-"Ice Cream"
Sarah MacLachlan

******

"MEN!"

Liz Parker stormed through the swinging doors to the back of the Crashdown Cafe, eyes blazing, jaw rigid. Without a pause, she beelined to the steel door of the industrial refrigerator.

This definitely required comfort food.

She pawed through the cartons of frozen yogurt and cherry cheesecake until she found what she was looking for. Two of her best friends in the world: Ben and Jerry.

"Hello, boys," she mumbled. "You won't desert me, will you? DESSERT me, maybe, but never DESERT me." She chuckled at her own pun as she strode from the walk-in fridge and kicked the door shut behind her.

Pushing her way through the swinging kitchen doors-- which had as yet to still from her angry entrance-- she grabbed a tablespoon from the cutlery behind the counter, plunked herself down in one of the stools facing the kitchen, and ripped open the carton.

"Max...Evans...must...pay," she grumbled, stabbing her spoon into the rock hard ice cream to punctuate each word.

Eventually, she managed to hack out a satisfactory chunk of ice cream and shoved it unceremoniously into her mouth. It slid across her tongue as it melted, and she savored the cold.

A few minutes passed, with little change in activity. Grumble, stab, swallow. Grumble, stab, swallow.

The sound of a key jangling in the lock roused her attention, and she glanced briefly towards the door. Satisfied that it wasn't a burglar, she turned back to her sacrificial ice cream and listened as the door swung open.

"MEN!"

"Hey, Maria," Liz said absently, working at a particularly stubborn chunk of ice cream. "What's up?"

The slim blonde slipped onto the stool next to Liz and glared at a ketchup bottle. "What's up?" she asked incredulously. "What's UP? I'll TELL you what's up. MEN are what's up. Or rather, men are what's DOWN. WAY down. Like, to the pits of hellfire and brimstone, that's how far down men are." Leaning forward, she snatched her own spoon from behind the counter.

Liz scooped out her chunk of ice cream, then let Maria take the carton from her hand. She watched placidly as the other girl attacked the dairy product with abandon. "Michael?" Liz asked, knowing it was an unnecessary question.

Maria snorted. "Are there ever any OTHER problems in my life?" she asked, digging out a hunk of the ice cream and popping it into her mouth. She sucked on it for a minute, then raised her eyebrows. "Zif if good," she said around the mouthful. "Wha' fwavor?"

Liz took the carton and helped herself to another spoonful. "Triple Chocolate Berry Fudge-Whipped Delight," she said before swallowing her own mouthful. "Good ole Ben and Jerry. They never let you down." Her eyes hardened, and she started stabbing at the ice cream again. "Unlike SOME Czechoslavakians I could mention."

Maria joined her in assaulting the chocolate concoction. "Max?"

Liz just grunted in reply.

They both heard the door open, but paid little attention to it. If THEY were there, then the only logical person it could be was...

"MEN!"

"Hey, Isabel," the other two girls chimed in unison, never looking up from their furious assault on the ice cream.

The statuesque blonde took a seat on the other side of Liz. "God, they make me so ANGRY!" she muttered, slipping off her totally unnecessary Ray-Bans. It was early evening, but Isabel always liked to make a statement. "They just...just...MEN!"

Without a word, Liz slid the carton of ice cream towards the other girl, while Maria handed her a spoon and a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Isabel gave them a tight smile before digging in herself.

"So, what's your gripe?" Liz asked as Isabel excavated an impressively large lump of the chocolate ice cream.

"My brother, his friend, and my boyfriend have all decided to play at being masculine tonight," Isabel answered with a sneer, pouring a healthy amount of tabasco over the mouthful before shoving it into her mouth. It was very easy to imagine she was an alligator downing her prey.

"Don't we know it," Maria muttered, reaching around Liz to get some of the Ben and Jerry's herself.

The dark-haired girl between them sighed. "Max has NEVER been like this before," she complained, toying with her spoon. "He's always been so SENSITIVE. I never thought he was into that kind of thing."

Isabel snorted. "What about Alex? Not exactly a team sport kind of guy, right?" She dragged her spoon over the softening surface of the ice cream. "Wrong!" She licked the chocolate goo off the spoon, then took a swig directly from the tabasco bottle.

"Michael's idea of a fun Sunday is kicking back to watch 'The Simpsons,' and then he's usually...open to suggestions," Maria muttered, hedging around exactly what those suggestions might be. "This was a complete surprise."

Liz nodded, then shrugged. "Still, I suppose we can't complain." Maria and Isabel shot her disbelieving looks, so she adjusted. "All right, we CAN complain. But we have to look at the bright side, too."

"What bright side?" Isabel muttered.

"That they're all hanging out together," Liz answered. "No cops on their backs, no agents crawling around. Just kicking back and doing a little male bonding." She shrugged, "Okay, so they ditched us to do it-"

"I do NOT get ditched," Isabel interrupted. "I get postponed."

"All right, so they POSTPONED us to do it," Liz corrected herself with a roll of her eyes. "At least they're making the effort. Could we have said as much about them a few weeks ago?" She looked to her companions for confirmation, and she could tell from their grudging expressions that she had it. "So let's be happy for them, okay?"

The other two girls nodded.

"All right then," Liz said, not really knowing why.

They sat in silence for a long minute, watching the ice cream melt.

"I hate the Superbowl," Maria muttered.

"Ditto," the other two agreed in unison.

******

MEANWHILE, AT THE EVANS RESIDENCE...

"So what exactly did Isabel tell you before she left?" Max asked Alex as the lanky teenager crossed the living room and flopped down on the couch with an unopened bag of Doritos.

Alex sighed and ripped open the bag of chips. "I think she said something about how I was going to meet a cruel and unusually painful death by bunny bite," he answered. "But I could have heard wrong."

"Nope, that sounds like Isabel," Max said, leaning forward from his chair to snag a handful of Chex mix. On the television, Terry Bradshaw was giving a play by play run-down of the past hour and a half of the game.

"Dude, sucks to be you," Michael observed from his position across the room, legs draped over the arm of the Evans' Lay-Z-Boy.

Alex gave the spiky-haired young man an incredulous look. "Sucks to be me? Sucks to be YOU. I could've heard Maria yelling at you over Max's phone at MY house. What did she say?"

Michael shrugged, and tossed a corn chip into his mouth. "Nothing much," he answered, crunching away. "Just that a mode of punishment painful enough for someone of my...callousness I think the word was...has yet to be invented, but she looks forward to perfecting the beta model." He shrugged. "The usual."

Max was looking worried. "Liz smiled at me," he said suddenly.

The other two teenagers looked at him quizzically. "Come again?" Alex inquired.

Max looked from one to the other frantically. "Liz. She just smiled at me and said, 'Have fun.'" He shook his head. "What do you think that means?"

Alex cocked his head to the side, thinking. "Well, it could mean one of two things," he explained. "Either she truly didn't mind, in which case you are to be envied, or-"

"Or you and I are going to be walking the tightrope of pain together, Maximillian," Michael finished with a wily grin.

Max groaned and sat back hard. "Maria's always getting mad at you, Michael," he said quickly. "How do you handle it?"

Michael grinned and popped another corn chip in his mouth, remembering vividly the last time Maria had 'punished' him. 'Make-out' didn't quite describe it.

"I just take it as it comes, Maxwell," he said cryptically. "I guess I just have a gift."

Neither of the other teens could imagine why he was smiling.