Two parents with identical twin boys, four or five, stepped up to the counter. The parents looked worried, and Alexa could already foresee the disaster that would soon unfold. The parents (Midwestern, maybe, but anyway, not local) would get a look at the prices and try to get the boys to share. The boys would agree on principle but would disagree on a flavor, and one of the parents would ask Alexa if the boys could split the smallest size into two different flavors.

Yes, she could split the smallest size into two different flavors, but no, she didn’t enjoy doing it, and, yes, there would be a fight over which boy got the most ice cream because it was impossible to get two half-scoops exactly even. The whole family would leave more distraught than it arrived.

This was exactly what transpired.

People were so predictable.

Alexa’s job at the Cottage Creamery, the walk-up ice cream joint on Plum Island, was more of a cover than anything else, part of her endeavor to appear like a normal almost-eighteen-year-old girl. Most of her money she made elsewhere. Also, getting out of the house was critical, and it was nice to be near the beach, during this, her last summer ever living in her hometown. Not that anyone knew that. And not that Plum Island had the best beach scene around. It would be much more fun to work up near Jenness Beach, at Summer Sessions, doling out acai bowls to the surf-camp kids and their moms, watching the hot surf instructors stroll by with their wet suits pulled down halfway. But everyone knew the Summer Sessions jobs went to the surfers and their significant others and Alexa had never bothered to learn to surf. It seemed time-consuming and unproductive. Cold too, especially in New England waters. Maybe when she moved to L.A., maybe then she’d learn.

The middle-aged couple stepped up to the plate, and she could almost see the woman shrink back when she got a load of Alexa’s megawatt smile. They each ordered the Ringer, which was a milkshake topped by a doughnut. If she weren’t forced to serve it, Alexa wouldn’t touch the Ringer with a pole of any length; doughnuts didn’t do it for her. Her boyfriend, Tyler, could take down four maple bacons from Angry Donuts in a single sitting. Watching him do this always made Alexa feel a little queasy.

The man put a hand to his retreating hairline and smiled back at Alexa. He was wearing a brick-red Newburyport T-shirt he probably picked up at Richdale, near the postcards and the penny candy. Alexa would bet her toe ring that in high school he was a solid B student with a not-quite-pretty girlfriend everyone referred to as “sweet.”