The Charm Bracelet(5)

“What?” Lauren nabbed the ice cream from her roommate with one hand and wagged her paintbrush at Lexie with the other. “What did he do this time?”

“I found out that he’s taking Grace to see Beyoncé at the United Center this weekend!”

Lexie licked her cone. “He was supposed to take me!” she said. Her shoulders drooped. “It was supposed to be our last big date before we go home for the summer.”

“Dump the loser,” Lauren said, setting down her brush. “Now!”

Lexie continued to lick her cone, when her brown eyes widened. Lauren knew instantly: Her roommate had a plan.

“Can’t your mom get us tickets to the concert?” she begged. “So we can spy on him?”

Lauren rolled her eyes, took a big bite of her ice cream, and then took a seat on her bed. “She could, technically. But you know she’d never ask. That’s so not her.”

“I can’t believe your mother works for Paparazzi and never uses any of those connections.”

“She just would never take such a risk. I’m sure she’s covering the concert … from her office,” Lauren said, then added, “Lexie, you need to forget about him. He’s not good for you.”

Lexie stood, holding her half-eaten cone in her mouth, and began to text.

“Done!” she said a few seconds later.

“So romantic,” Lauren said, and then began to laugh at her roommate. “By the way, you realize you look like a pregnant kangaroo, right?”

Lexie looked down at her distended belly and laughed, nearly choking on the cone still in her mouth.

“I foo-got,” she mumbled through the ice cream, reaching into the overstuffed pocket of her hoodie to unleash a flood of envelopes and packages onto her bed. “Here. Mail.”

Lauren finished her cone, walked over, and began to rifle through the mail scattered across her roommate’s bed.

With each envelope she opened, her heart closed a little bit more: Notices for internships at Fortune 500 businesses and banks, schedules for on-campus interviews, alerts for job fairs. It was late in the year, and she had ignored every notice. And had yet to tell her mother she was without an internship or job for the summer.

Lauren sighed. “I can’t deal with this,” she said, ducking her head, her blond locks cascading over her face.

“That’s not going to block out the future,” Lexie said. “Why don’t you just tell your mom you’re not happy about your major?”

“You’ve met her,” Lauren said. “Happy hasn’t been an important part of the equation in her life for a while now.”

“If you’re unhappy now,” Lexie said, “just imagine how you’re going to feel in twenty years.”

Lauren sighed.

“Hey, what’s that?” Lexie suddenly asked, pointing at a padded manila envelope on her purple NU comforter.

The envelope had Lauren’s name on it, but she didn’t recognize the labored handwriting at first, until she saw the Michigan return address.

“Grandma!” Lauren said, happily tearing open the envelope to find a card and a little box.

“I bet I know what it is.” Lexie laughed, flopping onto her bed. “Open it.”

Lauren popped open the little box to find a silver charm of a hot air balloon.

“Read it,” Lexie urged.

Lauren smiled, thinking of Lolly. She adored her grandmother—her crazy wigs, her carefree attitude, her love of nature, her fiery spirit.

Lauren opened the card and began to read, her voice becoming emotional the more she read:

This charm is to a life filled with adventure!

Remember … YOLO!

Love,

Grandma

“She knows ‘You Only Live Once’?” Lexie asked, opening her laptop before stopping as her voice cracked. “Your grandmother is so thoughtful. I miss my grandma. I loved her so much.”

Lauren rubbed her roommate’s shoulder, Lexie’s words resonating deeply. “She is still with you,” Lauren said.

“I know,” Lexie said, biting her lip, before changing the subject. “Econ final. I guess it’s time, isn’t it?”

Lauren gave her charm a little kiss, before carefully adding the hot air balloon to her charm bracelet. She walked to her desk and placed Lolly’s card next to her Picasso quote, running her fingers over her grandmother’s writing. She looked over at Lexie and thought of what it would be like to lose her own grandmother.

Is she seventy now? Is that even possible? Lauren wondered.

Lauren looked up and studied her litany of academic, artistic, and athletic accomplishments lining the wall and sighed.

You are so right, Grandma. I do need an adventure.

Lauren stared out her dorm window again at the kids cavorting along the lake. She shut her eyes.

Growing up, she visited her grandmother every summer in Scoops, Michigan, at her cabin on Lost Land Lake. They were the best times in her life, although her mom’s relationship with her own mother had always seemed as chilled as the ice cream cones she and her grandmother devoured nearly every day of the summer.

“Ice cream headaches are so worth it, aren’t they, my dear?” her grandmother would say, massaging Lauren’s temples with her fire engine red nails.