The Charm Bracelet(76)

“Mother!”

“What am I missing?” Lauren squealed, bouncing on the glider, her cereal sloshing to and fro in the bowl. “Yet something else my mother forgot to share with me?”

“I can’t wait to hear this!” a disembodied voice that sounded like a bear’s rumble boomed from outside the porch.

For the second time, Arden jumped, again jostling her coffee. Jake’s handsome face appeared at the screen.

“I was just trying to have a quiet cup of coffee and read the paper,” Arden said, exasperated, taking a seat at the table with a sigh, as Jake entered the cabin. She took an errant piece of the jigsaw puzzle and gestured with it as emphasis. “Alone!”

“I’m shocked there aren’t Paparazzi paparazzi swarming this cabin!” Jake said, jostling Arden’s shoulders playfully. “You’re famous in Scoops! You should be featured in your own magazine!”

“Enough mystery!” Lauren yelped. “Somebody talk.”

Arden bounced a hard look off her mother, who returned her visual volley with a withering glance. “Go on,” Lolly said with a smirk, taking a seat and folding her arms satisfactorily.

“Well…,” Arden started. “My mom felt it was important that I meet some friends my own age. She felt before I went to college that I needed to come out of my shell, so I wouldn’t be so shy.”

“And that we do something together as mother–daughter,” Lolly added. “To bond, after Les died.”

“So,” Arden continued, “in typical Lolly fashion, she came up with this harebrained idea…”

“Hey!” Lolly interrupted. “You’re a journalist. Stick to the facts!”

“I am!” Arden said with a groan. “So … she decided to enter me in the Tulip Queen contest. Unbeknownst to me, of course.”

Lolly shrugged her shoulders innocently, eliciting giggles from everyone but Arden.

“So, I agreed, just to make her happy. She ended up sewing this hideous Day-Glo yellow dress…”

“It was the color of a spring tulip!” Lolly interjected.

“I looked jaundiced, Mother,” Arden said. “And the bottom of the dress was made of all these different-colored panels…”

“They were all the colors of spring tulips!” Lolly interjected once more.

“… and the dress featured this long train she filled with fresh tulips cut from her garden. I looked like a melting bowl of sherbet. Of course, she put me in one of her blond wigs—adorned with more tulips…”

“You needed to look all-American Dutch!” Lolly interjected yet again.

“That’s an oxymoron, Mother,” Arden said to more giggles. “And enough makeup to make me look like a hooker.”

“A good hooker wouldn’t have fallen in her heels,” Lolly said, wagging a finger at her daughter.

“Okay, we’re getting somewhere now,” Lauren said.

“Hold on,” Arden said. “I’m nearing the big finish. So, for talent, my mom suggested I sing ‘Tip-Toe Through the Tulips’ by Tiny Tim … while PLAYING A UKULELE!”

“It was perfect,” Lolly said, her eyes shut, as if in a dream.

“The only problem was the crowd started laughing, I got embarrassed, and when I tried to run off the platform, which they build to jut out over the river, my train got caught on a warped board, my heel caught, and I fell backward into the river. They had to rescue me.”

“And my wig,” Lolly laughed.

Jake stood and put his hands on Arden’s shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze.

“Everyone called me Ar-don’t,” she said. “Essentially I became a warning to every other girl in town: If you enter the Tulip Queen pageant, don’t do anything that Arden did.”

Lauren clapped her hand over her mouth in shock, but a smile still spilled forth. “Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

“Why would I tell anyone that?”

“It explains a lot about how guarded you are, and the way you dress,” Lauren said. “I’m glad I know now. Thanks.”

Arden gave The Scoop a hearty shake. “You’re welcome, but I’m still having a quiet Memorial Day,” she said, hiding behind the paper.

“You know why I entered you in that pageant, don’t you, Arden?” Lolly asked seriously, cocking her head like the wren that sat on the feeder outside the screen.

“Yes. To humiliate me.”

Lolly stared out at the lake, her blue eyes reflecting the idyllic scene. “No, it’s because I could never enter it. When I was young, you had to have your mother sign the consent form. I always dreamed of entering because they had the most beautiful charm of a tulip tiara. I thought … well, I thought it would be fun to do it as a mother, if I couldn’t as a daughter. I thought it would be fun for someone in our family to feel like a queen just once in our lives, even for a day.”

Arden softened and smiled at her mother, and Lauren followed her grandmother’s gaze out the screen in order to hide her own tears.

“So what brings you here?” Lolly asked Jake, suddenly changing the subject. “Besides to meet the famous Ar-don’t in person?”

“I just wanted to check on you, see how you’re feeling.”