At the Ice Cream Shoppe

Stargus City is an impossible maze. Even though the taxi ride from downtown to the listed address only takes five minutes, Abby finds herself in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farm fields and a few rickety old buildings with the city nowhere to be seen on the distant horizon. One of those buildings is the Ice Cream Shoppe.

Abby concludes there must be a space-bending power at work. Come to think of it, she could remember one of her teachers mentioning something about that before. Stargus was split into zones that were far bigger than the geographic area they should take up.

Abby pushes into the little building. A bell instantly dings, sounding her arrival.

The interior of the building is mostly white, with red and white tile floors, and a once-colorful mural of dancing anthropomorphic desserts on one wall. While it must have been bright and clean once, it was showing its age now. The fluorescent lights were cased in yellowing plastic and hummed loudly. The paint was faded and peeling everywhere. Cracks in the tiles made the floor look unsafe and dirtier than it probably was. And there was a layer of grime over everything except the tables. The windows, freezer box, decorations, and pretty much everything else were all clearly in disrepair or just filthy with neglect.

An elderly woman with a cane creeps slowly out of the back room to greet Abby. Each steps is slow and deliberate and takes ages. The short walk from the back room to counter takes well over 20 seconds.

"Hello," she says with a smile, "Welcome to the Ice Cream Shoppe. Would you like to try a sample? What's your favorite flavor, dear? You look sweet, I'll get you a double scoop... We have chocolate, vanilla, strawberry..."

"No, no, wait! I'm not here for ice cream," Abby says, cutting off the woman before she can continue. Even her speech is slow and tired. If Abby had let her continue, she would have been there all day. Not that there were any other customers, but still. "I'm here for the job you posted online? The shop attendant position?"

The woman's eyes light up and she nods, show as much delight as she safely can. "Oh! Yes, yes. Oh I'm so glad you're here, deary. We need so much help and I just love this place to bits. I... well I could cry when I think about losing it. But now you're here we can finally take a break, Dennis and I. Oh, I'm Lavender by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The woman holds out her hand to Abby, palm down for a very dainty and old-fashioned hand-shake. Abby accepts and says, "Uh, yeah, of course. Nice to meet you too. I'm Abby."

"Abby? Oh that's a beautiful name. Here, are you sure you don't want a scoop? How about just one. You look like a strawberry girl..." Before Abby can decline, Lavender thrusts a cup with a large scoop of strawberry ice cream directly into her hands. "Don't worry about stealin' scoops from the tubs. Dennis does it all the time, and what's life without something sweet every now and then?" She smiles and starts walking back towards the back room, apparently forgetting to tell Abby anything about her duties and responsibilities.

"H-hey, wait! What about customers? What do I do?" Abby calls after her.

The woman only waves without turning around and calls back, "I doubt we'll have any more today. Just make yourself comfortable. And flip the sign to 'closed' when you need a break."

That was all the training Abby would ever get at the Ice Cream Shoppe. And true to Lavender's words, there wasn't a single customer for the rest of the day.