Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 18)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
Helper, Help!
When Emily’s business began, she didn’t plan to hire anyone. “It’s a small business anyway,” she thought. Of course, she could handle everything -- scooping ice cream, giving change, making coffee, serving cold drinks, waiting on customers and the cleaning jobs -- like a “Goddess of Mercy with a Thousand Hands”.
But at times as summer neared, she found herself surrounded by more than a dozen customers all waiting for ice cream. Then she recognized the need for a helper.
At first, Emily was lucky to hire some pretty (and well-behaved) Western girls who helped part-time, but they returned to their home countries for the summer holidays. As Emily wondered about hiring someone new, a friend telephoned.
Emily had known Alice for years. Despite living in the city, she promised to come to help.
Some of the biggest betrayals in Emily’s career were about to begin!
The Price of Friendship
Truly, Emily appreciated the arrival of Alice, a friend for more than a decade, to help in the ice-cream shop. Things appeared to have taken a turn for the better.
Influenced by her mother, Emily dislikes calculating and prefers to give unconditionally, including several scoops of ice cream as a treat for Alice on hot summer days (in addition to salary). Sometimes Alice brought a thermo bag and took ice cream home to treat her nieces and nephews. Things went well in the shop until one day when Emily happened to lift Alice’s super-heavy bag. Something solid and cold nearly slipped out.
Embarrassed, Alice hurriedly pushed the object back inside. Then she zipped the bag as if nothing had happened.
Was it ice cream “taken” without paying? Emily didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to ask. What’s the cost for a long friendship? It wasn’t about ice cream, but rather about trust, the basis for any relationship.
Since then, Emily has started to learn that showing kindness to others, no matter how long she has known them or how well she treats them, may encourage them to take unfair advantages. Yes, she’s generous to give, but that doesn’t mean her staff or friends can “take” without asking.
Was Alice’s love for her relatives so deep that she dared to steal for them? One of Emily’s shortcomings is that she wants to believe in kindness and not to know about the darkness lurking in human nature.
Then one day, her heart broke twice, thanks to two teenage helpers for whom she had shown much care and concern. That’s another distressing story to tell.
Coming soon: More installments in the semi-fictional Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady will appear beginning in late August.
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