An Ice Cream For Henry - Emanuele Cerquiglini

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the left, looking out the window; second a tiny bit to the right, peeking down at what his classmate Nicholas was writing on his graph paper; third straight ahead, checking that Miss Anderson wasn’t looking; and fourth ahead and to the right, trying to catch the eye of Joanna, but she was engrossed in her work, her head bent over her paper as she furiously scribbled down calculations that were way beyond Henry.

      â€œI can’t do it...” Henry whispered to Nicholas.

      â€œSo copy,” replied Nicholas under his breath, not even lifting his head.

      He would have copied Henry himself, but Nicholas was already on page three and his neighbor was still stuck on page one.

      â€˜ Ah, who cares?’ thought Henry as he turned the page and began to copy what little he could make out from Nicholas’s sheet.

      Chapter 5

       I n New York, Barbara Harrison was running north to south through Central Park. She would do her daily workout come rain or shine, although sometimes she had to put work first, in which case she would make do with the treadmill in her apartment or, when she was out of town, the ones in hotel gyms.

      She had a lunch date with Robert at one o’clock. They had made up over the phone the previous evening, and this afternoon they would be heading off together to spend the weekend in Robert’s woodland cottage up in Maine, which Barbara considered to be their love nest.

      Robert, who was already forty-seven and had an established career, was keen for things with Barbara to move to the next stage. It wasn’t that she wasn’t keen on Robert or hadn’t thought about taking the next step - after all, they’d been seeing each other for years - it was just that he didn’t seem to tolerate her working hours anymore. She could be around for the whole week then suddenly take off for days, or sometimes weeks, on end. Robert hated that, but for Barbara work had to come first, even if she had begun to rethink her priorities a little over the last few weeks after Robert started to keep his distance.

      Barbara was forty-two now, and if she wanted to become a mom she would have to get a move on. She didn’t want people to think she was her own child’s grandma on his or her first day at school!

      She loved being in the field and getting around, being active rather than stuck behind a desk, but she figured she had already got everything she wanted from her career, and getting it had hindered her private life more than she could ever have imagined. She felt ready for a new chapter because she loved Robert and knew that she’d never find another guy like him and would eventually end up alone. ‘ A horrible, frumpy old maid. That’ s what would become of me!’ Barbara thought to herself as she ran along West Drive before turning at the south end of Central Park and lengthening her stride as she headed toward East Drive. From there, she would exit the Park on 72nd Street and make her way to her apartment, where she would have time for a quick shower before packing her case for the weekend.

      Chapter 6

       R obert Brown had booked a table at Erminia, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side that had been in Eyewitness Travel’ s top ten for a while now.

      Barbara had Italian roots and Robert knew that she would appreciate his choice of eatery, even though it was only her maternal grandmother who was Italian and Barbara herself had never been to Italy.

      Robert was going to ask her to marry him in Maine, and he wanted everything to be perfect. He loved her and wanted her as his wife. He had told his dad as much in a phone call that morning before leaving the office, and his dad had responded by telling him it was the biggest load of crap he’d ever heard come out of his son’s mouth: ‘ Son, you’ ve done great so far and now you want to tie yourself down?’ Robert chuckled to himself as he recalled his father’s words, spending several minutes flossing in front of the bathroom mirror. Robert was obsessed with his teeth. He brushed them at least ten times a day and flossed even after eating a couple olives with an apéritif. He never went anywhere without his faithful white box of floss. As a teenager, he had lost three teeth when he face-planted after coming off his bike having misjudged a bend at the bottom of a crazy descent. He had also broken an arm and his nose and had deep abrasions on both knees. He survived, fortunately, but having to look at himself without those teeth for three months was unbearable. He’d lost one canine and two premolars, and for someone who was one of the three best-looking guys in college, with a smile that was irresistible to the ladies, that represented something of an existential crisis. He could have had them put back in earlier, but his dad wanted to teach him a lesson and make him see that we’re all just flesh and bones, nobody is indestructible. It was a lesson that had served him well. The boy who fell off his bike had gotten into several scrapes over the years, but that experience had straightened his head out and now he was Robert Brown, owner of one of New York’s premier renovation firms and able to rely on the best carpenter around: his brother, James. The brothers and their team could turn a run-down apartment into a luxury home in a matter of weeks.

      Chapter 7

       W ith her voice like nails down a blackboard and eyes like a hawk, Miss Anderson always made Henry break out in a cold sweat; every time she looked at him, she seemed to be saying the same thing: ‘ You’ ll never pass your exams. No chance.’

      Summer was in the air at Northfield Elementary School. The mating ritual of two flies buzzing their way irritatingly round the classroom confirmed as much. Henry flicked the flies away from his face with his right hand, sending them toward the middle of the room. The class was waiting for Miss Anderson to collect the test that had proved beyond Henry. He was more about words than figures.

      The buzzer sounding on Miss Anderson’s desk was the cue for her to begin her sixty-second countdown, at the end of which the pupils would have to put down their pens.

      â€œSixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six…”

      That bitch loved counting down to zero. She had that smug look on her face, and it gave her a thrill when she caught the eye of a struggling student who seemed to be begging her for more time.

      Henry had already put his pen down by the time she’d reached thirty. He looked down casually at his paper, where aside from a square and a few multiplications, he hadn’t managed to finish much - certainly not the divisions, which he found impossible once the numbers got too high.

      Joanna complained that she just needed one more minute.

      â€œYou can’t cheat the clock! Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.....zerooooo!”

      Miss Anderson got up from her desk and headed straight for Joanna to collect hers first. Joanna threw her arms over her sheet in a desperate but vain attempt to keep it from her teacher’s grasp.

      â€œI want to see ALL pens on the tables. Is that clear?” the teacher said sternly, waving Joanna’s test in the air.

      Joanna Longowa was of Polish origin. The prettiest girl in class, she had long blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin that highlighted her rosy pink lips. Henry had liked her right from the third grade, when she and her family had moved to New Jersey. She was good at all the subjects, and her only flaw was her perfectionism. Henry was certain she’d finished the test and got all the sums right, but figured she’d just wanted to embellish her standard-issue paper with some doodles.

      â€œHenry Lewis, what do you call this?”

      â€œIt’s my test,” Henry replied timidly. A few of the children couldn’t stop themselves from smirking. Everyone knew that Henry was dumb at math, but no-one was brave enough to mock him in front of Miss Anderson, because she’d mark you down or, worse, detain the entire class during recess

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