by Jackie Hirtz
“I’ll go without peanut butter,” offered Lola in a desperate attempt to economize. “I’ll sell my giraffe bow,” she added, breaking free of her mother’s arms.
“Even if I gave my Mustang back to the car dealer, I’d still need to work,” said Mrs. Zola. “Who knows when your father will find work.”
“Where’s Dad?” asked Lola. She was sure she could persuade him to persuade her mother to refuse to work as Buck’s father’s assistant.
“Out looking for a job at the hotels in Desert Springs,” said Lola’s mother. She picked up Bowzer to intercept the cat’s imaginary tail-chasing. “Your tail is gone now, Bowzer-boy. It’s time to face cat facts,” she said, scratching the feline behind his ears.
Although the Zolas lived only thirty miles from Cactus Springs, they rarely frequented the tourist hub of the rich, tanned, and tummy-tucked. Lounging by a pool, counting face-lifts, wasn’t their idea of relaxation. Besides the Zolas couldn’t afford to vacation at the local resorts, not even during a good year.
Lola wondered what kind of job her father could find. Valet? Towel distributor? Golf-ball washer? She glanced over at the local newspaper, opened to the want ads, and noticed someone had circled an ad for a motel housekeeper. Mortified, Lola blurted out, “Dad’s not a maid!”
“You can’t be too proud,” said Lola’s mother, “when money’s tight and economists are predicting another Great Depression.”
Lola remembered reading something in social studies about the Great Depression—the stock market crash, the soup kitchens, and the tent cities.
“Yes, you can be too proud,” Lola corrected her mother, “too proud to work for Buck’s father.” She was convinced pride was a positive, not negative, integer on the Richter scale of character traits.
Surely the disagreement would have escalated if Lola’s father hadn’t returned home to announce, or rather mumble, that no one wanted to hire him as a maid, valet, towel-tosser, or golf-ball cleaner. Hotels wanted to hire young people, not men her father’s age.
As Lola studied her father’s sad face, she decided not to bring up the subject of her mother’s new job. That could wait. Hugging her dad, Lola said, “You’ll find work, Daddeo. You’re too good for those hotels. Something better will come along.”
“I hope you’re right, Lola.” Her father reached into his pocket for…a present? “I got you something for the holiday,” he announced.
What holiday?
Lola’s father presented his daughter with a bookmark shaped like a guinea pig. That’s right. It was Guinea Pig Day in Peru!
“Thanks, Dad,” said Lola examining the bookmark. “Hey, Bowzer, take a look. No tail, just like you!”
The mere mention of the word tail made Bowzer meow and circle around to see if his rear had sprouted a new extension. No such luck.
“Do you think Bowzer’s tail will ever grow back?” Lola asked her father—again.
“Of course it will, tuxedo man.” Michael Zola planted a kiss on the kitty’s head.
Diane Zola was less certain, but still held out hope. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Right,” said Lola. “Sometimes lizard tails grow back.”
Lola’s parents both nodded, finally agreeing on something.
Feeling better, Lola headed next door for a sleepover at Melanie’s.
*** *** ***
“What’s the latest freckle count, Mel?”
Lola’s friend was counting freckles in front of her bedroom mirror.
“Three hundred and fifteen,” said Melanie, “but remember it’s classified information. Don’t tell a soul.”
“Mel, I would never blab your freckle secrets,” promised Lola. She plopped down in the middle of a mountain of bubble gum wrappers and planet stickers piled on Melanie’s bottom bunk bed. Lola couldn’t imagine betraying her soul-sister’s trust. The two had been friends since Melanie’s parents had died in a car accident, leaving Aunt Liza to adopt Melanie.
Shortly after Melanie moved in to her aunt’s home next door, Lola discovered the two had a lot in common. They both loved peanut butter and mysteries. Boys were the biggest mystery of all. Three years ago Melanie served as vice president of the “Boys Are Weird” club. You-know-who was president.
On weekends Lola and Melanie invented secret codes for future clubs; played Spit, a frenzied card game; skateboarded in suburbia; and made videos of Aunt Liza’s hamsters running through their miniature mazes, complete with a roller-coasters and merry-go-rounds. The hamsters, named after Greek gods (Hera, Zeus, Heracles, Aphrodite, and Hermes), kept Aunt Liza company on lonely sandstorm nights.
Melanie stopped counting her freckles and picked up Heracles, the meekest of the ten hamsters. “We’re so happy you won the election, Lola.” The “we” referred to Melanie and Heracles.
Lola sighed. “Yeah.”
“What’s wrong, soul-sister?” asked Melanie.
While Lola worked up the courage to tell Melanie the truth, her best friend slipped a piece of paper with the latest freckle count into her desk drawer labeled, “CIA, Top Secret.”
“You look so sad,” said Melanie, adding, “it makes me sad. Heracles, please cheer up, Lola.” Heracles scurried over to Lola and climbed up her shoulder.
“Remember when I told you my parents got laid off?” Lola petted the hamster.
“Lola, you can always stay with us if you guys can’t pay the rent. Heracles and I won’t allow you to live in a car!”
“Thanks, Mel. Thanks, Heracles,” said Lola. “It’s just that…”
“What?”
“Slime.”
“He lost.”
“He won.”
“Huh?”
“My mom is going to work at his dad’s company, you know, Boingo Bits.”
“Lie.”
“Truth.”
“No.”
“Yes—and that’s not all,” said Lola. “Buck said my dad made lemons.”
Melanie was confused. “Everyone knows your dad made cars, not lemons.”
“No, Mel, not real lemons like the ones growing in my backyard. Bad cars. That’s what he meant.”
“Oh, I get it now.” Melanie’s arms reached over once again to hug Lola. What Melanie lacked in brainpower, she made up in heart. She felt everything, including Lola’s pain.
“Everyone knows your dad didn’t make lemonade.”
“Lemons, not lemonade, Mel. No one ever said he made lemonade.”
“Sorry,” said Melanie. “I always get confused with sayings like…”
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Lola smiled.
“Yeah, that’s it, Lola. Make lemonade.”
Lola’s eyes lit up. “Excellent idea, Mel. I’ll go into the lemonade business. I’ll support the Zola tribe by selling lemonade.”
Melanie was skeptical. “Don’t you think you’re a little old for that? Second graders stand out in the sun wearing their mom’s aprons. Not sixth graders.”
“What other choice do I have, Mel? I’m too young to run for president, perform heart transplants, or…”
“…Get a job as an astrologer to the stars,” added Melanie, who had a thing for Hollywood celebrities.
“I’ll hustle twenty-four hours a day,” vowed Lola. “I won’t sleep, eat, or daydream once about winning the world skateboarding championship. I, Lola Zola, will support Mom, Dad, and Bowzer.”
“All by yourself?”
Grinning, Lola stopped and stared at Melanie. “No. I’ll find someone to help me.”
“Who?” Sometimes Melanie’s brain went on vacation.
“You,” said Lola, smiling.
“Can’t.”
“Can.”
“Won’t.”
“Will.”
“Evernay,” said Melanie, which in Pig Latin meant never.
“Hyway otnay?” Why not? Now it was Lola’s turn to be dense.
“You know how many freckles I have,” said Melanie. “The sun will multipl
y them.”
Lola could fix that. “You’ll stand in the shade.”
“The sun moves around too much. It’ll find me. Three hundred and fifteen freckles. I’ll turn into one big ugly spot.”
“I’ll make you a sun umbrella.”
“What color?”
Lola knew Melanie’s favorite color was…“Lilac.”
“Well,” said Melanie, “maybe I’ll help. I need to think about it.”
“Okay,” said Lola, “but in the meantime, maybe I’ll ask Samantha Roberts to help me instead.”
Melanie could not be so easily replaced. “You can’t do that,” she said, with a hint of jealousy.
“Why not?”
“Because you need me. I’m the queen of small talk and small talk is big talk, if you know what I’m talking about.”
“I think you just talked yourself into a job,” said Lola, smiling.
Lola and Melanie plopped on the floor and crossed their legs, yoga-style. Linking pinkies, they recited their secret loyalty oath. “Pinky, pinky, never finky, knuckle, knuckle, always chuckle, Twister Sister, Sister Twister.” Then tapping their thumbs together, cracking their gum, they chanted, “Thumb, gum, gum, thumb, Sister Twister, Twister Sister.”
Giggling, the two girls imagined themselves lemonade executives. They wore lemon-colored tennis shoes in lemon-colored offices in a lemon-shaped building.
Hours later, Aunt Liza said good night to the hamsters and then told Lola and Melanie wild bedtime stories about backflips she performed during her days as a Hollywood stuntwoman. Neither Lola nor Melanie could sleep. They were too busy thinking of business slogans.
“Beat the heat. Slurp Lola’s pucker punch,” suggested Melanie.
“I love it!” shouted Lola.
Aunt Liza opened the door and said, “Freeze your jaws, Twister Sisters, and get some beauty rest. You’re waking up every hamster in the house.”
The two girls fell asleep dreaming of their lemonade future, and a debt-free life for the Zola family. The next morning Lola ran home to spread the news.
“Mom, Dad,” she cried, bolting through the door. “You’ll never have to worry about money again.”
“What are you talking about, sweetheart?” said Diane Zola. She wore her bathrobe, puttering around the living room. Lola’s dad typed on his laptop. Bowzer, tired of chasing his missing tail, batted a fly against a windowpane.
Lola explained. “Mel and I are going to have a major lemonade stand. We’re going to make so much moola, you won’t have to work for Slime’s dad.”
“Oh, I see,” said Lola’s mother, a true disbeliever.
“That’s great,” said Lola’s father, sounding excited. But he wasn’t. He scrolled down the page of his laptop searching for a job. “Here’s something,” he said. “Car washers needed—full time, minimum wage.”
“What are you doing, Dad?” asked Lola. “I told you I’m going to support us.”
“That’s sweet of you to want to do that, honey,” said Lola’s father.
“Parents are supposed to take care of their children—not the other way around,” said Lola’s mother.
Michael Zola continued to download job possibilities, while Diane Zola sifted through the bills. A fly escaped a frustrated Bowzer, who batted wildly at a buzzing window.
No one paid much attention to Lola’s dream of being the breadwinner.
‘I’ll show them!’ she silently promised the Dollar Sign God.
*** *** ***
Chapter 4
Mrs. Zola drove her daughter to the market in the family’s new cherry-red Mustang convertible with white vinyl seats. Lola’s father had given it to Mrs. Zola as a surprise birthday present. Driving with the top down, Lola’s mother tried to recapture her lost youth when the Mustang convertible made a comeback. Though she worked throughout high school, Diane Zola still couldn’t afford college and felt she’d missed a rite of passage. Now was supposed to be her time.
After Lola cleaned out her piggy bank, emptying the stray quarters in the pig’s secret sombrero compartment, Lola convinced her mother to escort her to the grocery store. She desperately needed items to her launch her lemonade dream.
“If you insist,” said Diane Zola, pretending she was doing her daughter a favor. In reality, Lola’s mom jumped at any excuse to drive her new midlife crisis car.
Lola’s mother turned on the radio. “This is Doc Perkins, live from Hollywood,” came the voice of her favorite oldies announcer. “Let’s go back in my lava lamp time machine and revisit nineteen sixty-four, the year Beatlemania invaded America and Ford introduced a new rage—Mustang Fever.”
Lola’s mother wasn’t a high school student during the ‘60s, but she’d heard so many stories about the ‘60s, she fell in love with that era—and liked the idea of going back in a time machine. Today, however, was not a good day for time travel. The present loomed too large.
With another five-hundred-dollar installment due at the end of the month, Diane Zola knew the Mustang was a luxury she could ill afford. On the other hand, if they didn’t make the payments, she would lose her car and her youth—again.
Lola couldn’t keep her fingers off the control buttons. She experimented to see how fast she could reverse window directions.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
“The window has had enough exercise, Lola,” said Diane Zola, as she turned into the supermarket parking lot. Lola’s mom had taken the bobby pins out of her French roll hairdo, allowing her brown mop to fall to her shoulders. What good was a convertible if you couldn’t experience a sense of freedom?
Once inside the market, Lola inspected the twelve-dollar price tag on a flimsy yellow sun umbrella promoted as one of the desert store’s hottest new items. She couldn’t afford such a pricey freckle-blocker, even if it was for Melanie. Next aisle.
Lola’s mother grabbed the needed items: paper cups, sunblock, lemons, and sugar. “Remember,” said Diane Zola, “these aren’t your only expenses. You’ve got overhead.”
“Over who?” asked Lola.
“Salaries to pay,” Diane Zola explained. “If Melanie’s going to work for you, you’ve got to pay her. Mel’s wages are part of your overhead.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Lola, wondering why her mother hadn’t discussed overhead with the auto plant bosses. Or maybe she had, but they hadn’t listened.
“Your mom is a brilliant woman,” Michael Zola often told Lola. “She’d be running the plant if she were a man.”
After Lola’s mother was denied several promotions because she was “too outspoken,” Lola’s dad urged his wife to file a complaint with the union. Diane Zola wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted to fight her own battles, even if that meant losing. Go figure.
“Don’t forget to keep track of your costs,” Lola’s mom reminded her. “Extra lemons, cups, sugar, sunblock, Melanie, flyers, and…” She hesitated as they pushed the cart up the produce aisle, past the peppers. “And chili peppers.”
“Mom, you’ve got to be kidding,” said Lola. “I’m not putting chili peppers in lemonade.”
“No, of course you’re not.” Diane Zola examined the chili peppers.
Meanwhile, Lola’s sixth sense or female intuition registered yucky auras lingering at the other end of the produce aisle. Lola wiggled her nose, sniffing cologne, the kind Mr. Wembly wore. Her eyes spotted the back of Buck’s baseball cap.
Not in the mood for phony pleasantries, Lola turned her cart in the opposite direction. She ducked behind the artichokes, peering over at Buck and his father, noticing several bottles of mouthwash in their grocery cart. They must guzzle the stuff.
A booming voice interrupted her spy mission. “Lola Zola, are those your ferns hiding behind the chokes?”
It was Ruby Rhubarb, the town matriarch, an astute businesswoman who had recently sold her chain of women’s accessory stores for a major undisclosed sum. With 10 percent of her profits, Ruby hit the poker table in Las Vegas to see if she could double he
r money. Her quick calculations, women’s intuition, and her beloved husband Harry’s lucky penny netted her a million dollars at the casino.
Ever since her fabulous winning day, Mrs. Rhubarb had donated generously to worthy African-American charities and underserved students around the United States. She also advised the mayor on city budget matters, and restocked the Mirage Library with the latest books. In Mirage Ruby was revered as a hometown hero who didn’t do anything halfway. She dressed the part too, from head to toe—in designer clothes just right for her (secret) age.
On this day her theme was pink. She wore a linen fuchsia dress with pastel polka dots and shoes to match. Not a hair was out of place.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Rhubarb.” Lola barely popped her head above the assembled artichokes.
“Young lady,” said Mrs. Rhubarb, “you don’t have to play possum with me. What are you doing down there in artichoke land?”
Lola was waiting for Mr. Wembly to escort his son down a different aisle. She prayed to the Pepper-and-Artichoke-Combo God that Buck and his father wouldn’t see her or her mother in the market. Who could imagine a more embarrassing conversation than “I look forward to having you as my employee, Mrs. Zola” and “I look forward to working for you, Mr. Wembly.”
Barf.
Not wanting to be rude, Lola made small talk with Mrs. Rhubarb. “How’s Mr. Rhubarb?” she asked mindlessly.
“Still dead,” said Mrs. Rhubarb, matter-of-factly. “He suffered a heart attack at the ninth hole on the golf course, remember?”
“That’s good,” said Lola, preoccupied with Buck, whose eyes had just met hers.
“Good?” Mrs. Rhubarb drew back. “Girl Scouts who sing to lonely ladies in nursing homes are good. A student who can write an A paper is good. A doctor who sees you right away is good. Good is not a dead husband.”
“What else is new, Mrs. Rhubarb?” Lola stared back at Buck.
“The next conversation I’m about to have,” said the lady in pink, “and it isn’t going to be with the likes of you.” Insulted, Mrs. Rhubarb clickety-clacked down the aisle in her pink pumps.
When Lola saw Buck leave the broccoli section and head for the donuts two rows over, she assumed it was safe to resurface and join her mother. Diane Zola was still inspecting the chili peppers when Lola approached her.
