The two best friends enjoyed their weekly ritual of shopping. They had been meeting like this for as long as they both could remember. When Mary Ann and Donnie had moved to this town for Donnie's last military assignment, Katie and her husband Mike had been living here for five years already. They never had lost touch with one another since college and Mary Ann had been globetrotting around with Donnie; they had written and called one another faithfully all that time. The minute they were back together in the same city, they had become like the close college roommates they had been over twenty years earlier.
So four shoes stores later, Katie still couldn't find the right pair of dress heels for the new dress she had purchased earlier that morning. They walked by The Creamery, one of those places that mixes their sweet concoctions on a cold marble slab with any number of sweeter ingredients in with the ice cream.
It was an impulse. They had to stop.
Giggling like a couple of kids, they got their larger than necessary desserts and slid into the only booth still available, in the corner of the store.
"My mint chocolate chip is delicious. How's your strawberry cheesecake?" Mary Ann asked.
"Wonderful." Katie said before mouthing another bite.
"Would you like a lick of mine?" Mary Ann asked further as she took another lick herself. "My boys love chocolate chip, but I love the mint with it. I just never seem to indulge myself often enough."
"Well, with that kind of recommendation, sure," Katie leaned forward across the table. "I need to know what all the yummy fuss is about."
Mary Ann tilted her cone toward Katie's open mouth.
Katie's lips closed around the top and Mary Ann turned it between her lips. A small drip of ran down her chin.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Mary Ann said, and she proceeded to reach over and use her thumb to wipe the offending sticky drip away. She drew back and licked it off her finger.
Katie just sat there, her eyes wide.
Mary Ann looked up and saw the amazed look in Katie's eyes. Then she realized what she had done.
"Oh crap, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...I mean, with raising two boys like I have it has become a motherly instinct, second nature." Mary Ann covered her face with her napkin. "I'm sooo sorry."
Katie sat there an astonished look across her face for a few more seconds. Then...
Almost spitting the mouthful of ice cream right back at Mary Ann, Katie busted out laughing. She had to grab her napkin and shove it almost into her mouth to keep from spewing that sticky mess across the table.
"Thank you, 'Mom'," she finally was able to respond after swallowing.
Mary Ann looked around and noticed the patrons of the shop, many of them men, had stopped eating and talking. The notion came into her head, oh poor guys, what had they just thought of that little encounter. She stared one table of guys down until they turned their attention away, more embarrassed themselves.
Then she started to laugh too. "You're welcome daughter dear."