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The weatherperson that morning had described the heat as sweltering. Not quite hot enough to cook an egg on the blacktop, but enough to make you feel like you were a couple of degrees from bubbling under the sun’s oven rays. The humidity, she said, would creep above 70 percent, temporarily moving the Midwest’s latitude closer to the equator than the Arctic where it liked to hang out half of the year. In short, it was the kind of heat that people sought out, but after stepping outside the comfort of their air-conditioned homes, decided was more suffocating than satisfying.
It was also the kind of heat that sent kids catapulting out of their shallow pools and adults speed-walking from their shaded lawn furniture at the first note of the whimsical ice cream truck melody.
Papi’s Popsicles would have lines nine, ten people deep and rake in ice-cream buckets loads of cash.
At least that’s how it was in Jay’s youth, when he’d watch his dad and papi dole out frozen happiness like they were The Candyman in Willy Wonka. It was the same for his dad and his papi as they grew. Summer was a time of magic, when the glimmer of the sun and the refreshment of a popsicle could line their pockets for the rest of the year.
Today was not one of those days. Actually, the past few days hadn’t been, despite the fact that the majority of Michigan was in a heatwave, even up in the Upper Peninsula where the highs always were five to ten degrees cooler than the rest of the state and nation.
Instead, Jay was forced to troll the streets of Webster like a creeper, looking for children to lure to his 1960s-era truck with treats.
“You really need to stop describing yourself like that.”
Jay jerked upright in the driver’s seat, clutching onto the gear shift to keep himself from toppling out onto the metal floor. Over the edge of the order window, Jay spied the source of the previously disembodied commentary: Gemma.
The surprise eased because of course it was her. The embarrassment didn’t, because, of course, it was her.
“I didn’t realize I was saying it out loud,” he muttered, and used the dash to push himself to standing. Maybe the fact he couldn’t differentiate between thoughts and speech was a sign the heat had driven his brain into meltdown.
“Well, you did, and the neighborhood kids seemed concerned. They think you might be a predator now, and no one is going to approach a predator, let alone buy a popsicle from one,” she said, drops of sweat running from the navy headband controlling her bronze curls to her chin. The day being the day, it could’ve been easily a product of the temperature alone, but based on the way she was gliding back and forth in front of the window and, more obviously, the helmet she had dangling from her hand, Jay knew she was on her rollerblades again. “Especially, may I add, when said predator has parked his truck in front of a park.”
“I was trying to do a service, you know, help the kids so they don’t die of heatstroke on the playground,” Jay said. Although, that was not the sole reason. Gemma lived around the corner in a bright yellow Craftsman in which he had spent a good portion of his life hanging out with her. By parking near the playground, he knew his chances of running into her were high, and if he was just going to be sitting around, waiting for someone to buy something, anything, he may as well have done it with good company and without burning gas. “Besides, I wasn’t getting any business before I said it, so I don’t think that I changed anything,” he said, and held his hand up to his eyes like a visor to better see Gemma. “You want to change that?”
“Nope. Not hungry,” she said, and even squinting, Jay could tell Gemma was smirking. He was not.
“And the curse continues,” he sighed, slumping against the chest freezer chock full of push pops, Drumsticks, Dreamsicles, Klondike Bars, Chipwiches, and a rainbow of popsicles.
“Curse?” Gemma asked, part amused, part curious. Again, he was neither. Okay, well, maybe a little amused.
“Yep.”
“How are you cursed?”
“As you pointed out, no one wants to buy from me, even though look at them, they’re all red-faced and one monkey bar away from heat stroke.” Jay threw his hand out towards the playground where kids were parkouring their way from the slide to the balance beam to the rock wall, slowing with each landmark they landed on. “It makes no sense.” Folding forward, he rested his arms on the window, quickly moving them inside when the sun-scorched metal burned his skin. He leaped back, running his fingers over the pink lines that had appeared on his forearms. “Son of a bitch! See, cursed!”
Gemma smothered her laugh with her palms. “That’s the sun, not a curse. And today is just a slow business day,” she said.
“Three business days,” he said, holding up as many fingers.
“Okay, three. But come on. What would even be cursing you anyways? Did you park on an ancient burial ground or something?” she deadpanned, and in reply, Jay pantomimed an over exaggerated laugh that just made Gemma smile wider.
“No, I did not park on an ancient burial ground. You know I would never do that.” On his drives around town, Jay tried, wherever possible, to not get within a three-block radius of a cemetery. Was it stupid to be afraid of the dead? Yes. Did that mean he still wasn’t uncomfortable and maybe just a hint scared of rows of gravestones marking rows of decaying bodies? No.
“Then what? Did the demon popsicle return?”
Jay, tired and overheating, had no difficulty keeping his face serious, and with his lack of response, Gemma’s shifted, eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas as her mouth went from a smile to an O-shape. “Noooo,” she said.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Oh. My. God.” Gemma disappeared around the side of the truck, and before Jay could spy where she had gone, she whipped open the truck’s back door, clamoring up the steps, rollerblades and all. “Show it to me,” she demanded and despite feeling deep-fried in sulk and sweat, Jay couldn’t stop the side of his mouth from tugging upwards.
“You sound a bit too excited about this,” he commented.
“Uh, yeah, when a frozen demon suddenly returns after eight years, you’re a bit anxious to see it.”
“Fair point.” Jay stepped over the helmet she had discarded on the floor and to the freezer, sliding open the door, one side frosted, the other dewy. “You ready?”
“You know I am,” she said, and he was too. It was another reason he had ended up in her neighborhood, wanting to show her in person what he had unwrapped a couple days before.
Eight years ago, Gemma had been the one to rip open her popsicle, expecting Spider-Man but instead finding a web-slinger who looked like he had been dipped in acid, the blue, red and white coloring streaked across his popsicle face. One of the gumball eyes was near his mouth, the other lodged like a rock on the crown of his ice cream skull.
As Jay’s papi had called it, it was the popsicle straight out of hell, and it was terrifying.
Jay may or may not have screamed when he saw it, while Gemma held the stick so tight, her hand was clamped into a bone-white fist.
It, they decided with no proof, carried as much bad luck as a black cat, opened-indoors umbrella, and a shattered mirror all rolled into one. The only way to make sure it could do no harm to them was to hurtle it into the nearest trash can and watch as the maniacal figure changed from solid to a puddle of tie-dye food coloring. Which they did with much attention.
From the corner of the freezer, wedged between Snoopys and SpongeBobs, Jay pulled the rolled-up bag and unsheathed the popsicle from it, raising up the marred figure Lion King-style. Gemma audibly gasped. “Holy shit,” she breathed, which about the same reaction Jay had when, bored and hungry, he had grabbed the Spider-Man popsicle as a snack, but instead received an omen.
“Don’t make direct eye contact with it. That may be how it transfers its evilness,” Jay warned, as Gemma continued to stare.
“How could I? It’s got one eye for a chin growth and the other for an ear,” she said, extending her fingers into the air, reaching for Scary Spidey, but never grasping. “Aside from that, it’s almost a dead ringer for Devil-Man Mark One.”
“Right?” The streaks of color had bled out of their pattern and warped, making the popsicle look less like a superhero, and more like a horror villain with a slashed face, and few people wanted a Freddy Krueger treat. “I think it resurrected itself.”
“Out of the trash? Eight years later?” Gemma snorted, her eyes flicking away from Scary Spidey long enough to raise an eyebrow in Jay’s direction.
“Yep. Apparently we should’ve scattered the remains. Then it would’ve taken it at least, I don’t know, 20 years.”
“Please. Interstate bodily reconstitution takes 30 years minimum,” she said, and this time, the laugh did escape Jay’s lips.
“Of course. I should’ve known that.”
“You really should’ve,” she said, and plucked the popsicle from his hands, and wheeled herself backwards to sit on the inner counter of the truck, the plastic of her rollerblades banging against the cabinets. Biting her lip, she considered the object, tilting her head one way and then another.
“So, this little guy is causing you business troubles and to have extensive nightmares.”
“I never said anything about nightmares,” Jay scoffed.
“Didn’t need to. I see the trauma in your eyes.” If Gemma could see non-existent trauma, Jay wondered how many of his actual feelings she had noticed, particularly those he had for her.
“That’s from the time your brother pants-ed himself in front us.” All three of them wished they could’ve said that was the product of a childhood antic, instead of a night, not even a year ago, when her brother, Dean, got toasted on Smirnoff and thought the bench in their living room was a toilet. Shielding their eyes, Gemma and Jay hurled pillows at him, only serving to confuse him more, although eventually he did find his belt loops and hoist his pants back up.
The laughter ripped out of her, despite the expression of absolute cringe. “Yeah, I’m still traumatized from that too. Anyway.” She spun the stick in her fingers, so Spidey was looking at him.
“We need to take care of this. Curse or no curse, he’s got to go.”
“And what do you recommend? Exorcism? Witch trial-style punishments?” he suggested, leaning against the cooler, the frigid air crawling up the back of his shirt in what he would describe in his head and out loud as waves of heaven.
“No,” she shook her head. “Dismemberment.” Jay had no time to question her. Gemma took a gigantic bite out of Spider-Man’s head, half his cranium lost to her mouth. Apparently, she couldn’t care less about tooth sensitivity or the high probability of a brain freeze. It had Jay as impressed as you could be with someone who ate a possibly, but more-than-likely-not-cursed, demented ice cream treat.
“I… was not expecting that,” he said, slowly and quietly.
“Only way to handle it,” she shrugged. “Plus, I really did want one. Just wanted to torture you, more.”
“Even though you could be ingesting evil.”
“I’d do worse for you,” she laughed, and rolling towards him, bit off Spider-Man’s cheek as if to prove it further.
It was a weird moment for something so huge to hit him, Jay would later think, but nonetheless it was the one he found himself in—unable to look away from her, caught in awe and infatuation, that he realized all those emotions he’d hoped Gemma couldn’t see added up to love. Not the love he’d felt for her for years. One that was different, fuzzier, scarier.
I’m in love with Gemma, he thought.
In front of him, Gemma came to a halt, the stick falling from her agape mouth. “What was that?” she said, a tone that sounded a lot like shock coating her words.
“What was what?” he asked and rewound the conversation in his head to suss out whatever would’ve caused such a change in her. But he didn’t have to go far. The gravity of it smacked into him like a garbage truck into a brick wall. “I said that out loud didn’t I?”
Gemma nodded, and the chill that overtook him now could only come from hell.
The curse continued.
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