The Charm Bracelet (18 page)

The three exited the Woodie, and Arden took in the exterior of the ancient supper club, a dark, dingy building in the middle of the woods that looked like it had seen better days.

LVE MUSC TONGHT
! a shoddy sign in the parking lot read.

“Did they run out of money to buy
i
's?” Arden asked.

“It's like
Wheel of Fortune
,” Lolly laughed. “You have to buy a vowel, or solve it, to enter.”

Lauren swung open the door of the Rendezvous, a waft of grease and liquor overtaking them.

“Are you okay?” Lolly whispered to her granddaughter. “You seem awfully quiet tonight.”

Lauren nodded.

The three entered, and Arden quickly was blinded: The Rendezvous was pitch black, save for a few weak overhead lights and some candles flickering on the tables.

The Rendezvous had originally been built as a bar for local hunters and fishermen. The only windows in the place were narrow and sat high, like eyebrows, at the top of the restaurant. It became known as “The Hunter's Mistress” because the “widowed wives” of the outdoorsmen couldn't tell whether or not their husbands were inside unless they entered. And few had the nerve to do so.

Over time, the Rendezvous morphed from hunting bar to supper club, with jazz musicians from Chicago and Detroit heading north for summer getaways to jam together and test out new songs. A lot of the greats had played here—though they may not have remembered they did—including members of The Rat Pack.

Arden braced herself.

“I had drinks with Sinatra,” Lolly said loud enough to get the attention of a few diners. “We were quite a pair!”

Lolly told the same story every time they came to the Rendezvous.

“There's our picture!”

Lolly pointed to an old framed photo on a wall over by the narrow bar that fronted the small stage where musicians still jammed.

“What a place! What a dame! Can't wait for my next rendezvous at the Rendezvous!” Sinatra had written.

The supper club's walls were crammed with mounted deer heads and big fish, glassy-eyed wildlife meant to be showcased in all their outdoor glory, but dressed over time by drunken customers in Santa hats, leis, and sunglasses. Autographed photos of musicians sat alongside the wildlife, the singers and piano players looking even more glassy-eyed than their counterparts.

The bar was stuffed with stools, the restaurant with small tables and mismatched chairs.

“We have your usual table reserved, Lolly,” an elderly waitress with sky-high hair said while chomping on a piece of gum.

“Thanks, Trudy,” Lolly said.

The trio followed Trudy's ample rear, which bumped the tight tables—drinks wobbling unsteadily—as she moved quickly to the back of the restaurant.

RESERVED FOR LOLLY LINDSEY

Trudy picked up the yellowed sign from the table.

“You still got that old sign?” Lolly asked.

“This old thing will never go away,” Trudy hacked, grabbing her big behind, “like this old thing. Now, what'll I get for you ladies?”

“Three mugs of your summer pale ale,” Lolly said. “Make 'em icy.”

“Back in a flash,” she sang.

Lolly had barely been seated when she looked up and said, “Well, well, well! If it isn't Nurse Ratched.”

Arden turned and gasped. “Mother!”

“What?” Lolly said, mocking confusion.

“Your memory is a little bit better than any of us thought, isn't it? Tonight's dinner isn't a coincidence at all, is it?”

Lolly shrugged like an innocent child.

Sitting a few tables over—downing an icy mug of beer and laughing with a big group—was Jake. He smiled, waved, and then began ambling toward their table, like a good-natured version of the stuffed black bear that sat near the bar with a perpetual grin on its face, a mug of beer in its paw, sunglasses on its snout, and a Scoops hat on its big head.

Arden dropped her head into her hands as Jake approached.

“Back of your head isn't an appealing look, my dear,” Lolly said.

“What are you ladies doing here?”

“Well, we thought we'd have a quick drink and bite…”

Arden cut her mother off. “Don't dig yourself a deeper hole, Mom. I know this is all a setup.”

“Doesn't matter,” Jake said sweetly, as Trudy reappeared with beers. “I'm just glad you're here. It's such a fun place. Would you two mind if I stole Arden for a few minutes? I'd love to introduce her to some of my friends.”

Arden shot a glance at her mother and daughter, hoping they might intercede to save her. Neither was biting.

“I'm here with my family,” Arden said. “I promised my mom I'd have dinner with her.”

Lolly tapped her daughter dramatically and then gave her granddaughter a wink. “I think we'll be okay, won't we, Lauren?”

Lauren laughed, winked back, and then lifted her mug of beer to salute her mother. “We will, Grandma. Have fun, Mom!”

“We can get beer and perch together any old time, can't we?” Lolly said, winking again, her fake eyelash softly landing like a butterfly on her cheek.

“I'm buying,” Jake said as incentive.

Arden stood hesitantly. Jake pulled out her chair, put a hand around the middle of her back, and escorted her to his table, where he began introducing her to his friends.

Lolly polished off half her beer in one big gulp, then held up two fingers to Trudy before she dashed away. “We're gonna need them to watch this train wreck.”

Lauren smiled, in spite of herself.

“So what's going on?” Lolly asked Lauren. “You're definitely not yourself.”

“Mom told me about Clem today,” she said, taking a sip of her beer. “And I told her I wanted to change my major. I want to paint, Grandma.”

“I know you do, my dear,” Lolly said. “I take it your mother didn't like that idea.”

Lauren nodded. “I told her life is too short to be unhappy. We have to follow our passion, right?”

Lolly nodded. “You're setting me up for a story, you know. Can I tell you about the loon charm? I think it will help you.”

Lauren nodded again, before taking a big gulp of beer.

Lolly smiled, her old face beaming. She felt again for the charm and to Lauren, her grandmother looked like a young girl again, decades washing away, a light surrounding her body and emanating from her soul as if a spotlight had been focused on her in this dark bar.

“Your grandfather gave me this charm, my beautiful girl,” Lolly said, shutting her eyes as the band took the stage and began to play. “Oh, my goodness! They're playing ‘Summer Wind' by Frank Sinatra. Do you know this song?”

Lauren shook her head no.

“Listen to the song's story, and then I'll tell you mine. It's a story about summer love, a story about a love that forever calls you home,” Lolly said, shutting her eyes and swaying her body as the honey-voiced crooner began to sing. “Your grandfather is with us tonight!”

 

Twenty-one

1962

Whooo-dooo-ooooh-ooooh!

The loons woke Lolly just seconds before the predawn rustling of her father. The nineteen-year-old rubbed her eyes, navigated the cool, narrow wood steps in the log cabin and padded into the kitchen, where her father stood illuminated in the darkness by the weak light from the refrigerator.

“Lemme help you, Dad,” Lolly said.

“I can get it,” he groused.

“You can? It's okay to turn on a light,” she said, hitting the switch over the sink. “It's not gonna wake me up.”

“I like to watch the sun rise over the lake,” her father said. “That's my morning light. Along with you, of course.”

Lolly smiled and hugged her father, her blond head coming to rest on his flannel overshirt.

As the two pulled apart, they looked at each other closely in the burgeoning light from outside and smiled, hiding their deeper emotions: Vi's too early death had aged both of them. There was a constant weight, like an invisible brick, pressing down on them. Vern's hair was now more grey than black, and Lolly often woke with circles under her eyes.

Lolly started the coffee, grabbed a skillet, and pulled out three eggs and two slabs of bacon.

“Toast?” she asked.

“Yep,” Vern said.

She yanked the jam and butter from the refrigerator and bread from the bin on the counter, and plugged in the toaster. She plopped the bacon into the now-hot skillet, and when it began to bubble and grease began to fill the bottom of the pan, Lolly cracked three eggs into it.

The sun was just beginning to reflect off Lost Land when Lolly handed her father his breakfast. For a moment, the eggs' yolks matched the early summer sunshine. Her father lifted his fork and cut into them, the yellow spilling forth and flowing haphazardly around the plate.

“You can't take care of me forever,” he said, sopping up the yolks with his toast.

Lolly looked out at the lake, a long sigh her answer.

It was summer, and the resorters were returning. Although it had been nearly a decade since her mother had died, the first weeks of summer always stung like an angry ground hornet. Lolly knew her mother would never be coming back.

Even Jo was gone. She was staying in the city, living in her sorority house and working.

“Who are you taking out today?” Lolly asked, breaking the silence.

“A group of guys from Chicago,” Vern said, snapping off a bite of crispy bacon. “They want to fish Lost Land for musky, and then the big lake for salmon. Full day. Good money.”

Vern stood. “Mind filling me a thermos of coffee?”

“Sandwiches?”

Vern nodded. “I'll go gather up my stuff.”

An unspoken routine between the two had developed over the years. Lolly met her father on the screened porch, thermos and cooler filled, picked up a tackle box in her free hand, and accompanied her father to his johnboat at the end of their dock.

The morning was crisp but would warm quickly, as they did in Michigan, the chill giving way to humidity-free warmth and skies as blue as the indigo buntings that dove over the lake in search of mosquitoes.

Whooo-dooo-ooooh-ooooh!

“New couple, I do think,” Vern said, nodding back at the cabin, where two loons nestled in the inlet by the screened porch. “I think Lucy and Ricky might have passed on this winter. I think we may have some new lovers.”

“Loud ones,” Lolly said, handing her dad the thermos and cooler. “Woke me up again this morning.”

“You got names for them?”

Lolly jumped at the sound of a strange voice.

She turned to find a mop-headed kid, with eyes as green as the lake reeds swaying in the breeze behind him.

“Oh, Les! Right on time!”

“Thanks for letting me help you out this summer, sir.”

Lolly's head pivoted between her father and the young man, her eyes wide, waiting for an explanation.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Lol. Didn't I tell you about Les?”

“Umm, no.”

Les laughed, his face breaking into a huge smile, before quickly covering his mouth with his hand. “Sorry.”

“Les, Lolly. Lolly, Les.”

The two shook hands tentatively. “Les is on summer break from Michigan State. He's majoring in … what was that again?”

“Forestry.”

“You study forests?” Lolly asked.

“Fish and wildlife, actually. I'm in the College of Natural Resources and Agriculture.”

“So then my dad is sort of your ‘outdoor' professor this summer?” Lolly asked.

“That's right. I'll be helping him with his fishing excursions this summer, which will give me a chance to study our state's northern lakes, especially the musky and salmon population.”

“His parents have a summer cottage here,” Vern explained. “His dad contacted me about this.”

“Can you change a hook? Cast? Clean a fish?” Lolly asked in quick succession, a bit jealous that a college boy was about to take over some of her usual summer duties with her father.

Vern doubled over at the sudden barrage of questions from his daughter, booming laughter echoing off the lake and causing a group of herons nearby to take flight.

“My daughter has a point,” he said, looking Les—and his crisp khaki pants, ironed polo shirt, and deck shoes—over closely. “Lolly, you should do all the interviewing from now on. So, can you do any of that, Les? It's kind of important, since most of the city folk can't.”

“Ummm…” Les hesitated, looking between Lolly and Vern.

Vern leaned into the boat and nabbed a pole and his tackle box. “Here ya go. Tie on a lure and cast into the lake for me.”

Les pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle, or maybe cry, and then exhaled a puff of wind heavenward, blowing his flaxen bangs out of his eyes. He did this over and over, as he fussed with the lure. He tried tying the lure for five minutes, his eyes crossed in concentration, until Lolly couldn't take it anymore.

“Here!” she said. “Let me show you!”

Les's face reddened, as Lolly continued. “It's okay that a girl's showing you. Don't be embarrassed. It's easy: This is a figure eight tie. See, you twist and twist, until an
eight
forms, then loop the end through the bottom of the eight and then the top of the eight and pull tight, like this. There!”

Les looked at Lolly as if she were a magician. He yanked and yanked on the lure, but it stayed in place, as if it had been cemented onto the line.

“Do it again,” he said, incredulous. “Please.”

Lolly showed him again, and when she was done, cast a perfect toss alongside the edge of the reeds, hooking a smallmouth bass in under a minute.

“You'll get the hang of it,” Lolly said, pulling the fish off and tossing it back into the water, where it immediately dove to the bottom of the clear lake. “It's like having a dad who's a butcher. You learn how to grill a steak, right?”