The Charm Bracelet (31 page)

“I am!” Arden said with a groan. “So … she decided to enter me in the Tulip Queen contest. Unbeknownst to me, of course.”

Lolly shrugged her shoulders innocently, eliciting giggles from everyone but Arden.

“So, I agreed, just to make her happy. She ended up sewing this hideous Day-Glo yellow dress…”

“It was the color of a spring tulip!” Lolly interjected.

“I looked jaundiced, Mother,” Arden said. “And the bottom of the dress was made of all these different-colored panels…”

“They were all the colors of spring tulips!” Lolly interjected once more.

“… and the dress featured this long train she filled with fresh tulips cut from her garden. I looked like a melting bowl of sherbet. Of course, she put me in one of her blond wigs—adorned with more tulips…”

“You needed to look all-American Dutch!” Lolly interjected yet again.

“That's an oxymoron, Mother,” Arden said to more giggles. “And enough makeup to make me look like a hooker.”

“A good hooker wouldn't have fallen in her heels,” Lolly said, wagging a finger at her daughter.

“Okay, we're getting somewhere now,” Lauren said.

“Hold on,” Arden said. “I'm nearing the big finish. So, for talent, my mom suggested I sing ‘Tip-Toe Through the Tulips' by Tiny Tim … while PLAYING A UKULELE!”

“It was perfect,” Lolly said, her eyes shut, as if in a dream.

“The only problem was the crowd started laughing, I got embarrassed, and when I tried to run off the platform, which they build to jut out over the river, my train got caught on a warped board, my heel caught, and I fell backward into the river. They had to rescue me.”

“And my wig,” Lolly laughed.

Jake stood and put his hands on Arden's shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze.

“Everyone called me Ar-don't,” she said. “Essentially I became a warning to every other girl in town: If you enter the Tulip Queen pageant, don't do anything that Arden did.”

Lauren clapped her hand over her mouth in shock, but a smile still spilled forth. “Oh, Mom. I'm so sorry. Why didn't you ever tell me that?”

“Why would I tell anyone that?”

“It explains a lot about how guarded you are, and the way you dress,” Lauren said. “I'm glad I know now. Thanks.”

Arden gave
The Scoop
a hearty shake. “You're welcome, but I'm still having a quiet Memorial Day,” she said, hiding behind the paper.

“You know why I entered you in that pageant, don't you, Arden?” Lolly asked seriously, cocking her head like the wren that sat on the feeder outside the screen.

“Yes. To humiliate me.”

Lolly stared out at the lake, her blue eyes reflecting the idyllic scene. “No, it's because I could never enter it. When I was young, you had to have your mother sign the consent form. I always dreamed of entering because they had the most beautiful charm of a tulip tiara. I thought … well, I thought it would be fun to do it as a mother, if I couldn't as a daughter. I thought it would be fun for someone in our family to feel like a queen just once in our lives, even for a day.”

Arden softened and smiled at her mother, and Lauren followed her grandmother's gaze out the screen in order to hide her own tears.

“So what brings you here?” Lolly asked Jake, suddenly changing the subject. “Besides to meet the famous Ar-don't in person?”

“I just wanted to check on you, see how you're feeling.”

“I feel much better, thank you, sir,” Lolly said. “I plan to head to work at noon. It's a big holiday. Lots of fudgies in town.”

“And…,” Jake said, hesitating dramatically. “I'm here to pick up Arden for our date.”

“Date?” Lolly repeated, her face lighting up.

“Date?” Arden echoed, smiling.

“We're going to the beach,” Jake said to Lolly, “just like you and your husband did on one of your first dates.”

“I love it,” Lolly said. “Don't you, Arden?”

Arden nodded, but immediately thought of Van's text.

“I probably need to check back in with work first,” Arden said. “There's a lot going on. I might need to work remotely from here for a few hours.”

“But it's a holiday,” Lolly said, her words flying out with a sigh.

“There's always less coverage on a holiday and more happening, it seems,” Arden said.

“Remember what we talked about?” Lolly asked.

Arden hesitated and looked down at the table, to avoid the stares of her mother, daughter, and Jake.

“I'm going to put the finishing touches on my painting, Mom,” Lauren said. “And then lay out and catch some rays. It's a perfect beach day … for a date!”

Arden thought of Dr. Van Meter's offer to buy Lauren's painting, and just as suddenly her mind shifted to Van. Arden looked at her mother, as silence engulfed the screened porch.

What will I remember when I'm her age? That I worked? Or that I went to the beach?
Arden reminded herself.
My new life begins now.

“You're right,” Arden finally said. “I'll go get ready.”

“Don't trip,” Lolly teased.

Arden tugged her mother's wig off to the side as she passed. When Lolly heard the stairs creak, she looked at Jake. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“Everything.”

 

Forty-four

Scoops Beach was jammed worse than Lake Shore Drive in the middle of a January blizzard.

Cars snaked up the narrow beach road perched between the tall dunes, music of every genre—pop, rock, country, jazz, oldies—booming from open windows.

Arden looked down at the dial of Jake's old pickup. In the strangest juxtaposition, this big man in the rusting truck was listening to classical, and he was whistling—on pitch—to Beethoven.

Arden watched Jake's dimpled cheeks puff, his perfect lips purse as he whistled.

The truck inched forward, and sun glinted through a set of birch, blinding Jake. He reached for his sunglasses on the console, catching Arden's stare as he turned.

Jake smiled, strumming his fingers on the wheel to the staccato of violins.

The strings reached a crescendo on the radio, and Arden's heart raced higher along with them.

I like this man,
Arden thought, before whispering it to herself, as if she needed to say it to believe it
.
“I like this man.”

“What?” Jake asked, sliding his sunglasses down onto the bridge of his nose to look at Arden. “Did you say something?”

Arden was about to say it—say “I really like you,” to Jake—when a horn blared behind the truck.

“The smartest people always act so dumb on holiday weekends, don't they?” Jake asked, sticking his head out the window, and shaking it with bewilderment, before saying to Arden, “You have three options: Buy a season beach pass, buy a day pass, or turn around and go home. Pretty simple.”

Life should be that simple,
Arden thought, opting to remain quiet.

Slowly, the traffic began to inch forward. The lifeguard saw the season pass on the front of Jake's window and waved the truck through, Jake settling his old Ford into a narrow space tucked in front of a small dune that separated the back lot from the one nearest the water. Arden could only watch as Jake began to load himself up, draping towels around his neck, bags around his shoulders, chairs on his back, coolers and umbrellas in his strong hands, and slowly make his way up the dune, churning sand in his wake. “I got it!” he yelled back at Arden.

Once over the dune, the boardwalk greeted them. Jake lumbered down the warped boards, before turning right at the end to huff along the shoreline. After a few yards, he stopped suddenly and shrugged everything off his body and onto the sand.

“We're here!” He laughed, his face lathered in sweat. “Sorry, but it's as far as I could go.”

The two began to set up their beach camp in earnest, silently choosing chores that fit them best—Jake pounded beach umbrellas deep into the sand with a rubber mallet while Arden lay out towels, anchoring them with flip-flops and coolers, arranging books, magazines, and drinks on each.

“We make a good team.” Jake laughed.

Arden could feel her face flush as Jake smiled at her, and was thankful the sun was out in full force to disguise her redness. She took a seat on her big beach blanket—which featured a huge image of Dolly's Sweet Shop.

Arden looked out over Lake Michigan and sighed. It was one of those high seventies, low-humidity, northern Michigan afternoons that made locals' endurance of endless dark, lake-effect-snow-driven months of winter worth all the pain.

Such days in Michigan were magical but numbered, running typically from the Fourth of July until Labor Day.

One hundred days of summer,
Arden remembered the locals calling their summer season, which started with Memorial weekend.

The odds of getting a perfect Memorial Day weekend were about as good as winning the lottery.

Arden lifted her face to the sun and suddenly smiled, feeling thankful.

Puffy, white clouds lazily floated about, mirroring the people in the water, the sky an almost unnatural, surreal blue, the sun seeming to smile, the light saturating every detail—the lake, the boats, the sand, the swimsuits, the grass on the dunes—so that it took on an almost magical quality, like when
The Wizard of Oz
switched from black and white to color. It was nearly too much for her eyes.

“You look … different,” Jake said, jolting Arden from her reverie. “Happy.”

Arden turned to him, as he finished pounding the last post into the sand.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn't mean to scare you. Worried about your mother?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I'm actually thinking how beautiful this is.”

Jake smiled, his bearded face opening brightly, his white teeth appearing like pearls in the daylight. He suddenly took off his tank top and dropped his long, khaki shorts to reveal a tight, box-cut swimsuit.

Arden's jaw dropped.

She couldn't help but stare at his body. In his scrubs and street clothes, Jake had appeared stocky, but now—bare chested—Arden could see he was pure muscle. His biceps bulged and his shoulder muscles lurched toward the sky like mini-mountains. His chest rippled, and etched into his stomach wasn't just a six-pack of abdominal muscles, but a full eight-pack. A trail of hair tousled in the lake breeze and led down to a set of thighs like marble pillars. In the sun, with the sand dunes behind him, Jake's skin was the color of gold.

Jake dropped the mallet into a beach bag and then sank onto a blanket on his knees like a falling pine. He popped open a LaCroix water that Arden had set out for him. With each motion, Arden's eyes followed him, transfixed.

“Aren't you going to change?” Jake asked casually.

Arden's heart jumped, and she looked down to assess her chosen outfit: A long-sleeve black T-shirt, yoga pants, and a Cubs ball cap, her dark glasses sitting atop a nose sporting enough gloopy, white suntan lotion to protect a small town.

She thought back to her days at school in Scoops. Whereas her mother wore wigs and garish makeup, Arden had tried to make herself invisible. Over the years, that look had become her trademark—the blunt bang, the dark glasses, the dull clothes—but she now realized she had been hiding under all of these layers as a way to insulate herself from any pain. She had made herself impenetrable to the tough world of Lolly, the tougher worlds of Chicago and
Paparazzi
, and the toughest world of them all: single men.

Arden desperately wanted to throw her arms around her body, protect herself, and take off running across the beach. But there was a magnetic quality to Jake, one that could make Arden do anything he asked.

Arden pulled off her black T-shirt and kicked off her yoga pants to reveal a red bikini she had borrowed from Lauren, just like she had the pink top and lip gloss when she'd surprised Jake.

I've never felt so naked, physically or emotionally,
Arden thought.

“I don't know what I was thinking,” Arden babbled. “I pulled it out of my daughter's suitcase … I just thought … I guess I…”

“Sssshhh,” Jake said, putting a big finger over his lips to quiet her. “You look amazing.”

“I spin. I do yoga. I run.”

“It shows,” Jake said, his eyes slowly taking in Arden's shape. “Do you mind putting some lotion on me?”

Jake stood, pulling Arden to her feet, and handed her a bottle. She was a little nervous, but she squeezed some lotion into her hands and began rubbing it onto Jake's broad back, across his muscled neck and shoulders, her heart racing.

He feels like steel,
Arden thought, feeling butterflies in her stomach.

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a smile that was equal parts innocent and sexy. “Your turn.”

Arden stared at him, suddenly feeling herself flush.

Jake massaged lotion onto her shoulders and neck.

His hands! Can he feel my heart pounding through my skin? I hope not!
she worried.

Jake tossed the lotion onto a towel and said, “Let's go for a swim.”

“No. Too cold. Tried it already with my mom.”

“It's Lake Michigan,” he said. “It's always, shall we say,
refreshing
. You know that.”

Without warning, Jake picked Arden up into his arms and sprinted into Lake Michigan, taking huge, romping steps like a pony. When he was waist deep, he dove headfirst—still holding Arden—into the water.

As Arden sunk, so did her glasses. Under the clear water of Lake Michigan, she watched her signature black frames sink to the bottom, where they came to rest on the sand and a few colorful lake stones. Without them, her vision became wavy, as if she were viewing everything—the sun above, the ripples, her own body—through a prism.