The Charm Bracelet (3 page)

“What?” Lauren nabbed the ice cream from her roommate with one hand and wagged her paintbrush at Lexie with the other. “What did he do this time?”

“I found out that he's taking Grace to see Beyoncé at the United Center this weekend!”

Lexie licked her cone. “He was supposed to take me!” she said. Her shoulders drooped. “It was supposed to be our last big date before we go home for the summer.”

“Dump the loser,” Lauren said, setting down her brush. “Now!”

Lexie continued to lick her cone, when her brown eyes widened. Lauren knew instantly: Her roommate had a plan.

“Can't your mom get us tickets to the concert?” she begged. “So we can spy on him?”

Lauren rolled her eyes, took a big bite of her ice cream, and then took a seat on her bed. “She could,
technically
. But you know she'd never ask. That's so not her.”

“I can't believe your mother works for
Paparazzi
and never uses any of those connections.”

“She just would never take such a risk. I'm sure she's covering the concert … from her office,” Lauren said, then added, “Lexie, you need to forget about him. He's not good for you.”

Lexie stood, holding her half-eaten cone in her mouth, and began to text.

“Done!” she said a few seconds later.

“So romantic,” Lauren said, and then began to laugh at her roommate. “By the way, you realize you look like a pregnant kangaroo, right?”

Lexie looked down at her distended belly and laughed, nearly choking on the cone still in her mouth.

“I foo-got,” she mumbled through the ice cream, reaching into the overstuffed pocket of her hoodie to unleash a flood of envelopes and packages onto her bed. “Here. Mail.”

Lauren finished her cone, walked over, and began to rifle through the mail scattered across her roommate's bed.

With each envelope she opened, her heart closed a little bit more: Notices for internships at Fortune 500 businesses and banks, schedules for on-campus interviews, alerts for job fairs. It was late in the year, and she had ignored every notice. And had yet to tell her mother she was without an internship or job for the summer.

Lauren sighed. “I can't deal with this,” she said, ducking her head, her blond locks cascading over her face.

“That's not going to block out the future,” Lexie said. “Why don't you just tell your mom you're not happy about your major?”

“You've met her,” Lauren said. “Happy hasn't been an important part of the equation in her life for a while now.”

“If you're unhappy now,” Lexie said, “just imagine how you're going to feel in twenty years.”

Lauren sighed.

“Hey, what's that?” Lexie suddenly asked, pointing at a padded manila envelope on her purple NU comforter.

The envelope had Lauren's name on it, but she didn't recognize the labored handwriting at first, until she saw the Michigan return address.

“Grandma!” Lauren said, happily tearing open the envelope to find a card and a little box.

“I bet I know what it is.” Lexie laughed, flopping onto her bed. “Open it.”

Lauren popped open the little box to find a silver charm of a hot air balloon.

“Read it,” Lexie urged.

Lauren smiled, thinking of Lolly. She adored her grandmother—her crazy wigs, her carefree attitude, her love of nature, her fiery spirit.

Lauren opened the card and began to read, her voice becoming emotional the more she read:

This charm is to a life filled with adventure!

Remember … YOLO!

Love,

Grandma

“She knows ‘You Only Live Once'?” Lexie asked, opening her laptop before stopping as her voice cracked. “Your grandmother is so thoughtful. I miss my grandma. I loved her so much.”

Lauren rubbed her roommate's shoulder, Lexie's words resonating deeply. “She is still with you,” Lauren said.

“I know,” Lexie said, biting her lip, before changing the subject. “Econ final. I guess it's time, isn't it?”

Lauren gave her charm a little kiss, before carefully adding the hot air balloon to her charm bracelet. She walked to her desk and placed Lolly's card next to her Picasso quote, running her fingers over her grandmother's writing. She looked over at Lexie and thought of what it would be like to lose her own grandmother.

Is she seventy now? Is that even possible?
Lauren wondered.

Lauren looked up and studied her litany of academic, artistic, and athletic accomplishments lining the wall and sighed.

You are so right, Grandma. I do need an adventure.

Lauren stared out her dorm window again at the kids cavorting along the lake. She shut her eyes.

Growing up, she visited her grandmother every summer in Scoops, Michigan, at her cabin on Lost Land Lake. They were the best times in her life, although her mom's relationship with her own mother had always seemed as chilled as the ice cream cones she and her grandmother devoured nearly every day of the summer.

“Ice cream headaches are so worth it, aren't they, my dear?” her grandmother would say, massaging Lauren's temples with her fire engine red nails.

Every day was an adventure with her grandma: She taught her to swim, to paint, to believe anything was possible.

“Laughing and dreaming are the most important things in the world, my dear,” she would always tell Lauren. “Those are the things we forget as adults.”

Lauren thought about Picasso's words again, returned to her easel, and pulled out her paints.

She could see her grandmother's face, hear her laugh, feel her warmth. Lauren considered the econ final she needed to study for instead of painting.

I wish I could paint full time,
Lauren thought, looking at her wall of accolades
. All of those times I made the honor roll, all of those times I won my track meets, and he didn't even care.

There was no photo of Lauren's dad anywhere in her room. Save for the occasional note, the check on birthdays and Christmases, she hadn't seen her father in years. He'd abandoned her, and she had no intention of meeting his new family.

Being accepted into Northwestern was Lauren's own accomplishment: Her grades and awards had helped, of course, but it was her talent—her art—that had earned her admission.

But when Lauren was beginning to pack for her freshman year, her life had changed: She found the nasty letters from her father in the attic. She discovered the details of the divorce settlement in the garage. She came upon the overdue bills and financial statements in her mother's rolltop desk, and while her mother was at work, she read the diary her mother had stuffed in a shoebox under the bed. That's when Lauren learned the truth: Her father had refused to help Arden raise her.

Sometimes you must relinquish your passion in order to survive,
her mother had written in her diary.

Guilt had overwhelmed Lauren. She took her mother's maiden name. She also never realized how much her mother had sacrificed until then, and she vowed that she, too, must do just that: A quarter million dollars for an art degree wasn't realistic. How could she expect her mother to pay all of that back? But a business degree, and then an MBA? With those, she could help her mother dig herself out of her financial straits. She could help undo the hell her father had created.

And then, if it wasn't too late, I could still paint,
Lauren vowed.

Lauren now understood her mother's mantra: “Be sensible,” she would say. “Be careful. Be planned.”

It stood in direct opposition to her grandmother's: “Dream, my dear. Dream!”

Despite needing to study, Lauren began to paint, conscious only of her brushstrokes.

“Wow,” Lexie finally said, knocking Lauren from her trance. “I mean, wow.”

Lauren stopped and studied her emerging work.

When she was painting, the world fell away. She
lived
in the painting.

“You know how talented you are, right?” Lexie asked. “That's a gift.”

Lauren smiled and tentatively touched the still-wet canvas, as if the painting were a bird she didn't want to frighten with any sudden movement. When it was completed, it would be an image of her grandmother licking an ice cream cone, the summer sun melting it quickly, her aging face a mix of childhood happiness and age lines.

“You have her eyes,” Lexie added. “Same color as the sky right now. I'd have to wear colored contacts to make mine look like that, you know.”

Lauren smiled. “Thanks for being such a great friend and roomie.”

“Wasn't easy,” Lexie laughed. “Remember?”

Lauren nodded.

When she started at Northwestern, Lauren's initial excitement had descended into near depression after discovering her mother's financial difficulties and changing her major.

They're going to make me room with some boring girl who refuses to go out, and loves statistics,
Lauren was convinced.

Lauren had been icier than a Chicago winter to Lexie the first few weeks they lived together. They were taking Statistics One together, and Lauren's stress was palpable.

“How can they call this ‘a friendly yet comprehensive introduction to statistics'?” Lauren asked in their dorm room, her voice rising. “It's not a puppy. Data mining? Quantitative strategies? Really?”

“Let me help you,” Lexie said one night. Lauren could tell her roomie was trying to calm her down.

“I'm good,” Lauren replied. “I'm not Suze Orman, like you.”

“You know what?” Lexie had said. “I'm done. You don't want help. You don't want to talk. You don't want to get to know me. You just want a pity party. Fine. I'm outta here.”

And, with that, she gathered her stuff and left, slamming the door behind her.

Frustrated, Lauren had begun to paint. Slowly, a little girl in a spinning inner tube emerged, a storm approaching on the horizon over the lake.

Lauren had fallen asleep at one in the morning and woke to find Lexie studying her painting.

“You never wanted to major in business, did you?”

Lauren had shaken her head and collapsed into tears.

“Tell me what's going on,” Lexie said. “Please.”

From that moment, the two had become inseparable. After Lauren shared with her grandmother how helpful Lexie had been to her, Lolly had sent the girls charms of two puzzle pieces, one that said “Best” and the other “Friends,” which they wore religiously.

“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.”