The Charm Bracelet(53)

In the midst of her nightmares, Lolly was startled awake by the sounds of boat engines and children screaming. She sat up, and the world was gleaming in sunshine.

She squinted at the old, glittery kitty-cat clock she had on the porch—eyes moving left, tail moving right, eyes moving right, tail moving left.

Two o’clock? I’ve slept for four hours?

Lolly shook the cobwebs from her head and walked to the screen facing the lake. The fog had cleared, the skies were now blue, and a warm wind blew. Everything glistened with dew, as if Michigan had been dipped in wet silver. She held her face to the sun.

“Who wants ice cream?” Lolly heard a mother a few cabins down call to her children.

“I do!” they replied, sprinting to the cabin in their wet swimsuits.

I do, too, Lolly thought.

She searched the fridge first, and then the big cooler in the garage, but she was out of ice cream. She was out of everything.

Lolly willed herself to get dressed, put on some makeup, and walk out of her cabin.

She revved the Woodie and pointed it toward Scoops, parking it along a side street on the edge of town in the only spot she could find.

As she strolled, she started to see her hometown through fresh eyes.

Scoops was founded in the mid-1800s, and while the lakeshore teemed with new construction, the hilly town remained quaint: Little, shingled bungalows and white clapboard cottages sat tucked behind huge gardens and walls of rhododendrons.

Lolly inhaled deeply as she walked. Scoops smelled of lake water and wood, pine needles and fudge.

As she neared downtown, her pace slowed as soon as she passed the little hardware store, packed to its wooden rafters with tools, bolts, mowers, and birdseed.

Scoops was filled with fudgies, who had foregone the beach due to the bad weather earlier and flocked to town, instead.

Women trailed into dress and purse shops, while their husbands took seats in the Adirondack chairs that sat outside the stores, patiently waiting until it was late enough in the afternoon to hit the Sandbar Saloon or Old Crow Bar for a happy hour beer.

Lolly headed into the old Scoops drugstore, which had been around forever and was once the epicenter of the tiny town. Resorters loved the drugstore for its cheap sweatshirts and Scoops souvenirs, and locals loved it for Dr. Philbrook, who had been the pharmacist before—the town joke went—aspirin was invented. Few folks knew, however, that way in the back of the congested store—behind the rows of Scoops Tshirts, hats, and mugs, beyond the trinkets and key chains, and tucked behind the pharmacy and towering rolls of toilet paper—sat a narrow old ice cream counter on a patch of red-and-white tile. The short counter held only eight worn leather stools that rotated slowly even when no one was seated on them, behind which stood two soda jerks, who barely had enough room to turn from griddle to counter. The old-fashioned drugstore served up only a select few items in the tiny space: shakes, malts, phosphates, real cherry cola and homemade ginger ale, along with sundaes, floats, banana splits, hamburgers, onion rings, and French fries.

Lolly used to come to the drugstore with her mom and pick out charms, before they would head to the back for a treat. Lolly had done the same thing with Arden. She thought of her daughter’s suitcases, sitting in her room, already half filled to leave for college.

Lolly looked up and down the counter at the happy people eating ice cream and making the best of what had started as a rather dreary Memorial Day weekend.

An elderly man using a walker slowly made his way to the counter and took a seat next to Lolly, grunting with every effort he made.

“Ma’am?” asked a young man wearing a brightly striped paper hat tilted on his head.

“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.