The Charm Bracelet(54)

“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.