The High Note

by Harmony Jones

  As always, Lark could hear, even see the melody in her head. But as far as the lyrics went, it seemed as if the only thing she could nail down was the title: “Holding My Hand.” She hated to admit it, but for the first time since she’d started writing songs, she was having trouble turning feelings into words.

  “Okay,” she said aloud, flopping down on her bed, pen poised above her songwriting journal. “What rhymes with ‘hand’?”

  Band. Understand. Make a stand. This land is your land. Your wish is my command. Teddy joined up when Aidan got canned.

  “Ugggh!” She fell back into her pillows and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

  Her writer’s block was worse than ever! For Lark, not being able to write was like not being able to breathe. She needed to create songs … it was how she expressed herself, how she made sense of the world, or at least how she coped with the world when it was not making sense. Not being able to release the music that was swirling around inside of her was a horrible feeling … like desperately needing to sneeze and not being able to!

  To make matters worse, this song had a lot riding on it. Donna had trusted her to write Abbey Road’s next single, and Lark was sick over the possibility that she might let her mother and the boys down.

  But nothing was coming together, despite the fact that the memory of Teddy’s hand touching hers was so vivid that every time she looked at her hand she expected to find his fingers still wrapped around hers.

  Maybe the trouble was that it was too vivid. Maybe she just needed a little distance from the memory before she could turn it into a song.

  Distance and a hot fudge sundae.

  Downstairs was shockingly quiet. Jas had gone, Donna was working in her home office, and the boys were out in the yard, kicking the soccer ball around.

  Lark made her way to the kitchen, where she found Fitzy digging through the vegetable bins in the fridge.

  “Let me guess,” said Lark, smiling. “You’re making lemon-lima-bean tarts again.”

  “No,” said Fitzy. “Those weren’t exactly a hit.”

  “Well, c’mon,” said Lark, sliding onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “Anything that has lima beans as a primary ingredient is bound to fail.”

  “I suppose,” said Fitzy, not the least bit insulted as she turned away from the fridge with an armful of carrots, celery, and onions. These she dumped into a colander in the sink and rinsed vigorously. “Which is why tonight I’m sticking to the classics and relying on an old favorite: homemade vegetable soup.”

  “Sounds delicious,” said Lark. “But would you mind if I made myself a sundae to tide me over until suppertime?”

  “The boys polished off the ice cream about an hour ago. But I could pour a little chocolate sauce over the cauliflower I was going to add to the soup.”

  Lark wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll pass.” Reaching for a cutting board and a knife, she asked, “Can I help you with the cutting?”

  “That would be nice.” Fitzy handed her a bundle of carrots, then pulled two sharp knives from the block.

  They worked in companionable silence for a bit. The sound of their knives slicing through the veggies and hitting the wooden cutting boards made a steady, pleasant rhythm.

  When Fitzy finished the celery, she reached for an onion. Peeling away the papery skin, she raised an eyebrow at Lark. “So, missy, what’s on your mind?”

  “Huh?” Lark looked up from the carrots. “What makes you think something’s on my mind?”

  “Because,” said Fitzy with a knowing air, “I’m not just the housekeeper around here. I’m also your friend.”

  Lark smiled. “True.”

  “And I know you well enough to tell when something’s bothering you. So start talking!”

  Sighing, Lark put down the knife and rested her chin in her hands. “I’m writing a new song and I’m stuck. I mean, I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it. I can’t make it come together.”

  “Been there,” said Fitzy with a sympathetic sigh. “Happens to me all the time with new recipes.”

  “I think it might be because I’m not focusing,” Lark said, only just realizing it. “See, I do have something else on my mind. I can’t decide what I want out of life. I know I want to make music, but I just don’t know if I’ll ever be truly comfortable performing in front of people.”

  Fitzy looked at Lark, an amused expression on her face. “Don’t you think you’ve got some time before you have to make that kind of decision?” she said, using the back of her hand to swipe a stray curl from her forehead.

  “I guess. But I wish I knew now. I wish I could be certain one way or the other.”

  “Certainty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” said Fitzy gently. “Did I ever tell you that when I was your age, I wanted to be a pilot?”

  Lark blinked, unsure she’d heard that correctly. “A pilot? You mean, like, in an airplane?”

  “In a jet, to be precise. I had dreams of taking to the sky, flying away into the wild blue yonder.” Fitzy shook her head and sighed. “I wanted to fly around the world.”

  “That’s incredible!” said Lark, trying to imagine it: Fitzy … behind the vast controls of an enormous jumbo jet. Fitzy … the woman who could whip up a gourmet meal for twenty with her eyes closed but could never remember which buttons to push when making microwave popcorn. A pilot!

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “Oh, there were lots of reasons,” said Fitzy, with a dismissive wave. “One was that I also loved cooking, and as it happened, I was darn good at it.”

  “Heck, yeah!” Lark agreed, grinning. “Well, most of the time, when there aren’t any lima beans involved.”

  Fitzy laughed. “The point is, when I was your age, it could have gone either way. I kept dreaming about flying, but went on perfecting my culinary skills, too.”

  “And?”

  “And now, instead of coming in for a landing on a runway somewhere, I’m here making soup with you. See? Things work out the way they’re supposed to. Believe me, honey, if you’re destined to be a performer, that’s what’ll happen. And if you’re meant to be a songwriter, that’s what you’ll be.” She dumped the chopped onions into a pan, plucked another from the pile, and smiled. “Maybe if you stop worrying about what you want from life, you’ll find out what life wants from you.”

  Lark knew it was good advice. So what if her videos were popular online? That didn’t mean she had to decide anything right this minute. She could simply sit back and enjoy knowing that people liked her music. In fact, right now the only decision she had to make was whether to move on to chopping the tomatoes or the zucchini.

  She was just reaching for a plump red tomato when the doorbell rang.

  Lark eyed the stranger on the front porch—he was in his mid-thirties, she guessed, and dressed in an expensive-looking suit. His long hair was streaked with professional highlights, and he had a pair of trendy black-framed eyeglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He was holding a tablet and looked from Lark to the screen, then back to Lark.

  “Can I help you?” she asked warily.

  The stranger smiled winningly. “I hope so. I’ve had a heck of a time tracking you down … Songbird.”

  “What did you just call me?”

  The man turned the tablet around so she could see the screen, which was showing the video of “Everything’s Working Out.” “Songbird,” he repeated. “That is what you call yourself, isn’t it?”

  Lark’s heart thudded in her chest. The idea of being “tracked down” by a grown man she’d never met made her very uncomfortable. She stepped back, ready to slam the door in his face, but the man quickly held out a business card.

  “I’m Daniel Baylor,” he said. “CEO of Zeitgeist Records.”

  Lark stared at the card until the man slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Look, Miss Campbell …” He smiled at the shocked expression on her face. “Yes, I know your real name.”
r />   “How?”

  “I saw you on Rise and Shine this week. I tuned in to see the Abbey Road interview—I like to keep tabs on the competition, you see. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Abbey Road was living with the talented young country singer I’d been searching for ever since I’d seen her YouTube video.” He shook his head and laughed. “Talk about a small world, huh? After the interview, I did a little digging. Bridget had introduced you as Lark Campbell, and since I knew the boys were signed with Lotus Records, and that Lotus is owned by Donna Campbell, it all fell into place. Then it was just a matter of looking up Donna’s home address, and here I am.”

  “But why?” asked Lark, still feeling cold in her belly.

  “To offer you a record deal, of course. Frankly, I’m not sure why your mother hasn’t signed you herself. But hey, Lotus’s loss is Zeitgeist’s gain, right?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Lark.

  “Listen, let’s cut right to the chase, shall we?” Daniel Baylor tucked the tablet under his arm and began to gesture exuberantly with his hands. “I am prepared to offer you more money than you’ve ever dreamed of. Zeitgeist has three times the budget Lotus does. I can have you in the studio by the end of the month. In addition, I’ll get you on all the major talk shows, and on the cover of every magazine you can name. With that fabulous voice, and wholesome, girl-next-door image, you’ll take America by storm.”

  Lark was speechless. She was glad when she heard the familiar clicking of high heels on marble tile.

  “What’s going on here?” Donna demanded, striding purposefully across the foyer floor and placing herself between Lark and Daniel Baylor. “Did I just hear you offering my daughter a recording contract?”

  Daniel gave her a smug look. “You did.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Donna’s voice rose to an angry roar. “She’s twelve years old! She’s not even allowed to ride her bike in the street without my permission, let alone sign a legal and binding business document!”

  “I understand that,” said Daniel calmly. “Naturally I wouldn’t have expected her to sign anything without parental consent.”

  “And what makes you think I’d ever consent to Lark signing with a rival record company instead of my own?” Donna seethed.

  Daniel casually examined his fingernails and shrugged. “I just assumed there was a reason you hadn’t offered her a contract.”

  “Such as?”

  “Maybe Lotus isn’t interested in developing country artists.”

  “Nice try, pal,” said Donna, folding her arms across her chest. “Everyone in the music business knows that Holly Rose, who happens to be the biggest female star in country music right now, is a Lotus artist.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Daniel gave her an icy smile. “I guess it slipped my mind. But as long as we’ve started a dialogue here, and since you haven’t signed Songbird to Lotus—”

  “You do not get to call her Songbird,” Donna ground out through her teeth. “And the answer is no! Lark is not in the market for a recording contract.”

  Daniel’s eyes flashed angrily. “From one record executive to another, let me ask you a question: Why would you go to all the trouble to import an act from Britain, when you’ve got a superstar right under your nose?” He smirked. “Could it be that maybe you just don’t know real talent when you see it?”

  It was at that moment that Fitzy appeared from the kitchen, carrying the giant knife she’d been using to chop vegetables. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Campbell?” she asked, glaring at the man on the porch, while giving the knife a menacing twirl.

  Daniel got the message. Without another word, he turned and hurried off the porch, then hopped into his sports car and sped down the driveway.

  Satisfied, Fitzy went back to the kitchen.

  Lark would have liked to vanish, too, but she only managed to get two steps away from the door before her mother caught her arm.

  “I knew you were angry about what Bridget pulled in the interview,” said Donna in a trembling voice. “But I never thought you’d try to get even by humiliating me.”

  Lark was stunned. “Humiliating you?”

  “What else would you call going behind my back and reaching out to a competitor to secure a recording contract?”

  “I didn’t do that!”

  “Didn’t you?” Donna’s face was tight with fury—or maybe it was hurt. “Then explain to me how that smarmy creep knows you can sing.”

  Lark opened her mouth, then immediately closed it. It was time to come clean about the Songbird videos. She dug into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and found the Songbird posts on YouTube.

  “Remember the video I showed you of me singing ‘Homesick’?” she said. “When Aidan tried to pass it off as a song he wrote?”

  “Of course I remember!”

  “Well …” Lark held out the phone to Donna. “Mimi was supposed to take the video down after I proved that Aidan was a liar, but she forgot. And then it got popular. So she made another one for my new song. And now they’re both getting lots of hits.”

  She checked the number and felt a little jolt when she saw that it was up to 127,000. At least I’m keeping my promise to Mimi, she thought gloomily.

  “Daniel Baylor saw the videos,” Lark went on. “He left a comment asking me to contact him, but I didn’t! I swear! Then Bridget what’s-her-name went and made a big deal about me in the TV interview, and he recognized me. That’s how he figured out where to find me.”

  Lark held her mother’s gaze for the space of a heartbeat, then looked away and shrugged.

  The next sound she heard was the purposeful tapping of high heels on marble … but this time the sound was followed by the equally purposeful slamming of Donna’s office door.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next morning Lark stayed in her room as long as she could, struggling with her new song, “Holding My Hand.”

  She told herself she wouldn’t quit until she’d written at least one good verse.

  After an hour of staring at a blank journal page, with her fingers motionless on her guitar strings, she renegotiated: she wouldn’t quit until she’d written one good line.

  As the minutes ticked silently by, she realized she’d settle for one word … and it didn’t have to be any good!

  But she couldn’t even manage that.

  Finally, she put her guitar aside and skulked downstairs. She found her mother seated at the kitchen table, sipping coffee.

  And wearing hiking clothes. Shorts, camp shirt, boots … Lark could even smell the sunscreen.

  She took this for exactly what it was—an apology—and gave her mother a hug.

  “Oh, honey,” said Donna, her eyes moist. “I’m so sorry I behaved the way I did. Of course I know you didn’t call that imbecile from Poltergeist Records.”

  Lark laughed. “Zeitgeist. Although the whole thing was kind of spooky.”

  “I should have never exploded at you like that. I guess I just had a moment of insecurity. I had no right to question your loyalty to me, but I was afraid you agreed with that creep.”

  “Agreed with him about what?”

  “About me not recognizing my own daughter’s talent.”

  “How could I ever think that,” said Lark, “when you’re paying me to write the band’s next single? And Mom—”

  “Stop. Don’t say another word.” Donna held up her hand and sniffled. “Just go back upstairs and change into your hiking clothes. Save this conversation for the great outdoors.”

  Lark grabbed a blueberry muffin from a plate on the table and ran back to her room, smiling the entire way.

  Two hours later, she and her mother were at the top of Mount Lee, overlooking the city and the iconic Hollywood sign. To Lark’s disappointment, both were slightly obscured by the presence of a tall chain-link fence.

  “Safety first, I guess,” said Lark, pressing her eye to the fence and peeking through one of the diamond-shaped holes for a better look.


  “More like ‘vandalism prevention’ first,” said Donna. Then she frowned. “That was cynical, wasn’t it? Maybe I’ve been in LA too long.”

  Lark wasn’t so sure about that; she guessed there were plenty of cynics in Nashville, too.

  “All right then,” said Donna, taking a long sip from her water bottle. “Here’s what I want to say. I hope you don’t think for one second that I’m unaware of how talented you are. I might even go so far as to start throwing the word ‘prodigy’ around.”

  “Thank you,” said Lark, allowing the warmth of the words to settle on her like the California sunshine.

  “I love that you’ve found the courage to perform in front of an audience. And I can’t even believe how lucky I am to have you writing songs for the band.”

  “If you ask me,” said Lark. “I’m the lucky one. I mean, how many twelve-year-olds can say they’ve heard their original songs on the radio?”

  “Right!” Donna smiled proudly. “And that’s kind of the point. You’re twelve years old. Not a baby anymore, I know, but not an adult yet, either. I don’t want to rob you of your childhood by asking you to embark on a full-fledged singing career. Writing songs snuggled up on your bed in your pajamas is one thing, but recording and touring and being famous is something else altogether. You see how crazy it is for the boys.”

  Lark thought of Teddy and all the pressure he was under—struggling to keep up with his schoolwork, wondering if he’d get to play soccer again, and dealing with fans in study hall. It was far from having a normal life.

  Then again, normal was just another word for average. And who ever aspired to being average? Teddy himself had said that being in the band was a great opportunity, even with all the stress.

  It was so complicated. In a good way, but still … complicated.

  “If and when the day comes that you decide you’re ready to try life in the spotlight,” Donna continued, her voice solemn as she reached out to sweep a lock of auburn hair from Lark’s cheek, “I’ll support you one hundred percent. That’s a promise. Naturally, you’ll join me at Lotus.”