The Shine Journal

Cherry Icee Love

by

Stephanie Scarborough

Lucy slurped her large cherry Icee and stared at me with her freakishly bright blue eyes. She is obsessed with Icees. We’ve been dating for six weeks, and on every date, at some point, we have to stop by some dirty gas station so she can get her Icee fix. It’s always a large, always cherry. I swear her hair must be red from all the Red No. 40 pulsing through her veins.

At the moment, we were sitting in a grimy booth at the Kwikee Mart. I told her we could sit in the car or walk to the park, but Lucy has this thing for run down, trashy places. On our third date she had me take her to a trailer park. I know there are some nice, clean trailer parks in the world, but this one wasn’t one of them. This was the skankiest, scariest trailer park on the face of the planet. Or at least in all of Texas. Lucy’s a strange gal, but she’s cute—so cute, especially when she’s sucking on an Icee. Today her cherry red hair was in pigtails, further  adding to her ridiculous cuteness.
       
“How’s that’s Icee?” I asked.
       
“Kinda dry. There’s not enough juice. I kinda want a refund.”
       
I paid for the thing. It’s not like it was any skin off her hide. I took a long swig of my root beer. I don’t like Icees, and I especially don’t like anything cherry flavored. I asked Lucy one night when she was slurping one of her Icees at the Circle K if this was going to be a problem. She simply cocked an eyebrow and continued drinking the Icee. Come to think of it, she never gave me a firm answer.
       
“I don’t think they do refunds on Icees. Not really worth it.”
       
She cocked an eyebrow just like when I asked her if my hatred of Icees was okay. “Oh, yeah.”
       
“Yeah. It was just a buck anyway. My buck.”
       
She stood up and trucked on over to the cashier. He was a scrawny guy in his late 20s who looked like he had pretty much given up on life. He sighed with an unnecessary amount of effort upon seeing Lucy, his eyelids drooping, his thin lips in a permanent frown. I had to give him some credit. I don’t know anyone who can’t help but smile around Lucy.
       
“Can I help you?” he asked, sounding as defeated by life as he looked.
       
“I want a refund!” she shrilled in a baby-like voice. “This Icee is subpar! The ice-to-liquid ratio is way off and it tastes like the syrup might be old!” She shuddered. “I want my money back!”
       
The cashier was nonplussed by her outburst. “Sorry, miss. We don’t do refunds for . . . Icees.”
       
“I want a refund!” She smacked the styrofoam cup on the Formica counter. “This Icee is crap!”
       
“I’m not giving you a refund for a stupid Icee!”
       
Uh-oh. He said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Lucy put her hands on her round little hips and glared at him, her eyebrows almost forming a V.
       
“Icees are not stupid! Omigod you are the most retarded loser on the face of the planet! Icees are the most perfect beverage on the face of the planet! But it’s only perfect if you get the fracking ice-to-liquid ratio right! If you don’t believe me, try one for yourself!”
       
“I’m calling the cops. I don’t have to put up with this.” The cashier reached for the phone. That’s when I stood up and headed for the counter.
       
“Hey, man, just give the girl a refund.” The phone was within my reach, so I put my hand on the receiver before he could pick it up. He was not pleased with this move. “It’s only a dollar.”
       
“What’re you gonna do if I don’t?” The vein in his forehead bulged. It was nice to finally see some emotion from the guy.
       
“I’m going to make you drink one of these god awful, horrible—” Lucy shot me a dirty look “—wonderful, delicious Icees so you can see.”
       
“The Ralph’s on South Main has better Icees than this, and Ralph’s is skank-kay!”
       
“That place is skanky,” the cashier agreed. The vein in his forehead receded a bit. “I hear people regularly find cockroaches in the burritos there.”
       
“Exactly,” Lucy said. “Do you want to be known as the convenience store with crappier Icees than Skanky Ralph’s?”
       
“No. But what should I do?” He looked surprisingly concerned now.
       
“First, give me a refund,” Lucy said, “then, you need to open a fresh thing of cherry syrup and add it to the Icee machine. Because Ralph’s didn’t become skanky overnight. It started with the little things. Like letting your Icee syrup get all old and funky.”
       
The cashier opened the register and retrieved a dollar and slid it across the counter to Lucy. She promptly pocketed it. I didn’t even try to intercept.
       
“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said. His face brightened, as though life finally had meaning again. We stepped outside and Lucy leaned against my El Camino, sucking down the last of the Icee.
       
“It’s really not that bad,” she says with a shrug. “I was just bored.”
       
I wasn’t surprised.
       
“What do you wanna do now?” I asked. She shrugged, red straw firmly planted between her candy-pink lips. “We could go to the drive-in or the record store.” Her eyebrows flattened into an unenthusiastic glare. “Or we could go to the Stop-N-Go, and I could buy you another cherry Icee.”
       
Her lips curled into a smile that maked my heart hit the dirty Kwikee Mart parking lot and we got in the car and headed for the Stop-N-Go.

Motivation: To write a fun, enjoyable story.

Bio: Stephanie Scarborough's fiction has appeared in M-Brane SF, A Thousand Faces, and A Fly in Amber. Visit her blog at http://hellostephanie.net.