The Charm Bracelet (22 page)

“Could I get a chocolate malt?” Lolly said. “And a cherry phosphate, please.”

The man nodded and went to work, scooping ice cream into a silver blender, before starting work on her drink, pouring cherry syrup into a mineral water glass and squirting dashes of acid phosphate into it, and then topping it with a steady stream of carbonated water, the mixture bright and bubbling. Lolly fidgeted in anticipation, causing her charms to dance.

“That'll be four-fifty, ma'am,” the soda jerk said, pushing Lolly's sweet concoctions in front of her.

Lolly reached for her purse, but it wasn't on her shoulder.

No! You old fool!
she thought, embarrassed.

“I … I … I…,” she stuttered to the boy, as a few patrons—chomping burgers and rings, and slurping shakes—turned to stare.

Lolly was suddenly foggier than she had been earlier in the day, more alone than she had ever felt her whole life.

How could I forget my purse?

“I'm so sorry!” she cried, rushing out and onto the teeming street, the little bell on the door tinkling like her charms.

Near tears, Lolly searched for somewhere, anywhere, to hide, but every chair in town was held hostage by a man holding packages for his wife.

Everyone, Lolly realized, had someone.

I have no one anymore,
Lolly said to herself
. How did my dad do it after the love of his life died?

“I bought your malt and your phosphate.”

Lolly jumped at the sound of a man's voice. When she turned, the man with the walker was standing beside her.

“We all have bad days,” he said, as the soda jerk rushed up to hand Lolly her drinks. “Some worse than others.”

Lolly tried to respond, but her lips felt sealed shut.

“You have a good holiday, ma'am,” the man said, following the soda jerk and slowly making his way back into the shop. “Make it a sweet one.”

One step at a time,
it suddenly dawned on Lolly, as she watched the man.
That's how my father did it: One slow, steady step at a time.

Lolly walked down the street, lost in thought, before coming to a deserted metal bench that was dotted with sticky napkins, empty candy wrappers, hardened chocolate, and dripping ice cream.

“For heaven's sake,” she said, taking the unused napkins and cleaning a spot big enough for her to sit.

Lolly sipped her malt and phosphate, but they didn't taste the same as they had in the past. She shut her eyes and let the emotions of her day roll out. She began to cry, then weep, her shoulders slumped.

“Are you okay?”

Lolly looked up, and an angelic little girl—blond ringlets, rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes—was staring at her, licking a pink ice cream cone.

Lolly suddenly laughed, finally noticing that the little girl was wearing a princess costume: A sparkly pink sleeveless top over a glittery silver skirt fluffed with mounds and mounds of pink tulle. On her head sat a tiara that glistened in the Scoops sunshine. In one hand, she held her giant ice cream; in the other, she held a glittered wand.

Lolly's eyes grew wide in surprise.

“Your eyes are the same color as mine,” the girl said, rotating her cone, and licking every side to keep it from dripping. “Except a little redder. Why are you sad?”

“I'm lonely,” Lolly said, setting her drinks down on the bench.

The little girl plopped down next to Lolly, oblivious to the chocolate and ice cream on the bench, her tulle making her body tilt sideways as if she were sitting on a mountain of fabric. “My mom tells me that when I'm lonesome to 'member that I'm never alone. She's always with me.”

Lolly's heart raced. Her mother used to tell her the same thing.

“I do have memories. Great ones! See!” Lolly said, showing the little girl her charm bracelet. “They're all right here.”

The little girl screamed in delight.

“Lookie!” she yelled, jumping up. “Me, too!”

She held out her delicate wrist, and around it sat a charm bracelet, already filled with many trinkets.

“This is my birthday cake charm!” the girl said, showing Lolly the candles that popped up from the charm when she touched it. “I'm five!”

“Congratulations!” Lolly said.

“And this is my ballerina slipper charm, and this is my diving board charm, 'cause I wanna be in the Olympics!” the little girl said excitedly. “And this is my lucky star charm, so I can wish on it and be anything I dream of being! What do you dream of being?”

The child's words caught Lolly off guard.

“I don't know,” Lolly answered honestly.

“Can I see your charms now?”

Lolly held out her wrist, and the girl giggled as she flipped through Lolly's charms, one by one, asking about them as she continued licking her ice cream cone.

“You know what you need?” the little girl suddenly asked.

“What?”

“An ice cream cone!”

“Oh, I already had some ice cream in my malt,” Lolly whispered to her, nodding toward the drinks on the bench beside her. “And I don't have any money with me right now.”

“No, not one of those,” the little girl said, nodding back at the ice cream counter through a nearby shop window. Lolly looked, finally realizing she was sitting in front of Dolly's Sweet Shop. “One of these!” she said.

“Hold this!” the girl finally said definitively, giving Lolly no other option than to take charge of her cone. She took a seat again, her tulle spilling over Lolly's lap, and removed her bracelet. With sticky fingers, she removed a charm of an ice cream cone as glittery as her outfit, two scoops of blue and pink ice cream atop a sugar cone. “Now, hold out your wrist!”

“Oh, I can't take that from you!” Lolly said. “It's one of your special charms.”

The little girl looked at Lolly and said, “You need it way more than me!” Then she lowered her voice into a whisper. “And, besides, I have lots of ice cream charms. We come to Scoops every summer.”

Lolly held out her wrist, and the little girl carefully added her charm to it.

Lolly held it up to her face, her eyes wide. She no longer felt so alone.

“Your eyes look a lot prettier with no sad red in them,” the girl said, before pointing back at Dolly's. “Hey! You look just like the ice cream lady!”

Lolly didn't understand what the little girl was trying to tell her, but she smiled and said, “Thank you for this.” While holding her bracelet and new charm to her heart, she handed the little girl's ice cream cone back to her. “It's so sweet of you,” Lolly said.

“Good one.” The little girl giggled, finishing off her cone. “Sweet! Now, shut your eyes.”

“What?”

“Shut your eyes! I'm a fairy princess, so I'm going to grant you a wish. But you have to shut your eyes.”

Lolly closed them tightly. The little girl lifted her glitter wand and brought it down lightly, touching Lolly on the top of the head with it. Lolly kept her eyes shut, until she heard the little girl giggling. When she opened her eyes, the girl was nestled in the crook of her mother's arm, who was carrying a big bag of Dolly's fudge.

“I hope she wasn't too much of a bother,” the little girl's mother whispered.

“Not at all. She's an angel,” Lolly said, still in a trance. “Do you mind if I ask her a question?”

“No,” the mother said, cocking her head.

“What wish did you grant me?” Lolly asked.

“I can't tell you,” the little girl said very seriously. “But if you believe, it will come true.”

“Well, we best be going,” the mother said. “Have a great day!”

“You, too,” Lolly said, as the two made their way down the street, the little girl's pink tulle floating in the wind. “Oh! Excuse me! I'm sorry to bother you, but can I ask one more question?” Lolly called, suddenly chasing them down the street.

The mother turned and smiled, a quizzical look etched on her youthful face. “I guess. Sure.”

“What's your daughter's name?”

“Honey?” she said, looking at her daughter. “You can tell the nice lady.”

The little girl turned, her tiara shimmering, her face bright. “Hope!” she said.

The mother waved, and the two disappeared into the crowd of fudgies. Lolly felt dizzy and returned to take a seat on the bench in front of the shop. She shut her eyes and felt the top of her head, which she could swear was tingling.

Lolly heard a door chime, and when she opened her eyes, she was staring directly at the big sign on the fudge shop's front window, where an image of the original Dolly Van Voozle appeared.

You look just like the ice cream lady!

Lolly's heart raced again. She now understood what the little girl was saying. She did look like Dolly.

Beyond the fudge store, the backdrop of the coastline—a triple scoop of shoreline—caught Lolly's eyes, and she stood, finally understanding the wish Hope had granted her.

Believe! Believe!

Without thinking, Lolly rushed into Dolly's, asked for the owner, and began to explain—in a rush—her vision for a show and front window display to lure customers into the shop.

A half hour later, Lolly emerged into the sunshine not only with a job but also a cone—on the house.

And the ice cream tasted just like it had when she was a little girl.

 

Twenty-nine

“Never underestimate the power of ice cream!” Lolly said, polishing off her cone, and jostling the knees of her daughter and granddaughter. “The purity of that little girl made me realize I could still dream, that I could still be anything I wanted, that my world wasn't ending. And I believe my gift to the world is to make others happy, to forget about the real world for a little while, to be a kid, just like Hope. My simple, silly little job fills me with purpose. It keeps me young.”

A pair of fat robins chirped happily on a nearby branch. Lolly sighed.

“Do what makes you happy. It sounds so simple and yet it's so hard, because few of us do. We live out of fear. We live for others, their hopes and expectations. We do what makes everyone else happy.”

She stopped and looked hard at her daughter and granddaughter, before continuing. “Why do we make it so hard? Our purpose
should be
our passion. We should sing every day as happily as those robins. My job may not change the world, but at the end of the day, I am complete. And that's all we can hope for, isn't it?”

Arden and Lauren shifted uncomfortably on the narrow bench.

Lolly stood and softly mussed up her girls' hair. “Well, enough preaching! I've got to get back to work. I'll leave you two to talk. See you later for dinner. Let's barbecue tonight! Hamburgers, chicken, foiled potatoes, corn on the cob. I'll bring the ice cream!”

“And Arden,” Lolly said, stopping, “thank you for today.”

The two watched Lolly amble slowly down the brick path and out of the garden. They followed her wig as it bounced above the rhododendrons, and a few seconds later they heard the fudgies across the street yell, “Dolly!”

Arden scooched over on the bench and reached out her hand to her daughter. Lauren took it, tentatively at first, her hand open, her fingers unbound.

“The arts are full of such risk,” Arden said. “I just wanted you to be safe and protected. My mom tells a great story, but we struggled after my dad died. I worked a lot of jobs to make it through college.”

“I know, Mom,” Lauren said. “I have such guilt about adding any more financial burden to your life. I know that Northwestern is expensive. I know that you have a lot of debt. I know that you need your job to make ends meet. And I promise I will help you with my student loans.”

Lauren stopped and took a deep breath. “But what happens if I hate my career so much I can't even hold a job? Isn't that worse than trying to be a painter? Then what? I can always get a ‘real' job, can't I? I think there are still going to be people interested in hiring a Northwestern grad with a business and art background.”

Arden smiled. She studied her daughter in the garden: She was as beautiful and fresh as these flowers. She was still so tender, so young. Arden thought of how much she loved to write.

Arden removed her glasses with her free hand and shook her head.

“I only want for you to be happy, and I'm having the opposite effect in your life.”

Lauren squeezed her mother's hand tightly.

“I know you have worried about Grandma's ‘unruly' influence on my decisions in life and I know that you have lived much of your life in Grandma's shadow, but I've lived in your shadow, too,” Lauren said, the wind catching her blond hair and blowing it around her head. “What if we started over, right here, right now? Let's believe what that little girl told Grandma a long time ago: We can be anything we dream of being.”

Arden leaned in and hugged her daughter.

“Deal.”

“That means you have to uphold your end,” Lauren said, pulling free and wagging a finger at her mom. “That means you need to dream again, too.”

“Double deal.”

Mother and daughter stood and strolled around the park, hand in hand.

“I think I'm going to help Grandma for the rest of her day, if you don't mind,” Lauren said. “I had so much fun earlier. Wanna come?”

“You go on ahead. She'd love that,” Arden said, as they exited the park and stopped in the street across from Dolly's, where a crowd had already gathered for Lolly's next show. “I think I'm going to stroll over to Third Coast Books. I haven't been there in ages.”

Lauren zipped across the street, giving a backward wave, just beating a pair of neon-colored scooters that the fudgies loved to zip around town on. The riders gave a loud toot to Lauren as she passed.

Arden stood motionless in the street, forcing fudgies and Segway riders to part around her like salmon swimming upstream, and watched Lauren surprise Lolly with a hug and then take one of her paddles to stir a copper urn.