2
I drove over to Frederick’s Frosted Frozen Treats; I lived in one of the apartments above the little shop. The old partially bald man behind the counter brightened when I walked in the door. He was the only person I hadn’t forgotten. He had taken care of me after the crash since neither of my parents were alive. He was like the only-half-serious uncle to me. “Nicki!” he said in his thick German accent that should have worn off after all of these years in America. I assumed that he maintained it for the kids in the town, but it also could have been pride that he was from somewhere else.
“Hi Frederick!” I smiled as I slid into one of the seats at the counter. ”I just had an interesting talk with a man in the park.”
“Really?” He only half-asked.
“Yeah, he knew a lot about me, but I couldn’t recognize him.”
“Was he tall, with brown hair and brown eyes?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
“Yes, he came by here earlier asking for you.” I leaned forward with my arms crossed on the counter.
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, he said that he had known you in high school, though I didn’t recognize him from your high school friends, so we talked about what you liked to do, especially your favorite ice cream.”
“Do you remember if he ever came here with us after the football games?”
Frederick thought for a moment. “No, he never did.”
“That’s odd. He told me he had, and that his favorite kind of ice cream was the same as mine.”
“Well I can tell you that he’s never been here before today.” I ran up the stairs to my apartment and looked through all of my bookshelves. There. My senior yearbook. I searched it for Tom Anderson, but he wasn’t there, or any of my other high school yearbooks.
