"God, this is boring," Courtney sighed. "We should just close early and go home. Who comes out for ice cream at nine o'clock on a Thursday night, anyway?"

Ryan wasn't listening. He'd stopped listening to Courtney a long time ago--sometime midway through their first date, if he remembered correctly. He'd found out then that she'd never gone out with him before because of his glasses and acne, and he decided that, as much as he wanted a girlfriend, he didn't want one who might be just one breakout or lost contact lens away from dumping him for somebody better.

Instead, he was at his usual place behind the pink counter, gazing at the ice cream, at all the soothing pastels and rich color: vanilla, strawberry, fudge ripple, mint chocolate chip... All neatly lined up in their round containers, waiting for someone to enjoy them.

It wasn't like ice cream was going to save the world or anything. Still, he thought, it was simple, and sweet, in a world where too few things were either.

"Have you ever thought," he ventured, "how weird it is that something so simple and common can make so many different kinds of people happy?"

"Make them fat, more like," Courtney replied. She had abandoned the counter to sit at one of the tiny pink tables, and now she was busy shredding a napkin in flashes of her manicured nails. "Did I tell you I gained a pound and a half already? In two days."

"Better than lung cancer."

"At least I'd lose weight." She started in on another napkin, and Ryan went back to pondering the flavors. There had been no customers for almost two hours.

"Do you remember the first time you ever had ice cream?" he asked after a few minutes.

She rolled her eyes. "Jeez, you ask such stupid questions."

"Well, do you?"

"No, I do not. I was probably a baby anyway."

"Me neither." It was too bad, really. It would have made a nice memory.

The bell chimed over the door, and they both looked up as a young female skunk stepped inside. She wore a stylish blue dress that came to just above her knees, and as soon as she came to the counter, Ryan could tell she wasn't there for ice cream. In fact, she looked kind of upset.

"Do you..." Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat and started again. "Do you have a phone I could use?"

He glanced at Courtney, who, as keyholder, technically outranked him. She shrugged.

"Sure," he said. "Hang on." He went back to the office and brought her the cordless handset. She dialed almost without looking at the numbers.

"It's me," she said softly after a moment. "Yeah. I know. Um... I'm at..." She looked around helplessly.

"Cool Scoops, on Third," he supplied.

She repeated it. "Yeah, the ice cream place... Okay. Bye."

She handed the phone back to him. He noticed Courtney staring at her and wanted to roll his own eyes. Just because none of them went to their private school didn't mean she'd never seen one before. Fortunately, the skunk didn't seem to notice.

"So," he asked brightly, "what'll it be? Cone? Milkshake? I do a mean banana split."

She blinked. "Oh, I... don't have any money. I left my purse... in the car." From the tone of her voice, it was clear the car was long gone.

This time he didn't bother to glance at Courtney. "This one's on the house. What's your favorite?"

For the first time since coming in, she smiled as she looked at the case. "Well... strawberry."

"Excellent choice, madame." He scooped the ice cream with a flourish, but the ice cream was softer than he'd remembered, and it flew off the scoop and landed with a dull splat on the floor.

The skunk's eyes sparkled. "When you say 'on the house,' you mean it."

"Technical difficulties. Please stand by." The second try went without mishap, and he grabbed a chocolate-dipped waffle bowl to put it in. No one was around to object, and they'd just have to throw them out at the end of the night anyway. He added a frothy spray of whipped cream, topped that with a bright maraschino cherry, stuck a pink spoon in one side, and handed it over. "Bon appetit."

"Thank you." She looked suddenly shy as she took the gift to one of the empty tables near the door.

Courtney got up and leaned across the counter to him. "What is she doing here?"

"Eating ice cream," he replied--though, truth be told, she seemed to be playing with it more than actually eating it.

"You know what I mean. I thought they all lived over in the Jungle."

"More of a forest species, really," he mused. What he wanted to say ran something along the lines of what an unsurpassed bitch Courtney could be when it came to other girls--human or otherwise--but he lived by humor, and it served him well.

"Whatever. I'm going to get a smoke," she said. "Maybe two. I'll come back in when the air clears."

He watched her go, remembering how he had fantasized about her. A long time ago.

The skunk was still idly making little trails and gulleys in her ice cream with the side of her spoon. He watched her a moment. The blue fabric of her dress had a slight shimmer to it that matched her eyes perfectly. He'd noticed no scent from her except for a hint of floral perfume.

A date, then, and one that must have ended pretty badly for her to wind up in a strange place without her purse. The smile she'd given him earlier was gone, and he watched her eyes fill with tears as she put the spoon down and stared into the ice cream.

He took a seat opposite her. "I hate to tell you this..."

She looked up. "What?"

"There's no crying allowed in here. Boss is really strict about it. Sours the ice cream."

She managed a flicker of a smile before the tears spilled over.

"And you do know this stuff melts if you don't eat it, right? I mean, I know it's not Haagen-Dazs or anything, but it's really not bad." He picked up her spoon and brandished it. "Don't make me start the choo-choo train."

She looked as though she wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed, but amusement won out. "Okay, okay," she said, swiping the spoon back.

He watched her eat for a few minutes. "So what's a nice girl like you doing in a shady joint like this?"

She sighed but kept eating. "Waiting for my sister. Who I should have listened to in the first place."

"Bad night, huh?"

"The worst." She paused. "Well--not the worst. But too close." She finished the ice cream before speaking again, as if to herself. "That's what I get for going out with a human."

Ryan looked around furtively before speaking. "You should probably know--I mean, I don't tell everybody this--but I'm human."

"You don't say."

"Yep. Ever since I was born."

"I would never have guessed."

"Yeah, well, I've learned to hide it. Besides, what's wrong with humans? Do we smell funny or something?" He winced. "Sorry. I didn't mean--"

"It's okay," she said quickly. Then, more softly, "It's not like I haven't heard it before."

"That sucks."

"Well, the good side is, if I ever take up drinking tomato juice, I'll have enough to last a year from what people keep leaving in my locker. And my backpack. And everywhere else."

"Maybe there is something wrong with humans," Ryan said quietly.

Headlights swept across the storefront, and the skunk stood. "That's my sister. Um... thanks. For the phone, and the ice cream..."

He dropped to one knee and kissed her hand. "Anything for you, milady."

She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but instead she just smiled and left. He watched her get into the sedan, watched it drive away, and tried not to think of what a complete idiot she probably thought he was.

Then again, she had smiled...

Courtney opened a fresh container of Bear-loo-berry to replace the empty one. "There's a color not found in nature." It was electric blue--bright enough to stain the tongue and other things besides--and swirled with a rainbow of gummy bears and marshmallows. "There should be a law against selling this crap to kids."

When Ryan didn't reply, she waved a hand in front of his face. "Hello? I'm discussing the great mysteries of milk and sugar and butterfat here."

"What?"

She smirked. "Let me guess. It's black and white--"

"She," he corrected.

"If you say so." She went back to restocking the ice cream. "I mean, you don't even know her name, and she's obviously not from around here. So it's not like she's going to come all the way back here just to thank her gallant hero--"

The door chimed. He raised an eyebrow at Courtney.

The skunk was dressed more casually this time, in jeans and a pink T-shirt. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied, unable to keep from grinning. "Having a better day?"

She smiled back. "I am now."

He ignored the quiet fake retching noises Courtney was making. "So what'll it be?"

She scanned the menu. "The works."

"My kind of girl." God, had he actually said that out loud? "Have a seat. This'll take a minute."

He pulled out all the stops: waffle bowl, three kinds of ice cream, three kinds of syrup, nuts, whipped cream, cherry--then shrugged and added an extra cherry for good measure. When the masterpiece was complete, he carried it--two-handed--to her table and placed it carefully before her.

She studied it a moment. "You forgot something."

He blinked. "What?"

There were no tears in her eyes now, and they caught his gaze and held it. Courtney was wrong--that shade of blue was found in nature, in one other place and one only...

He swallowed. "Uh... what'd I forget?"

She smiled. "The other spoon."

He went back to the counter, trying not to knock anything over along the way. Courtney looked heavenward, then smiled and handed him a spoon. "Take a fifteen, Galahad."

He sat back down. "By the way, I'm Ryan." Stupid. He was wearing a nametag. Fortunately, she didn't seem to notice.

"Melanie," she said.

He managed to hold on to the spoon. The first bite's sweetness shimmered over his tongue, the ice cream cool and silky, every texture a surprise, every flavor soaking in, as if he were tasting it all for the very first time.

This work and all characters (c) 2007 Renee Carter Hall ("Poetigress"). May not be reprinted, reposted, or redistributed without written permission.