It Started With Mango Ice Cream

Our Journey began four years ago. It was a rocky road, one he once called a rollercoaster, which I think aptly describes it. We got on the colorful ride one day just on the cusp of fall, when we both arrived at boarding school. I hadn’t really met him yet. We talked in passing maybe once, but nothing memorable. After arriving in town, we weren’t required to stay together. I had headed down a street lined on both sides with stores advertising “40% Off Shoes,” “Buy One Bra Get One Free,” “Coldstone Ice Cream,” and “Universi-Tees.” I could count four bars from where I was standing which didn’t surprise me in a college town. What had surprised me was how upscale some of the stores looked. I hadn’t brought much money, but still, I had to go somewhere. I couldn’t just stand there, and so I stepped forward directly in the path of a young man who I recognized as we struggled to keep each other upright.

“I’m so sorry!” I said.

“No problem,” he said, smiling, but awkward.

We both stood there silently. I took in his image for the first time. We were both fourteen, and our respective heights indicated this. He had shoulder length brown hair that partially covered his blue eyes. He wore beige cargo shorts and a tie-dye tee shirt which I just knew he’d made himself. He looked pretty timid but in an adorable way. We exchanged names again and then, after about thirty-seconds of silence, I decided to go out on a limb.

“Want to get some ice cream?” I gestured in the direction of Coldstone.

“Sure,” he sounded relieved to have me take charge.

We walked up the street, through the door and took our places in line.

“What are you going to order?”

“I really like their mango ice cream,” he answered.

“Really, I’ve never tried it,” I responded, feeling self-conscious.

“It’s organic, one of the only flavors I’ll eat here,” he said, watching my expression as if he wanted to know if I thought it was weird that he’d only eat “healthy” ice cream.

We ordered two mango ice cream cones and sat down at an empty red table near the door. The ice cream was good…really good. I wanted to savor it, make it last. He watched me intently, brow slightly furrowed, to see if I liked it.

I made it easy on him. “Wow! This is really good.”

“I’m glad you like it. I really like mango. I eat dried mangos back home.”

“That sounds tasty,” I replied.

I stared at the names of all the flavors on the wall behind the case; Peanut Butter Cup Perfection, Chocolate Devotion, The Pie Who Loved Me. I could feel him watching me read the list: Our Strawberry Blond, Cookie Doughn’t Ya Want Some? His fingers tapped nervously on the metal table. I turned to meet his gaze which he immediately averted.

“I like your shirt. It kind of looks like ocean waves—all those blues.” It also brought out the blue in his eyes, but, of course, I hadn’t said that.

“Thanks, I made it last year,” he said looking down at his chest as if he’d only just now noticed what shirt he’d put on that morning.

“Have you ever made one? It’s really easy. All you have to do is wrap rubber bands around a shirt, and then find a bucket and fill it with dye.

He had warmed to his subject. “Someday I want to learn how to make my own dye. I liked the blue the best, so I did different shades of blue.” He was stumbling over his words. “I didn’t use rubber gloves. My hands were blue for like ever.”

I looked him in the eye as he went through every step of how to tie-dye a shirt—something I had indeed done several times before. I had gone to school in California for a while where most of the kids had hippie parents who wore tie-dyed shirts of their own. I guessed my raised eyebrows and smile finally made him realize I might be humoring him. He looked mortified.

“The hardest part of making one is waiting. You can’t take it out too soon,” he said with a nervous laugh before turning his attention back to his ice cream.

The hardest part of a lot of things is waiting, I thought.

“I like blue a lot, too,” I said.

“Really, so like, is it your favorite color?”

“No, I think I’d say green is my favorite color. I wear blue a lot though because it goes with my eyes.”

“What color are your eyes,” he said, leaning in to get a closer look.

I was taken aback by the question. He was sitting right in front of me. He must know what color my eyes are. He just didn’t want there to be any silence.

“Blue, but pretty dark. Ocean blue, maybe.”

“My eyes are blue too, but probably more like a sky.”

“They look even lighter to me, almost like a crystal.”

He grinned, unleashing a trickle of mango ice cream down his chin. He swiped at it with the back of his hand, which only served to spread it around and make his hand sticky. I handed him a napkin.

“So why did you decide to go to boarding school here in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.

It was a question that almost everyone in my family had asked me and that I really didn’t have a satisfactory answer for. I was thinking maybe I could steal his.

“Uhm, I was homeschooled up until this year. My family thought it would be a good idea for me to go to a college prep school for high school.”

“That’s cool. I was homeschooled for my seventh grade year. It was a lot of fun. I got to learn science from my dad. He’s going to be teaching at the school this year. We have a house on campus,” I responded, propping my elbow on the table and my cheek on my hand.

“Oh, so you won’t be living in the dorms,” he asked, almost sounding disappointed.

“No, I still will be. I’m moving in tonight. I’ll just have two rooms,” I clarified.

There was a moment of silence before he broke it again.

“So, what do you like to do?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m pretty boring, I really like school work. I like learning about politics in particular,” I said.

“Really, so are you like ridiculously smart?” He looked a little worried—probably even more embarrassed about his tie-dye monologue.

“Not super smart, but a hard worker.”

“I like hard workers. Do you have any hobbies?”

“I’m kind of in between hobbies right now,” I said, wincing because that must have sounded really stupid. “It looks like the school’s going to keep us pretty busy. I do like card games, if you can call that a hobby.”

“Really, my family loves to play cards!”

“Well then we might have to play sometime,” I said.

“You’re on.”

I moved my feet under the table accidently kicking him, but he seemed not to notice which was impossible because it wasn’t just a nudge. I was about to ask him more about where he was from when his watch began to beep.

“I set that so I would know when to head back.” Did I imagine it, or did he sound kind of disappointed?

“Well then we should probably go,” I said.

I reached for his empty ice cream cone and the napkin and threw them away. We made pleasant conversation as we walked—less nervous now. I had been so worried about making friends at my new school. This ordeal had seemed too good to be true. It was, as it turns out, too good to be true. What was true, and remains true, is that there at that table I did two things for the first time: tried mango ice cream and fell in love.