The Charm Bracelet(7)

“Guess I can’t avoid the inevitable any longer,” Lauren said, shaking her head, bringing her back into the present. “Wanna go somewhere to cram with me?”

“Sure. Let me get ready first, okay?”

“For what?”

“I’m single again,” Lexie said. “I can’t go out looking like this.”

“Hurry up, then,” Lauren replied, pulling her hair into a loose ponytail and tying a light jacket around her waist.

“You don’t have to do anything, do you?” Lexie sighed, heading into the bathroom that united their suite with the girls next door. “Give me five minutes, okay?”

Lauren shook her head and took a seat on her bed, knowing five minutes in Lexie’s world meant twenty in real time.

She stared at the painting. I miss my grandma. Why does life always get in the way? Lauren felt her cell vibrate in her pocket and yanked it from her jeans.

Meet me for a late lunch? her mother texted.

Getting ready to study for econ final with Lexie. I can do really late lunch. 3?

OK. Meet me under Marilyn. Love you!

K. Me, too.

Lauren stopped and then began to text again.

Did you get a charm from Grandma, too?

Yes. A Mad Hatter.

I’m a little worried about her.

Lauren’s heart raced as she thought of her grandmother so far away. Then her mother texted: Me, too. We’ll talk.

Lauren chuckled. “Talks” with her mother were often more Judge Judy than conversation.

“Ready?” Lauren grabbed her purse and waited for Lexie.

“A few more minutes,” Lexie said. “Hair’s not cooperating.”

Lauren fell backward onto her tiny bed, and glanced at her grandmother’s note. The sun glinted through her dorm window and shined on the painting of her grandmother, her face seeming to radiate an internal light.





Three

May 2014—Arden & Lauren


The statue of Marilyn Monroe towered over Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, her skirt blowing skyward in the Windy City’s late spring breeze.

There were endless restaurants and landmarks downtown where Arden could have met her daughter—Water Tower, Millennium Park, Navy Pier—but the twenty-six-foot, lifelike sculpture of the actress and her scene on the subway grate from The Seven Year Itch captured for eternity somehow seemed right to Arden today.

Arden looked up at the shimmering stainless steel and aluminum mega Marilyn and thought of her shinier, bigger than life mother and her too small hometown.

Things haven’t quite worked out as perfectly as I thought they would.

Arden sighed, thinking of Van and her job.

She walked directly between Marilyn’s legs and patted her giant, strappy heel.

Sorry, Marilyn, Arden mumbled to the sculpture. I feel like I get paid to look up celebrities’ skirts.

She took a seat on a concrete step facing the sculpture, as tourists leaned against the statue’s legs and pointed up for the quintessential photo.

“Is she…?” a heavyset, elderly husband and wife with rosy faces and fanny packs asked Arden.

“Yes.” Arden smiled patiently. “She’s wearing panties.”

“Would you mind…?” the cherubic-looking couple asked Arden at the same time.

“Sure,” Arden said, standing to reach for the outstretched digital camera. “Smile!”

The couple pointed their fingers up Marilyn’s skirt and laughed uneasily.

“That’s a keeper,” Arden said.

She watched the couple walk away, hand in hand, and for a second—in a city of millions—Arden felt so alone.

She shut her eyes and remembered taking a picture of her mom and dad in front of Lake Michigan at sunset. They had positioned their hands so it looked like they were holding the sun up to keep it from disappearing behind the water. Her parents’ faces were as bright and happy as the exploding sky. Arden smiled at the memory before the thought of her own failed marriage popped into her head.

I was happily married like that once, she thought. Before … everything …

A small group of youthful protesters suddenly marched by, excitedly stabbing the blue sky with picket signs and yelling about college loans.

The word “loan” floated across the Chicago spring air and landed in Arden’s ears, reverberating throughout her soul.

Arden’s pulse quickened. When is Lauren’s next tuition payment due? Arden wondered, feeling the familiar anxiety.

Arden briefly considered calling her ex to ask for additional help this month with the loan payment but quickly thought otherwise. She was about to stash her cell away in her purse when it rang.

Must be Lauren, she said to herself. Running late.

Arden glanced at the number. She was confused. It was coming from her mother’s area code, but it wasn’t her mother’s number.

“Hello?” she answered. “This is Arden.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Mrs. Warren…”

“It’s Ms. Lindsey now,” Arden replied icily at the reference to her former married name, thinking it must be a telemarketer. “I’m divorced. And I’m on the no-call list.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot about that,” the woman said in a Northwoods accent, adding uneasily, “Not about the no-call list, you know, but about the divorce.”