by Jackie Hirtz
Buck thought for a minute.
“You always beat me at everything,” said Buck. “I wanted to win for once.”
“You don’t like it when a girl wins, huh?”
“My dad doesn’t like it.”
“I didn’t ask what he thought.”
“I don’t like it either.”
Lola and Bowzer both hissed, Lola because she disapproved, Bowzer because he liked to imitate Lola.
“Aren’t you going to eat your burrito?” asked Lola, figuring Buck needed a twenty-first-century wake-up call, and the hidden chili peppers would snap him out of his “boys rule” time-warp box.
Buck took one bite and nearly hit the sunroof.
“My tongue is burning up,” he said, panting. “Quick, give me that lemonade.”
Lola passed the lemonade and watched closely to see if one slurp would send him reeling, writhing, and threatening to wretch, just as it had only a few days ago during his “My intestines are unraveling” act. It didn’t. He merely chugged the lemonade and fanned his mouth with his hand.
“What’s in this lemonade, anyway?”
“My secret recipe,” Lola smiled.
“What is it?”
“None of your peppery beeswax.”
“You put chili peppers in your lemonade, didn’t you?” Now Buck was smiling.
“Bite-sized firecrackers,” said Lola.
Lola grinned at Bowzer. “He was my taste tester.”
“Is he the one who told you it had secret powers?” asked Buck. “Or is that one of your ideas?”
“One of mine,” mumbled Lola, adding, “See, I’m not better than you are. Not down deep where it counts.” She placed her half-munched burrito on the teepee’s tarp floor, an old purple paisley bedspread.
“What do you mean, String Bean?”
Lola picked up Bowzer’s paw and pretended she was shaking a hand.
“Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m Lola Zola, the fibber, the fake, the fraud, the snake-oil salesperson. I limo-stretch the truth. You’re a smart cat. Tell me, how could a cup of lemonade reverse wrinkles or put an end to war?”
When Bowzer didn’t meow or hiss, but wriggled loose to sniff the lonesome burrito, Buck volunteered.
“I can think of one war it ended.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad about that, but I still blew it. I’m a minus ten on the moral Richter scale. I never meant to promote my lemonade as a miracle cure from all things A to Z, but when everyone suggested it was special, really special, and when everyone wanted to believe it was special, I went along with it.”
Buck didn’t say anything. He just tipped his hat, sliding it over his eyes, and moved his hand ever so slowly next to Lola’s hand, which thanks to the merciful God of Clamminess hadn’t start to sweat. Buck and Lola’s hands remained parallel parked, appendages at rest, until Lola moved her hand a quarter of an inch closer to Buck’s.
With his hat still bent too far forward on his face, his eyes peeking out from below the brim, he took her hand, and the two linked fingers. Just then, the sound of Peruvian flutes filled the air.
Wow! Lola had never held hands with a boy before. Dad and Bowzer didn’t count. It felt weird. Good weird.
But why did Buck want to hold her hand now? Because she was a fibber and a fake? Or because she admitted it? Or because Lola wasn’t perfect?
“I don’t want to call my dad,” said Buck. “Ever.”
“You’ve got to call him sometime.”
“Sometime when he’s not drinking. Whenever that is…”
“Has he always been an…” Lola didn’t want to say the word alcoholic. It sounded so scary. Her parents never drank, not even on birthdays, anniversaries, or special holidays like Half Moon Day.
“He used to have a glass of wine with dinner. But then he started drinking Scotch all the time.”
“Why?”
“He said it helped him relax. Truth is, he was worried about going bankrupt.”
“Your dad was going belly-up?”
“He still may, says he’s over-leveraged. I’m not sure what that means, but I know it’s not good.”
“But his company is a top seller of electronic games!”
“He has lots that don’t sell. You should see the warehouse. My dad’s always worrying about inventory.”
“No wonder he’s a cree—” Before the word creep burst out of her mouth, Lola bit her tongue on the p. It was okay for Buck to tell the truth about his dad, but it wasn’t all right for Lola to call his father names. That was obvious because Buck’s hand flinched at the hint of “creep.” Besides, being a worrywart didn’t make you a creep. Lola’s mom worried tons.
“What I meant was,” said Lola, trying to clarify matters, “he’s frazzled to the max. He needs a major stress-buster, maybe counseling.”
“Mom tried to talk with him about getting help, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Maybe he’ll listen to his son. Buck, you’ve got to tell him how much he hurts you when he drinks. Promise me you’ll tell him.”
Buck sat there mum, listening to the Andean music. Lola squeezed his hand, first a little squeeze, then a major squish.
“Promise,” mumbled Buck.
Lola was going to pin him down to a time, a specific day, hour, second, when the two were interrupted by a noise outside the teepee door.
“Excuse me, powwowers,” said Diane Zola, “but someone is here to talk to Buck.”
“Who?” asked Buck.
“You’ll see. He’s waiting in the house.”
Lola should have known her parents would call Mr. Wembly.
There he was, sitting in the living room, nervously twirling a pillow tassel, when Lola and Buck walked back into the house.
Michael Zola, observing the impending reunion, smiled at Lola and beckoned her into the kitchen.
“Dad!” said Buck, “Are you still drunk?”
“Just because I like to relax a little doesn’t mean I’m drunk…”
“Relax?”
“Yes, with a cocktail.”
“Dad, I know you put vodka in your orange juice at breakfast. Why do you need to relax after sleeping all night?”
“I don’t,” said Mr. Wembly, ashamed. “You’re right. I drink too much.”
“And yell too much. Drinking makes you yell at me.”
“What if I stopped yelling? What if I stopped drinking? Would you come home?”
“I don’t know,” Buck said.
“What if I promised to get help?”
“If it was a real promise…” Buck paused before committing himself to a course of action. “Then I guess I’d come home—for tonight anyway.”
“Okay,” whispered Buck’s father. “I promise I’ll get help.”
Again, Mr. Wembly tried to put his arm around his son, and again Buck rejected the overture.
“I love you, son.”
Buck shrugged his shoulders.
The two walked out of the house. Not another word was spoken. Not a smile exchanged.
*** *** ***
Chapter 13
“Do you promise you won’t wrinkle your nose or gag if I tell you?” asked Lola. After all, Melanie might think she was nutty or much worse—a traitor to the long-gone “Boys Are Weird” club.
“Cross my freckles and hope to croak,” said Melanie, dying of curiosity. What could Lola tell her that she didn’t already know? Lola’s parents were getting divorced? Doubtful. Too much sofa smooching. Somebody besides Lola had heard Bowzer talking in Mew language? Fat chance. Someone else knew the secret lemonade ingredient? Nah.
The Twister Sisters were in the Zolas’ kitchen, madly chopping chili peppers and squeezing lemons in anticipation of the day’s sales, when Lola let it slip that she and Buck had broken burritos in the backyard teepee.
“Buck and I are friends now.”
Melanie stared at Lola in disbelief.
The lemonade competition was over, the Cadillac limo stand history, but Lola’s busin
ess was still booming, and she didn’t want to keep any secrets from her partner and best friend. Lola loved Melanie with all her chili-pepper heart.
Spitting the words out so fast, Melanie could hardly understand them, Lola muttered, “He-held-my-hand.”
Astounded, Melanie dropped a lemon on the floor.
“No way!”
“Yes, way.”
“Your hands touched?”
“Just a little.”
“Gross!”
“Not.”
“You let him?”
“Esyay.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe a minute.”
“That’s way long,” said Melanie, wrinkling her nose and sticking her finger down her throat as though she were about to barf.
“Melanie,” said Lola, stomping her foot. “You promised you wouldn’t do that.”
“I forgot.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” said Lola, trying to conceal the fact that she had enjoyed the experience. “His paw wasn’t clammy, and my hand didn’t sweat either.”
“Oh,” said Melanie, “I get it now. You have a lemonade crush.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You have a lemonade crush on Slime Bucket.”
“Stop it, Melanie. It’s not true.” Well, maybe it was.
Melanie launched into a new chant. “Secret, secret, hush, hush, Lola has a new cruuush.” With that, she accidentally on purpose squirted Lola with lemon juice.
“Mel, you just blasted me in the eyeball.”
Melanie didn’t apologize to Lola or say much of anything for the rest of the morning. She continued to work hard, maybe even harder than before, squeezing and squirting lemons nonstop.
While Melanie never actually accused Lola of being a traitor, Lola knew what Melanie was thinking. Oh, why couldn’t a girl have both a best friend and a boy friend—not a boyfriend, just a friend who was a boy? Lola had wanted to tell Melanie all about Buck’s reunion with his father, but now that the hand-holding revelation had put a damper on her and Melanie’s friendship, she decided to avoid the subject of Buck altogether.
This was pretty difficult in light of the fact that Buck, wearing fluorescent green shorts, pedaled up on his top-of-the-line mountain bike a few hours later, during a slow period in the lemonade hawking. He wanted to know if any of his former customers had come by asking for the cool Cadillac kid in the white suit and derby hat.
Lola and Melanie answered at the same time.
“Yeah,” said Lola.
“Nah,” said Melanie.
“Whatever,” said Buck, reaching into the pocket of his shorts, taking out several designer cocktail umbrellas, and placing them on Lola’s card table. “I just thought you might want these, Lola,” he said, trying to be nice. It wasn’t easy for him. Not just because he was used to being devilish, but also because his sidekicks, Hot Dog and Magic Max, were peeking out of their living room window, watching the action as the curtains opened and closed not so mysteriously.
Lola was about to grab the umbrellas when Melanie scooped them up and handed them back to Buck. “Thanks, but no thanks, we don’t need these twirlers to make a profit. Lola’s lemonade has secret powers.”
Buck grinned and looked at Lola, waiting for her to set the hocus-pocus record straight.
“Melanie,” said Lola, “there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Something else?” Melanie thought she’d heard enough shocking news for one day.
“It’s about my lemmmm…” Lola stammered, staring down at her lemon yellow toenails. “It’s not a…” Better to begin with the smallest fib first. “It’s not a nose-irrigator.”
“What are you talking about, girl?” said Ruby Rhubarb, climbing out of her car and clickety-clacking in her red pumps and matching silk pantsuit over to Lola’s lemonade stand. “Thanks to your hot, spicy, soul-quenching lemonade, I can breathe again.” Ruby Rhubarb took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to prove her point. “Ahhhhh.”
“Really?” asked Lola.
“Girlfriend, the word allergy is no longer in my vocabulary. I can smell the lilacs and the night-blooming jasmine. I can see fresh dollar bills pouring into Lola’s worldwide lemonade-stand franchises from California to Kenya.”
Lola wasn’t sure where Kenya was, but figured it had to be in Africa since that’s where Mrs. Rhubarb went on her photo-safari vacations.
“You can smell the flowers?” asked Lola, well aware of Ruby Rhubarb’s major allergy affliction.
Ruby Rhubarb nodded. “Yes, my allergies seem to have vanished, like magic.” Then she marched back to her car and retrieved a tiny black and white terrier puppy from the backseat. Ruby Rhubarb cradled the pooch in her arms. “This is Harriet, named after my Harry. I’ve always wanted a dog, you know. I just never thought I could have one, and so…uh…I want you to know I made a nice donation to the animal shelter on Sandstorm Road. That’s where I got little Harriet.”
Lola couldn’t believe her ears or her eyes. But when Ruby Rhubarb granted Lola a generous month’s extension on her loan, and ordered five cups of Lola’s powerful pucker potion to go, she knew she wasn’t dreaming.
“Come on, we have work to do,” said Lola, getting back to squeezing a pile of lemons. She was on a mission. Lola knew her mom expected a Mustang repo-monster to appear any day, demanding the Zolas hand the car keys back to the dealer because she was past due on her car payments.
Within an hour, the thermal springsters, meditators, vision-questers, and thirsty neighbors lined up for what no one would believe was plain old ordinary lemonade. Buck, who was still in the picture, tried to tell them the truth, but the customers weren’t buying it and instead accused Buck of being a poor sport and a party pooper.
After a while he gave up and rode his mountain bike up and down Salt Flat Road, honking his horn and taking orders for Lola’s lemonade. He also entertained the crowd with some show-off bike tricks, leaping over curbs and riding down steps.
Lola wanted to ask Buck if his father had signed up for counseling, but business was too brisk for any heart-to-hearts; and besides, Melanie shot her a dirty look every time she talked to the guy.
“Lola,” said Melanie, “get back to work.”
Lola felt torn—like two people were pulling on her arms. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the questions continued.
“What are you doing on this side of the street?” Mrs. Garcia asked when Buck took her lemonade order while complimenting her on her new bouffant hairdo.
“Surrendering to the superior sex,” said Aunt Liza, roaring up on her Harley. “Congratulations Charles Wembly the Third,” she said. “You’ve come to your senses.”
Before Buck had a chance to defend half the human race, he heard Melanie shout, “Lola, that guy is stealing your parent’s car!”
Lola looked up and saw a strange man of pudgy proportions seize the wheel of her mother’s cherry red Mustang, which was parked a little crooked (Dad must have parked last) in the Zolas’ driveway. Lola’s mom sat on the hood of the car with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Michael Zola was busy emptying his pockets of ten-dollar bills.
“Mel, Buck, come help me,” Lola yelled as she grabbed her metal cashbox and ran up the driveway to confront the car thief, who really wasn’t a thief at all, just a repo man who worked for the auto dealership as Chief Car-Taker-Backer.
“Mr. Stickle, please don’t take my wife’s car,” Lola heard her father say to the man as she, Melanie, and Buck approached the Mustang.
“You’re late on the payments,” Mr. Stickle shouted through the driver’s window. “Time’s up.”
“Then give us more time and reset the clock,” pleaded Lola, standing behind the Mustang to prevent the man from driving off with her mom’s dream.
Melanie and Buck stood on the sidelines, begging the car czar to give the Zolas another week or two.
On the st
reet, watching the scene unfold, the crowd grumbled, “Isn’t that terrible! The guy’s got no heart. The Zolas are good people.”
Lola stood her ground, blocking the car from leaving the driveway.
“Get out of the way, kid,” screamed Mr. Stickle. His double chin did a double jiggle.
“But it’s not fair,” screamed Lola. “My mom worked hard to make the gigantic down payment.”
“All I know is the bank stopped getting the checks,” said Mr. Stickle.
“She got laid off!” said Lola.
“And couldn’t even afford peanut butter,” said Melanie.
“And now has to work for my dad,” said Buck. “If you only knew what that was like…”
“I said get out of my way,” repeated Mr. Stickle, fuming.
Lola and her mother begged Mr. Stickle not to take the car, but he ignored them, turning on the ignition, checking his rearview mirror, and revving the motor. Lola stepped aside. Diane Zola jumped off the hood of the car.
As Lola’s mother blew a kiss to her departing car rolling backwards in the driveway, Lola opened her cashbox and emptied the change onto the roof of the car. Dollar bills rained down on the front and rear windows. Mr. Stickle stepped on the brake, stopped the car, and leaped out to gather the money. He tried to count the bills as he stuffed them into his pockets.
“You can have our lemonade money, but don’t take the Mustang,” said Lola.
“Thanks for the two-hundred-plus bucks, ladies. Now you only owe another three hundred or so,” said Mr. Stickle.
“How much did you say we owe now?” asked Lola, eyeing the handle of the door on the driver’s side.
“I just told you…” Before Mr. Stickle could finish his sentence, Lola was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mustang, motioning for Melanie and Buck to hop in too. Buck climbed into the backseat, and Melanie plopped down in the front next to Lola.
“Get out of that car,” shouted Mr. Stickle, flustered. “You kids are a bunch of juvenile delinquents. I could strangle all three of you.”
“Did he say strangle?” asked Mrs. Garcia, pointing to the car czar. Ruby Rhubarb nodded and beckoned the crowd of nearly twenty-five lemonade customers to march up the driveway and give Mr. Stickle a piece of their mind.
