation and partly something I don't want to examine.

Mrs. Calder looks at him, Theo looks at him, even Millie, bless her, looks at the ceiling.

"You do know he wasn’t talking to you, right?" Mrs. Calder says pleasantly.

"I know," Charles says. "It's still true."

I set my scoop down on the counter with a sound that is not quite a clatter but communicates clearly.

"I can handle myself," I say, to the room, to no one specifically, to everyone. "I've been doing it for a while. Nobody needs to weigh in."