The Charm Bracelet(45)

“You can’t take care of me forever,” he said, sopping up the yolks with his toast.

Lolly looked out at the lake, a long sigh her answer.

It was summer, and the resorters were returning. Although it had been nearly a decade since her mother had died, the first weeks of summer always stung like an angry ground hornet. Lolly knew her mother would never be coming back.

Even Jo was gone. She was staying in the city, living in her sorority house and working.

“Who are you taking out today?” Lolly asked, breaking the silence.

“A group of guys from Chicago,” Vern said, snapping off a bite of crispy bacon. “They want to fish Lost Land for musky, and then the big lake for salmon. Full day. Good money.”

Vern stood. “Mind filling me a thermos of coffee?”

“Sandwiches?”

Vern nodded. “I’ll go gather up my stuff.”

An unspoken routine between the two had developed over the years. Lolly met her father on the screened porch, thermos and cooler filled, picked up a tackle box in her free hand, and accompanied her father to his johnboat at the end of their dock.

The morning was crisp but would warm quickly, as they did in Michigan, the chill giving way to humidity-free warmth and skies as blue as the indigo buntings that dove over the lake in search of mosquitoes.

Whooo-dooo-ooooh-ooooh!

“New couple, I do think,” Vern said, nodding back at the cabin, where two loons nestled in the inlet by the screened porch. “I think Lucy and Ricky might have passed on this winter. I think we may have some new lovers.”

“Loud ones,” Lolly said, handing her dad the thermos and cooler. “Woke me up again this morning.”

“You got names for them?”

Lolly jumped at the sound of a strange voice.

She turned to find a mop-headed kid, with eyes as green as the lake reeds swaying in the breeze behind him.

“Oh, Les! Right on time!”

“Thanks for letting me help you out this summer, sir.”

Lolly’s head pivoted between her father and the young man, her eyes wide, waiting for an explanation.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lol. Didn’t I tell you about Les?”

“Umm, no.”

Les laughed, his face breaking into a huge smile, before quickly covering his mouth with his hand. “Sorry.”

“Les, Lolly. Lolly, Les.”

The two shook hands tentatively. “Les is on summer break from Michigan State. He’s majoring in … what was that again?”

“Forestry.”

“You study forests?” Lolly asked.

“Fish and wildlife, actually. I’m in the College of Natural Resources and Agriculture.”

“So then my dad is sort of your ‘outdoor’ professor this summer?” Lolly asked.

“That’s right. I’ll be helping him with his fishing excursions this summer, which will give me a chance to study our state’s northern lakes, especially the musky and salmon population.”

“His parents have a summer cottage here,” Vern explained. “His dad contacted me about this.”

“Can you change a hook? Cast? Clean a fish?” Lolly asked in quick succession, a bit jealous that a college boy was about to take over some of her usual summer duties with her father.

Vern doubled over at the sudden barrage of questions from his daughter, booming laughter echoing off the lake and causing a group of herons nearby to take flight.

“My daughter has a point,” he said, looking Les—and his crisp khaki pants, ironed polo shirt, and deck shoes—over closely. “Lolly, you should do all the interviewing from now on. So, can you do any of that, Les? It’s kind of important, since most of the city folk can’t.”

“Ummm…” Les hesitated, looking between Lolly and Vern.

Vern leaned into the boat and nabbed a pole and his tackle box. “Here ya go. Tie on a lure and cast into the lake for me.”

Les pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle, or maybe cry, and then exhaled a puff of wind heavenward, blowing his flaxen bangs out of his eyes. He did this over and over, as he fussed with the lure. He tried tying the lure for five minutes, his eyes crossed in concentration, until Lolly couldn’t take it anymore.

“Here!” she said. “Let me show you!”

Les’s face reddened, as Lolly continued. “It’s okay that a girl’s showing you. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s easy: This is a figure eight tie. See, you twist and twist, until an eight forms, then loop the end through the bottom of the eight and then the top of the eight and pull tight, like this. There!”

Les looked at Lolly as if she were a magician. He yanked and yanked on the lure, but it stayed in place, as if it had been cemented onto the line.

“Do it again,” he said, incredulous. “Please.”

Lolly showed him again, and when she was done, cast a perfect toss alongside the edge of the reeds, hooking a smallmouth bass in under a minute.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Lolly said, pulling the fish off and tossing it back into the water, where it immediately dove to the bottom of the clear lake. “It’s like having a dad who’s a butcher. You learn how to grill a steak, right?”

Les nodded, and again blew his bangs toward the sky.