I’m always startled when people remember me from my old show, Sorority Sisters, although it’s a mainstay on late-night cable TV these days.
I look up. The cashier, an older woman with a smock emblazoned with I GOT GAS! written in big letters across the front, is pointing at me. That’s what people do if you’re on TV: they point at you as if you’re an inanimate object or a zoo animal.
“Thank you,” I say. “Can’t believe that old show is still on the air.”
“What old show?” she asks, her eyebrows twitching. “I’m talkin’ about all those dang news shows. Man, you give those city folk a hard time.” She raises her head and hoots.
For some reason, this catches me off guard.
“Thank you,” I finally manage to say.
She bags my junk food and pushes it toward me.
“How much?” I ask.
“On the house,” she whispers conspiratorially.
“Thank you,” I say again.
I grab the bag and walk away.
“Love you!” she yells.
I begin to head out the door, but stop. “Why?” I ask. “Why do you love me?”
“Because you’re one of us,” she says. “Because you say what we’re all thinkin’.”
“Which is what?” I ask.
“You know,” she says, before looking around. “Women don’t belong in the White House. We shouldn’t be CEOs and doctors and leaders and all that. We should let the men do that. They know better.”
My heart sinks. This is a good woman, who is working hard to have a better life. It’s not about politics, it’s about setting the right example for people. I think of my former camp directors and the influence they had on so many young girls.
As I walk to my car, I watch the little girls in swimsuits load into their mom’s SUV. A massive inflatable rainbow unicorn is tied to the roof.
They girls wave at me as they leave the station. Little girls who still believe in magic and that they can do and be anything they dream.
Just like I once did.
I pull my car back onto the road and reach for my Twizzlers. I dangle one in my mouth, and I remember how much Em loved red licorice.
She was the one who encouraged me to be an actress. She was the one who encouraged me to forgive and forget. She was the one who told me the truth and changed everything.
You’re so talented, Em said. You can be one of our greatest actresses. Like Ally Sheedy. Prove to everyone that you can do it.
She wrote me letters nearly every month while I was on the set and she was earning her master’s degree in library science. She always loved to write letters. She loved to read. She believed in the power of words. She sent me scenes from plays for auditions.
I think of the last letter she sent me years ago, when I first started appearing on the news.
You’re still acting, but I know this is a role you don’t believe in or want to play, she wrote. Sorority Sisters was harmless. This isn’t. Go back to acting. Make people smile. Like you used to do at camp.
Em had sent a photo of me performing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I don’t know if she was trying to tell me I had become a zombie now, if I used to be talented, or both.
I sent Em her letter back, my own words written over hers in a bright red Sharpie.
ACTING.
WE ALL DO IT.
IN RELATIONSHIPS. IN CAREER. IN LIFE.
YOU’RE STILL ACTING. LIKE A CHILD.
REMEMBER THIS FROM CHILDHOOD?
LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!
GROW UP, EM.
WE’RE NOT KIDS ANYMORE.
I never spoke to her again, though she still tried to stay in touch. I never spoke to any of those traitors again. All I wanted to do was prove them wrong: I would make it on my own.
I inhale, and the scent of Michigan—pine, water, summer—fills my lungs.
I now realize that Em never acted. She never pretended to be anyone other than she was. Maybe the loss of her brother made her realize how short life is, and she didn’t have time to play all the games we play as adults. Or maybe she knew her time here was limited.
In the distance I see a lake and am suddenly back at camp. Em’s arms are around me, holding me, saving me.
The landscape spins, and I get dizzy. I slow the car and try to slow my heart. I can’t get her letter out of my head. Or this memory. I can’t be released from Em’s grip.
Guilt has eaten me alive for years.
How many times did she try to save my life?
I try to drown out my thoughts, so I turn up the radio on the ’80s station.
Tears for Fears is singing. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
The irony is literally too much for me to bear.
I reach for a Twizzler and then another—the licorice as red as the last words I wrote to Em—hoping the junk food will fill up the gnawing, empty feeling in my gut that just won’t go away.
Liz
I am alone, but I am never alone.
And it’s almost uncomfortable to have time with myself and my own thoughts.
I may be a divorced empty-nester, but every block of my daily calendar and every moment of my day is jammed with taking care of someone else’s needs: caregiving, errands, babysitting, shopping, endless questions from and meetings with clients. It’s ironic that I make a living selling homes, because I am rarely at mine.
It’s also rare I have days like this all to myself, especially in the summer, when the real estate market is the busiest in Michigan. I think of my mom, and my heart pings with guilt and worry.
Guilt and worry, the hallmarks of being a mother, I think. And daughter. And friend.
What if something happens when I’m gone? What if she needs me?
I am listening to a podcast about reinventing your life after fifty. Women are sharing their experiences about overcoming loss, handling grief, finding love and embarking on long-buried dreams, be it travel or starting a new business.
I often listen to these podcasts with an equal mix of hope and cynicism. I am riveted for a while, and then I get a text or twenty, and I say to my virtual spirit coach, “Right, honey. Just believe, and it happens. Maybe I can just twitch my nose to make it so like in Bewitched.”
I switch off the podcast, and my radio begins to blare “Holiday” by Madonna.
Is this a holiday I’m embarking on? I wonder. A time to celebrate an old friend and reminisce? Or is it a time to reopen old wounds?
My heart begins to race as I think of saying goodbye to Em and seeing Rach and V for the first time in ages.
To be honest, I don’t even know who they are anymore. I used to see V on magazine covers all the time, and—as a young mom—I would be consumed with jealousy. Same with Rachel. I mean, who graduates college and lands a TV show?
How did they manage to do it, when I had just as much talent?
Advantages, I think. More money. Rachel acted like her parents were blue-collar, but at least they had collars. My family had nothing.
Perhaps I am still consumed with the jealousy from my camp days of the two rivals who were so admired that girls forgot there were two other leaves to The Clover Girls.
I grit my teeth thinking of seeing Rachel. How did she go from being one of the most beloved people on TV to one of the most hated? I turn off the TV whenever I see her mug or hear her obnoxious voice.
Perhaps it’s because I can’t forgive what she did to me.
And vice versa.
This will be torture, I think.
I gaze down at my outfit, which fits perfectly with the station I’m listening to: All ’80s, All the Time. I’m wearing an outfit I designed and made: a white, lightweight puffy-shoulder top, tucked into a pair of high-waisted acid-wash jeans shorts, statement earrings banging around in the wind, my curly hair pulled back in
a scrunchie.
Is it age-appropriate? Let’s not poll the jury, I think, before deciding, Yes! Why not? It’s all back in style again. And I look good enough to wear it. Why do we let society—and men—dictate what is and what isn’t appropriate for us to wear at a certain age? I may be a grandmother, but I certainly don’t want to look like Granny from The Waltons.
My heart pings again, as I think of how we all used to say good-night to one another.
The little town near where Camp Birchwood sits is located in the pinky of Michigan. Ask any Michigander where he or she lives, and—if they were born and raised in the state, or are longtime transplants—they will raise a hand into the air. Visitors always wince, tending to think the question has offended us, and we are either going to backhand them or slap the snot out of them. But our hand is a map: Michigan is shaped like a mitten. We point at our hand to show where we live. Glen Arbor is in the pinky.
As such, the drive into Glen Arbor is storybook. The tiny town sits on a small strip of land that runs between Glen Lake and Sleeping Bear Bay. It lies just beyond the bend of the famed Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which features mammoth—and I mean mammoth—sand dunes, which media outlets from Good Morning America to Time have called the most beautiful spot in the world. And it is. From the tops of the dunes, some four hundred feet up, you have panoramic lake views that make you feel as if you’re no longer in the US but perhaps on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. The water isn’t just blue, it graduates from aquamarine to midnight blue, like the Mediterranean. The water laps at white sand shores, and the winds whisper across the dunes and through the aspens, as if they are trying to impart all the secrets of this sacred spot.
And there are many.
The dunes were the location for some of our Color War competitions at camp, and—even as a kid—I felt I might die trying to make it to the top of Sleeping Bear, my feet churning on the hot sand, my body going nowhere, as if I were running atop quicksand.
I head into town and decide to stop for a bite to eat. I certainly don’t want to be the first one to greet Em’s ashes.
Or, worse, V and Rachel in the flesh.
If you want to know what Glen Arbor looks like, just Google adorable. The entire town is kitten-puppy-cuteness-overload-perfect-vacation-town adorbs. Its streets are lined with quaint shops and restaurants, and the air is filled with the smell of butter and fudge. As I stroll, I stop and look over the menus at the restaurants. People pack outdoor patios, enjoying a sandwich, salad and glass (or two) of wine. This area of northern Michigan is now famous worldwide among tourists and wine connoisseurs for its wonderful vineyards and reds and whites, and it lives up to its name, Glen Arbor, which was supposedly given by the wife of an early French settler who admired the beautiful landscape and trees adorned with grapevines.
I consider a glass of wine to steel myself for the evening’s events, but worry it will either make me sleepy or surly—ah, the things you now worry and think about as you near fifty—so I opt for another fun option, just behind wine: ice cream. The coastal towns of Michigan are filled with ice cream shops, and the ice cream is always good, fresh and local, since dairy farms surround the resort towns. I order two scoops—one of Michigan blackberry and one of cappuccino chocolate chunk—in a homemade waffle cone and continue strolling the streets, twisting and licking the cone continuously to keep the ice cream from melting down my arm. This was a trick I perfected as a girl, but my adult hand and wrist do not seem as flexible anymore.
I stop in front of a shop, which has its doors wide open on this glorious day, and admire a beautiful scarf of green and blue.
“Handmade,” says a woman standing on the front steps, her face to the sun.
“It’s lovely.”
“Thank you. I made it.”
I look up at the sign. Smitten with the Mitten.
“All products from Michigan artists, including me. I’m Lynn.” She reaches out her hand. Mine is covered in ice cream.
“Liz,” I say, wiping my hand on my shorts and then shaking her hand. “I’m so classy. And that is so cute. How long have you had the shop?”
“Five years,” she says. “I hit forty, got divorced, wanted to start over.”
“Are we twins?”
She laughs. “Best thing I’ve ever done.” She pauses. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
This time, I laugh. “Can I ask you something?” She nods. “How did you do it?”
She looks up into the sky, as if she’s considering the direction of the puffy white clouds. “I stopped overthinking everything. I stopped letting fear rule my life.” She looks at me. “Life is short. None of us get out of here alive. I was an accountant. I was good with numbers. But I was also an artist. I wanted to create something with my life. Leave a legacy besides numbers. My skill sets actually work well together. It’s not easy. I just turned my first profit last year. But it’s all been worth it. I believe that you can always go back, but you can never go forward.”
Her words move me deeply. She reaches out and touches my blouse. “You made this, didn’t you?” I nod. “It’s gorgeous. I love how retro it is. My clients—younger and older—would eat this up. You’re on to something. Leave me your card, if you want.”
I start to reach into my purse but realize I’m still holding on to my cone. I polish it off and wipe my hands on the napkin. “Think you can sell an ice-cream-stained top?”
She laughs as I hand her my card. “I’m a real estate agent.”
“No, you’re an artist who sells real estate,” she says. “Stop overthinking.” She winks at me as a gaggle of women head into her shop, oohing and ahhing. “I have to go. Good luck.”
As if in a trance, I walk farther downtown.
I have always overthought everything. Fear has ruled my life, and where has that gotten me? I didn’t pursue fashion because I never thought I was good enough, I never believed I could make a living, I always put others before my own dreams. Rachel and V always thought they were good enough. Always.
In college, when I declared a major in fashion design and merchandising, my college friends asked how I would ever make money. When I swallowed my pride and reached out so long ago to V and Rachel—apologizing for all I had and hadn’t done wrong—hoping and praying they might consider using their influence to get me a start in the industry, my calls went unreturned. Every time I tried to start a business, my husband asked where dinner was, or why the house was dirty. When I tried to start a business when my kids were in school, I felt guilty. I should be attending their soccer practices. I should be room mother. I should be doing anything other than what was truly important.
To me.
And that thought made me feel even guiltier.
My husband never said, “Oh, honey, you spend the weekend creating, and I’ll take care of the kids.” And as young adults, my kids never said, “Oh, Mom, don’t worry about us for a while. You focus on you.” My mom would tell me that, but she can’t any longer. And I have so little time left with her. When I finally embarked on starting my own business, fear knocked out my heart and reason won the wrestling match over passion. I knew I could make money in real estate. Fashion? Not so much.
Why has no one stood up for me?
No, Liz: Why have you never stood up for yourself?
Lost in thought, I suddenly look up to find myself standing in front of The Cottage Book Shop, a bookstore I consider the cutest in the world. It’s an antique log cabin that looks as if it should be sitting in the middle of the woods with smoke streaming out of its chimney. Instead, it’s jammed with books. The Clover Girls always came here, led by Em, whenever we’d escape camp. Em was obsessed with books. I always told her she should be a writer instead of a librarian.
Did fear stop her, too?
I walk inside and feel as if I’m on a field trip in school, exploring an old homestead. I browse through th
e selection of new books before I head into a corner of the old log cabin.
I wonder if they have a copy? Oh, Em, I think. Can you imagine?
I head to the front of the shelf, my fingers moving across all the A authors.
There it is!
A paperback copy of Flowers in the Attic. I smile, grab the novel and hold it to my heart.
Em sneaked a copy into camp one summer because her mom didn’t want her to read it. She’d tried to convince her mom it was a sweet little book about a girl who loved flowers, but her mother didn’t buy it: she’d already heard about it and didn’t want Em to get nightmares. So, after all the other campers went to bed, Em crawled into my bunk and we read Flowers in the Attic with a flashlight under the covers.
And you had nightmares, Em.
I buy a copy and decide it’s time to head over to Birchwood. I take the famed M-22 highway, a snaking, scenic roadway out of Glen Arbor and up to the picturesque point between Sleeping Bear Bay and Good Harbor Bay. Though Camp Birchwood is located a few miles off M-22 down a bumpy, narrow dirt road, I don’t need GPS. I release an unexpected whoop! when I see the big sign for Camp Birchwood: an old wooden sign, white birch logs spelling out the camp’s name against a peeling, dark green background, a carving of two girls paddling a canoe along the bottom. Many of the logs creating the logo have fallen, and Camp Birchwood now reads, “am i ood.”
Am I odd? Am I old?
Am I both?
Is this, literally, a sign? I wonder.
My tires kick up dust. It’s been years since the pines have been trimmed, and they are encroaching upon the road, their green branches scraping the side of my car as I drive.
My heart leaps when I see the camp. I stop the car in a parking area, now littered with broken tree limbs and pine cones, and step out.
I inhale deeply. It smells just as it did when I was a girl. Fresh pine and water, old wood and must...and what else, I think. Oh, yes. Summer.
The old bunkhouses, still the same rusty brown, dot the camp. Their names remain: Pinewood, Birchwood, Sugar Maple, Hemlock, Sassafras. As do faded rectangles on the wood where American flags were once draped over the cabin doors. The Lodge sits in the middle of the camp, and paths—now overgrown—still meander like spokes from the center. I leave my things—I haven’t brought much, just an overnight bag and some food—in the car, and I follow the path that leads to Lake Birchwood. Monarchs flit in the sunshine as I walk, crickets hopping out of my way, and I gasp when I see the lake.
The Clover Girls Page 6
