Chapter 49 Lillian
Free fudge flights at May’s Candy Shop. Bootscooters line dancing on Market Street. A fudge treasure hunt put on by the tourism
bureau and a “guess the flavor” contest at Murdick’s. Day-trippers clad in fanny packs with melted chocolate dribbling from
their chins.
The Mackinac Island Fudge Festival was kicking off. It was all too much for Lillian. She was ready for Chicago again. She
didn’t have a new job lined up, but she wanted to get back to her apartment and see what it felt like now that it was just
hers. She wanted to catch up with her friends and hopefully with Alex too. She wanted to feel the urban buzz and walk along
the Great Lakes from their southern shores rather than their northern ones. She wanted to find out what it felt like to live
in the city now that her identity didn’t feel so split.
Lillian said goodbye to her parents at the Pink Pony the morning after Eloise’s engagement party.
“Can’t you stay one more day?” her dad asked. “We’re short on staff again.”
Lillian wavered. It meant a lot that her dad was asking her to stay, even if it was in his own gruff way. Trina stepped in
and said she’d better go before the swell of crowds from the festival worsened. “Call me when you’re back in the city,” Trina
said. “Maybe I could visit for a long weekend this fall.”
Lillian was glad that Trina seemed to want in on Lillian’s life. There was no promise on how things would evolve, but she was leaving the island with as much hope as she was fudge (she had a bulging tote bag of Mackinac sweets to dole out to her friends).
Lillian patted her father’s shoulder in goodbye, hugged her mother, then made her way to the ferry, Birkenstocks skidding
across the dock.
She settled into a seat on the bottom deck of the boat, leaning her head against the smeared window, and stared out at the
island as it grew smaller and smaller, moated by blue once more. The Mackinac Bridge hung like a paper chain, the kind of
thing Lillian had made in elementary school that her parents still kept, tucked away in a neatly organized closet.
A chatty tourist sat next to her, a frizzy-haired woman with a young girl. “Was this your first time on the island?” the woman
wanted to know.
Lillian told her no, that she’d grown up on Mackinac.
The woman was enthralled. “How lucky you are! What an idyllic childhood that must have been.”
“It sort of was,” Lillian said. “And sort of wasn’t.”
“What do you think of that young lady running for mayor?” the woman asked. “Ginny Johnson, is it? She’s gone viral overnight,
hasn’t she?”
“Gigi Jenkins,” Lillian said, the name skipping off her lips. “We grew up together.”
Again, the woman was rapt. “Do you think she’d actually be a competent leader? Or is she all smoke and mirrors?”
“I know she’ll be great.” Lillian felt their farewell hug still on her body like a promise that what was lost might be found
again.
“Well, she certainly has charisma, I’ll give her that,” the woman said. “Seems a bit much , though, if I’m being honest.”
“Oh, she is,” Lillian said, not sure if she was talking about Gigi or about Mackinac or even about her own reflection staring
back at her in the smudged ferry boat window. Not sure if the distinction even mattered anymore, or if the lack of partition
was more important, the undrawing of boundaries, the letting go of labels. “That’s why I love her.”