The Charm Bracelet

by Viola Shipman

  Arden picked up the puffy package and nabbed a pair of scissors from a Paparazzi coffee mug on her desk to cut it open.

  A little card came tumbling out.

  Arden’s heart leaped into her throat. Her mother’s beautiful handwriting was no longer the looping, expressive cursive of her youth. Instead, it was jagged, slanted, hunched.

  She read the card:

  ALICE:

  But I don’t want to go among mad people.

  THE CHESHIRE CAT:

  Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here.

  How’s the writing going, my dear?

  Remember, we all must go a little CRAZY sometimes to find our happiness.

  Hope you can visit this summer. I miss you and love you with all my heart!

  All my love to Lorna Lauren.

  Mom

  Arden’s heart began to beat in her temples, then in her eyes.

  Lorna? Oh, Mom, Arden said to herself, seeing her mother’s mistake. How could you get your own granddaughter’s name wrong?

  Arden picked up the envelope and turned it upside down. A little box rolled across her desk. She popped it open and sitting atop a velvet throne was a silver charm of the Mad Hatter.

  “Alice in Wonderland!” Arden smiled. “My favorite book!”

  Arden studied the charm, placing it in her palm and rubbing her fingers over it.

  Still with the charms, Mom? Still believe they’re somehow magical?

  She thought of her mother’s charm bracelet, thick with charms, the one she never removed, the one that drove Arden crazy growing up with its incessant jangling.

  How long has it been since Lauren and I have been home to Michigan? Where does time go? Arden felt a tinge of guilt and then her laptop dinged.

  Deadlines. That’s where.

  Arden picked up the card and reread it.

  “Hope you can visit this summer.”

  Her mother rarely asked for anything, much less a visit. Visiting home was tough for Arden, a lot like, well, Alice falling down the rabbit hole. It had not been easy for Arden growing up in small-town America. She had been an awkward kid, and it had not been easy having a mother like Lolly Lindsey.

  “It’s not that she’s a bad person,” Arden said to the charm, as if it were a therapist. “It’s just that she’s…”

  “Debbie Reynolds!”

  Yes! Exactly!

  Bigger than life. Always on stage, Arden thought.

  “Arden?”

  Arden jumped and turned to find Van standing in her doorway, his blue bow tie adorned with yellow boats twitching around his neck.

  Wait. I didn’t say that? she realized.

  “Debbie Reynolds is dating a twenty-five-year-old! Story’s coming now! We have an exclusive. We’ll need it online in less than fifteen minutes!”

  “Of course,” Arden nodded. Van was already walking away when she called, “But when I’m done, I think I’ll take an early lunch, if that’s okay. I need a little fresh air.”

  Van stopped, moonwalked back three steps, and checked his watch, before shooting a finger at Arden.

  “Sure thing. We need you fresh. But it’s still too early. Make it a late lunch, okay? We have a lot happening today. No plans tonight, right? Or this weekend? That promotion to web news director is still up in the air…,” Van added.

  Arden opened her mouth to respond, but Van was gone.

  Two

  May 2014—Lauren

  Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

  Lauren set down the quote she kept framed on her dorm desk and stared at her MacBook, her econ notes blurring in front of her eyes.

  A warm breeze raced through the window of Lauren’s dorm room and tousled her blond hair.

  She inhaled deeply, the smell of Lake Michigan and the approaching summer air filling her lungs and her room, that sweet perfume of flowers and fresh water, newly cut grass and warmth, that smell of … hope.

  She heard playful screams outside and stood, leaning over her desk to study the scene: Her dorm on Northwestern University’s campus looked out at the lake and student beach. Even though the breeze off the water was still a bit chilly, boys played Frisbee without shirts and girls in bikini tops soaked up some rays.

  There was something about the simple scene, of her fellow students enjoying a day free of care, which caused Lauren to stand, yank off her purple Wildcat hoodie, and walk over to the painting easel she had perched by her desk.

  She lifted her brush.

  “Ice cream!”

  Lauren jumped, as her roommate twirled into the room like a tornado, dark curly hair flying, carrying two ice cream cones.

  “I thought we could use these,” Lexie said, speaking even faster than her typical New York style, “between being stuck inside studying for finals on this gorgeous day and … well, I just found out Josh is playing me again.”

  “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 car
d 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.