Chapter 2

Kage forced himself not to stare at the girl serving Chocolate Swirl to Gene, owner of the sorely renovated barn he now called home. She was without a right hand, yet she managed, with some help from the older man working behind the counter. Her hair flowed with loose curls and shimmered rich tones similar to fresh coffee beans in the sunlight, but it was her dark eyes that he found most curious. Her face was pretty, but her eyes nearly spoke. Though brown, at some angles they looked intensely black. Whatever their color, he liked them.

“Here you go, Mrs. Laurel.” She handed a cup with a scoop of ice cream to the feeble lady who took the cup and held it near her eyeball examining its contents.

“Give me another one,” she requested and handed the cup of ice cream back.

“Now, Mom,” the woman with her chastised.

“Evelyn, you know we always take care of Mrs. Laurel,” the older man Kage assumed was the shop owner responded with a wink.

He took the cup, leaned in the ice cream case and appeared to make an additional scoop, but when he presented the cup again, Kage could tell no ice cream had been added.

Evelyn nodded her head in what looked like an appreciative gesture to the owner.

“Mr. Laurel always likes a bite you know,” the older lady said turning to Gene.

Gene nodded. Taking Mrs. Laurel’s arm, Gene helped the daughter walk the frail lady out the door.

“And for you?” the shop owner asked Kage.

“No, thank you.”

“What’s your favorite flavor?” the girl behind the counter asked.

Kage shrugged, “Not today.”

“Not even a taste?” she suggested.

“No.” Kage stuffed his hand in his pocket, digging for change. “I’ll pass.”

Kage watched as Willy eagerly licked the ice cream balanced on top of what he called the ‘soggy-less miracle cone’. Though tempted to get a scoop, Kage knew he couldn’t afford to take the twenty cents from his earnings.

“He’s savin’ up for one of those rocks painted gold,” Willy quipped, nudging Kage with his elbow and pointing out the window to one of the eager Treasure Festival vendors.

“Bunch of nonsense …” Gene muttered beneath his breath as he returned to the counter to pay.

“Naw,” Willy cut in, “I ain’t lookin’ for no painted kind. Lookin’ to find the real stuff.” He licked his ice cream cone attempting to catch a drip of Strawberry Swirl with his tongue, but instead the ice cream landed on his chin. He wiped his mouth with the back of his coat sleeve.

Kage had no problem passing on the painted stones, unlike the ice cream. “Who’d buy a painted rock anyway?”

“Ahh,” Gene scolded. “Folks ain’t got nothin’ better to do than track people’s business like the weather ‘round here! Rumors they’s tellin’, that’s all!”

From behind the counter, the shop owner scooped Kage a sample of Peppermint Pretty and insisted he try it. “Name’s Thomas,” he introduced himself. “This is my granddaughter, Gracie.”

Kage nodded, appreciative.

Thomas, baited by the opportunity to share the tale with a newcomer, continued, “The story of treasure hit the national press in 1945—two years before Gracie was born,” he nodded toward his granddaughter. “Two decades later, it’s got its own festival around here.”

Willy’s continuous battle with his ice cream didn’t deter him from listening to Thomas tell the story. “They say some greedy businessmen started the rumor to bring in tourists, an attempt to start somethin’ like the California’s gold rush. But I believe that treasure’s somewhere, buried right here under our feet for all we know.”

Thomas passed Willy a couple of napkins and continued, “Just days after the published article, strangers flocked like blackbirds to Ridgewood. Some stayed for a few days poking around, while others purchased cave land to explore.”

“Really?” Kage posed, more interested in watching Thomas’ granddaughter behind the counter maneuver around the shop without assistance.

Gene muttered, “Land that wasn’t worth nothing and never would’ve sold went for thousands … crazy!”

“Well, locals keep the rumor alive, often telling the story like they discovered the handwritten note,” Thomas elaborated, reciting it by memory. “I am writing because in Ridgewood there’s lost treasure. We got riches yet to find. Come seek them with me. T’was all it said.”

“You believe that?” Kage asked Willy.

Willy nodded with confidence, crunching on the edge of his cone, ice cream dripping on his Cartwright jacket.

Thomas, seemingly tickled by Willy’s faith, persisted, “Someone found that note in an abandoned room at the Hartington Hotel, about forty-five minutes north, as they say it happened. Then from there, who knows what’s true? Once the note was published in the local paper, the national press reprinted it with the headline ‘Ridgewood Said to Have Buried Treasure’. The treasure hunt was on.”

“I bet it was hilarious,” his granddaughter spoke up. Her eyes sparkling with amusement, she continued, “Families searched in their basements and cellars, dug up their backyards. Can you imagine?”

“Yep,” her grandfather continued as if he’d shared the story hundreds of times. “People that no one had seen inside a church showed up, praying to be led to the treasure.”

“All that because of a mysterious unsigned, handwritten note,” Gracie added, scooping Gene’s Chocolate Swirl.

Willy, eager to put in his two cents, piped, “Because there’s treasure here!”

“Willy ain’t alone. Many speculate where it might be hidden,” Thomas encouraged.

Gracie handed Gene a cone with two scoops of Chocolate Swirl. “Now visitors stop by, especially during the annual Treasure Festival every October, to purchase a stone dipped in gold paint with the black letters ‘Ridgewood, KY’ hand-painted on it.”

“Those stones ain’t nothin’ special, just picked up on an afternoon stroll,” Gene scoffed.

“But with a little gold paint and a few black letters,” Thomas mused, “they’re worth at least a dime or sometimes a quarter depending on the stone’s size and the local’s eagerness to make a buck.”

“Lucky for Granddaddy, tourists enjoy homemade ice cream as much as gold painted rocks.” The edges of Gracie’s lips curled affectionately as she looked toward her grandfather, who realized she was struggling to remove the lid on a new canister of Chocolate Swirl. He extended his hand, and she willingly passed the container. Her grandfather steadied it with one hand and pulled off the lid with the other, all in one easy motion.

Kage left the ice cream shop feeling less sorry for himself. Where would he be without his hands? Every dollar he earned depended on them.

* * *

Gracie neatly arranged the peppermint sticks in the shape of a pinwheel on waxed paper in the backroom of Swirly’s Ice Cream parlor. Then without warning, she pounded them relentlessly with a 10-ounce Eagle Brand milk can. Tiny slivers of candy shot across the room like glass spears. Her grandfather was the better peppermint cracker. He put a piece in one hand, and with the back side of a spoon he tapped it until the candy crumbled to his liking—calm and simple. Even though for Gracie the two-handed process was not an option, she preferred her method, though messier. She continued until the candy resembled flakes of coarse white sand.

She touched her index finger to her tongue, then to the peppermint dust on the counter. Tasting it, she thought of her sister and Pixy Stixs. They preferred to eat the flavored sugar from the palm of their hands, not drizzled on their tongues. They stuck their tongues out, licking their palms like bathing cats.

How many Pixy Stixs does it take to make a person’s tongue raw and cause a stomach ache? Gracie knew the answer—forty-eight. She had discovered this the Halloween Sarah was four. Their mother had sewn white angel gowns and wrapped twisted clothes hanger halos with silver Christmas garland.

“What beautiful angels you are!” They received compliments at every “trick-or-treat” stop. They’d heard it a dozen times that night, “A blonde one and a dark headed one—precious!”

Gracie glanced at one of the pictures tacked to the bulletin board on the wall. It was of Sarah and herself, posing side-by-side on a sunny afternoon in front of Swirly’s. Five years apart in age and a foot apart in height, they looked more like friends than siblings. Sarah’s square jaw contrasted with Gracie’s oval features. Gracie, like her father, had almond-toned skin that tanned easily. Brunette with brown eyes and long noticeable lashes, Gracie’s features resembled a young lady’s more than a second grader’s. Sarah had taken after their mother with powder-soft, fine, blonde hair and fair skin. She’d burn and freckle at the mere sight of the sun. Gracie remembered wishing she had freckles, like her mother and sister, and once she’d dotted her arms using their dad’s ballpoint pen. She ran her finger over the picture spattered with crusted milk and wished now for so much more than freckles.

Gracie had recently recognized her mother’s cheekbones in pictures of herself and wondered if she could ever be as beautiful as her mother. Another picture captured the girls, in their frilly dresses, clinging tightly to their parents, along with Thomas and her grandmother, Marilee, on an Easter Sunday. Her mother’s high cheekbones made her look like Grace Kelly, especially with the breeze blowing her hair away from her face. Gracie touched her own cheeks and tried to smile as largely as her mother in the picture.

“Gracie, come here,” Thomas’ voice broke into her thoughts.

She shook peppermint flakes from her hand and headed toward her grandfather’s voice. She found him on the front porch, sweat beaded on his forehead, as he leaned over the ice cream maker, trying to fix it.

“Gonna have to take it to town to get it looked at,” Thomas admitted in defeat.

Gracie nodded her head in response. She glanced at the broken ice cream maker, looked at her grandfather bent over it, and then peered at a late blooming Stargazer among the flowers peeping through the weed-ridden flower garden that Marilee had once tended so meticulously. Petunias no longer sprouted from the window boxes that now hung forward on loose nails. The buttercups, tulips, and zinnias she’d sniffed as a girl remained only in her memory. She ventured toward the remnant of the flowerbed.

Thomas hadn’t painted recently either. Along the trim of the door-facing, the words ‘Benny’s Barber Shop’ showed through the thinning white paint. Thankfully, fresh paint or not, the ice cream sold.

“I’ve been thinking,” Gracie said. She’d stepped down into the flowerbed to pull weeds. Tossing them aside, she followed her grandfather into the shop. “What if we hire someone part-time to help around here, just two or three days a week. To help you … us?”

Thomas picked up several ice cream scoopers. “No.”

“You just …” Gracie paused, “look tired.”

“No, ma’am. I can still do a good two-step if you’d like,” Thomas challenged, shuffling his feet.

“I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.” Gracie smiled, drying one of the ice cream scoopers and placing it in the drawer. “You’re the boss.”

“No, my sweet girl.” Thomas looked up at a bulletin board hanging beneath the clock. “She was the boss.” He pointed an ice cream scooper toward Marilee’s photo.

Still, years after her passing, Thomas left the notes Marilee had written posted to the backroom wall. Though yellowed, the papers with Marilee’s handwriting listed each ingredient and measurement of Peach Popular, Strawberry Sweet, and Chocolate Cream. She’d kept him organized—his master of the details.

“She would have hired someone,” Gracie pressed, bending to wipe up the drops of water on the floor under Thomas’ feet.

He scoffed at the mess he made. “She’d probably fire me for this,” Thomas snorted. He looked over at Gracie’s peppermint flakes on the counter, and added, “And you for that.”

The door chimes clanked, and Thomas motioned for Gracie to go to the front room and help the customer. It was Gene. He was alone. Without Willy there for a tasting spree, he was out the door in a matter of minutes. With his Chocolate Swirl in one hand, he nodded a ‘thank you’ with a wink, and made a clicking noise extending his pointer finger as if to say, ‘see you later’. Gracie chuckled to herself, reminded of funny stories her grandfather had told her about Gene when she was little. They still made her smile. It was hard for her to image Gene as a boy full of life and with tadpoles in his pockets.

“When I was sixteen,” Thomas once shared, “and ol’ Gene Carter was maybe seven, I guess, I’d run into him while he was playing at the creek.”

Gracie had interrupted, “Seven years old, like me?”

“Yep, just like you. Gene would be up to his nose in mucky water trying to catch fish by hand.” Gracie giggled at the picture created in her mind. Thomas admitted he’d been baited by the challenge and tossed aside his pole too. “A tadpole or two t'was all he went home with most days.”

“Another time Gene ran up and down the creek bank building a slippery mud path from the highest end of the bank right down into the creek. He slid on his bottom for hours until the mud caked to his jeans looked like bare skin,” Thomas relayed.

Her giggles encouraged him. “But Gene was a thinker,” Thomas continued, “always doing his own thing, while the other kids played. He once planted a buckeye hoping to grow his own tree. Every day Gene visited that buckeye sunk in the ground and studied it, leaning his eye to the dirt. The most expression I ever saw from Gene was the day that something resembling a small tree branch emerged from the buried buckeye.”

“What’d he do?” Gracie squealed.

Thomas spun to the left, then to the right as he mimicked Gene’s childlike enthusiasm. “Gene turned, slapping his hands on his thighs and jumping. His heels tapped his own hind end, and he looked like a bucking horse.”

Gracie had nearly choked on her laughter—her eyes large and cheeks flushed.

“When he discovered it was the older boys playing a trick on him, Gene dug up the buckeye, stuffed it in his pocket and headed home without a word.”

Gracie’s favorite part of that story had been about Willy. “Willy, Gene’s younger brother, snickered over that one for days, but the worst part was the sound of snot rattling in Willy’s nose every time he laughed,” Thomas concluded. Gracie had giggled and snorted so hard that Thomas began laughing at her. They had laughed until neither could breathe, and then they had wheezed until their breath steadied.

Gracie remembered when she had asked how he could be friends with the stinky man, he had responded kindly, “Gracie, some people are just different. For example, some talk a bunch …”

Feeling compelled to give examples, Gracie had responded, “Like Erma Franklin.”

An innocent smirk escaped as Thomas concluded, “And then there’re folks like Gene, who don’t have much to say. Some people are just different. It’s okay not to be like everyone else.”

A lesson—unknown to Gracie at that moment—that she’d spend a life time learning after the tragic night of the fire.