July

During our three-week stay at Belgrade, my friends and I lived in an apartment building that our parents rented out for us to relax and play tennis. Every morning we would head out early to the tennis court to train for the day and on that very court, we would gaze up into the hazy air and talk about our dreams and plans of the future.

I said to my friends, “I want to be a tennis player when I grow up.” My friends chuckled in response. They said that becoming a professional player was too big of a feat to accomplish for an ordinary little girl like me. And although there was some truth to their statement, as I wasn’t extraordinarily talented at the time, I wanted to prove them all wrong. Lately, I had been putting a lot of effort into improving my skills . While other kids were having classes at school, I was out on the court playing tennis. “Well, you’re all wrong,” I retorted, a hint of indignation in my tone. “And I’m gonna prove it to you.” I was not going to let them underrate my obsession with tennis so easily. s

Training under the midsummer sun was not an easy job. All I felt was the suffocating heat swallowing me whole and boring holes into my skull; the sweat that dripped down from my arms and soaked the grip of my racket; and a constant urge to run away into a room and enjoy the solace of air conditioning. But I persisted, staying on the court for the entire day and overcoming any temptation to stop because I was going to become a tennis player no matter what.

One evening after a strenuous session, we stumbled upon an ice cream shop on the way home. The thought of ice cream was enticing—it was the perfect way to end a day under the scorching sun—and we raced up immediately to the shop.

The ice cream shop occupied only a small space on the bustling street, and there was a fridge that stood in the entrance displaying all flavors offered. One by one, my friends made their choices with ease (strawberry, chocolate and mint ice cream) but I lingered a bit longer on my choice. The word “lime” on one of the labels captured my attention. Lime. I had no idea what that was, but my adventurous spirit urged me to try some. 

It didn’t take me long to realize that “lime” was probably a citrus fruit. The icy dessert cooled me down instantly. It was sweet, as all ice cream flavors were, but the sourness of lime was so distinct that it became one with the sweetness. It almost became bittersweet but in a way that was unexpectedly pleasant. It reminded me of fizzy drinks served in a glass cup—I could almost see the ice cubes, the candy cane-like paper straw, and a slice of lime sitting nicely on the rim of the cup. And there was something to this association that made every mouthful feel cooler than realistically possible for a mere ice cream cone. It was the coolness of an oasis in the middle of a dessert.

I cherished the small scoop of ice cream, not daring to take any huge bites to make it last longer. But eventually it had to surrender to the heat. My friend warned me several times not to step onto the molten drops of the ice cream that fell right in front of me. I looked at the little drops, silently mourning it for a few seconds, and then sped up my feast on the faintly yellow plateau. 

Soon enough, passing the ice cream shop for an evening treat became part of our daily routine. As the sun sank into the city skyline, I started eating my ice cream faster, and finished everything except the cone before any of it dripped on my hands or ground. I never got tired of lime-flavored ice cream. The training sessions were still tedious and exhausting, but my dream to become a tennis player and the refreshing lime ice cream waiting for me in that small shop kept me going.

Three weeks later, my friends and I returned home. I simultaneously lost the privilege of playing tennis the whole day without any other responsibilities to attend to and eating lime ice cream every evening. My parents filled my time with math lessons and the label “lime” was nowhere to be found in ice cream shops near my home. I still played tennis, but only once or twice a week; I still ate ice cream, but only popular flavors like chocolate and strawberry. All of July slipped away into a fading piece of me, lying in a dusty corner of my mind.

Now, I clearly realize that my friends were right three years into high school. Without the necessary training and outstanding talent, I would not become a professional tennis player. Instead, I would need to keep up with math and biology and everything else we learn, figure out a way to get decent IELTS and ACT grades, and do all kinds of competitions and extracurricular activities—all of these making it impossible for me to work whole-heartedly towards my childhood dream. 

Maybe if I went back to the small ice cream shop in that hazy city, and maybe if I ordered another lime ice cream, I would find that determined little girl again, running onto the tennis court only for the sake of proving her efforts right and eating lime ice cream.

Or maybe I’ll never find her again.