Girl in the Spotlight

by Virginia McCullough

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN LARK LET herself in the unlocked door of her brother Dennis’s house on Christmas morning, Evan was already explaining the rules of the board game Candy Land to his five-year-old twin cousins, Jillie and Jerry. Actual names, Jillian and Jeremiah. Wanting to capture the adorable moment, Lark pulled out her phone from her jacket pocket and took a shot of the scene. One of the qualities she most cherished in Evan was his kindness to kids younger than himself, at school and in the family. No one had ever accused him of being a bully or mean. Knock wood.

  Before joining the rest of the family in the kitchen, she couldn’t resist checking her phone. Another text from Miles. She’d expected it, though. She’d sent him a thank-you text last night after she’d come home and settled at the window in her office to watch the moon’s wavy reflection on the water. Mostly she contemplated her own Christmas miracle, a chance to see, if not meet, her grown-up child. He’d texted right back. She’d sent another before she left the house that morning and now he’d replied. Fun, she thought, this communication. But it was odd, too, in a way. Texting, going off to Boston. More shared secrets.

  On the other hand, Christmas Day or not, by dawn she’d been at her desk composing a pitch for a piece on overtraining child athletes for one of the online parenting sites she wrote for. Later, she’d set up phone interviews with a couple of skating coaches on the junior circuit to legitimize her trip, and she’d already compiled a list of pediatricians known to be outspoken on concussion risks in youth sports.

  “How did it go last night, Evan?” she asked as she unloaded her tote bag and tucked the gifts under the tree. She and Evan had exchanged their presents yesterday before she’d dropped him off at Lyle’s house. She and her son preferred a private time with just the two of them. His gift list had been easy, the main item an obscure video game based on chess strategy. He’d also asked for a book of photographs showing the art of chess sets through the ages. Evan had given her a red-and-black hand-dyed scarf from a local international boutique. He’d learned a few years back that anything from that store was a winning gift.

  Evan looked up from the game to answer her question. “Fine, good. Grandma Sharon said to say hello.”

  She wasn’t surprised her former mother-in-law, Sharon, would pass on greetings. Only her father-in-law, Lyle Senior, blamed her for the demise of the marriage to his son. Lyle’s dad would have liked Lark much better if she’d been an ornament in the corner, content to be seen and most definitely not heard. Because she had no such inclination, he’d eyed her suspiciously from the beginning.

  Lark wandered into the kitchen, where the adults were hanging out, enjoying coffee and her sister-in-law’s homemade Swedish coffee bread spread thick with butter. Donna, one of Lark’s favorite family members, had brought her Scandinavian traditions into a family eager to accept them.

  “I followed my nose,” Lark said to Donna as she cut off a chunk of the coffee bread. “I arrived just in time, Dennis. You’ve already eaten half of your wife’s mouthwatering creation.”

  “What do you expect?” her brother said, grinning.

  After adding a layer of softened butter and taking a quick bite, Lark moved a few feet to stand alongside her mother, who was dressed, as usual, in clothes she could have bought from the teen shops at the mall—in the 1990s. The too-tight jeans had rhinestone-studded pockets, and her off-the-shoulder fluffy pink sweater was embellished with half a dozen cats made of silver sequins. Lark had inherited her light brown hair, but Cora had long ago decided blondes really did have more fun, and her now yellowish hair was fixed in her signature beehive.

  Lark called a halt to her inventory of her mom’s fashion transgressions, except to wonder how she managed to walk in five-inch pink heels. Give it a rest, Lark. She knew perfectly well she ought to be used to these quirks, and besides, her mother was an endlessly fun grandma to the kids.

  “So sorry we couldn’t have lunch, darling,” Cora said, “but we were busier than we ever imagined and short-staffed, too.”

  “Maybe this coming week we can schedule something.” For Lark, the days between Christmas and the first week or two of January usually meant organizing her office and preparing for what she hoped would be a wave of new work. “The pace won’t get too crazy again for a little while.”

  “No business problems, I hope,” Dennis said.

  “Not at all.” Lark wasn’t bothered by her brother’s remark. Like everyone else in her family, he’d been skeptical of her ability to make a go of a full-time writing business. At first he and her parents seemed to study her from a distance, as if waiting for her to fail. Given the years of ugly battles in their family, the irony that her brother became a family therapist wasn’t lost on Lark. Currently on the counseling staff at the largest health-care group in the region, Dennis hoped to soon go into private practice and had recently told Lark she was his role model for establishing a business.

  The adults took their coffee into the living room, where the twins were still under Evan’s spell. The game set aside, Evan was now helping the kids assemble a pretend town in a corner of the living room, starting with Jerry’s wooden schoolhouse and Jillie’s zoo, complete with brightly painted animals and habitats.

  Dennis clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention before announcing that it was time for another round of presents. Lark reached under the tree and pulled out Evan’s wrapped gifts for his cousins—matching sets of colored pencils, crayons, coloring books and plain drawing pads. “Okay, kids, let the fun and games begin!”

  As the twins tore the paper off their collection of art supplies, Lark scanned the room and looked at the adult faces, all fixed on the little kids. Her stomach tightened in mild anxiety thinking about next year, when Evan would know he had a half sister. If all went well he’d likely have met her. Her mother would soon learn she had a grandchild older than Evan. Cora might easily accept Lark’s decision to keep a secret, but Lark was certain her mother would be sad about being deprived of watching another granddaughter grow up.

  Would her dad, and perhaps Dennis, too, be willing to jump back in time and remember the anger and chaos that had once defined their family? Or, would they judge Lark harshly? Paradoxically, it was both sad and advantageous they weren’t a particularly close family. It made it easy to care very little about what her family thought of her decisions.

  Pushing speculation about future Christmases to the back of her mind, Lark focused on the giggling twins opening boxes of crayons and begging Evan to color with them. Pretending to be put upon by their demands, he picked up one of their new coloring books and began to thumb through it while they sat on either side of him. Lark followed his actions with her phone and got another perfect holiday shot.

  * * *

  MILES DECIDED TO call late on Christmas night. Brooke was asleep and he was restless after the frenzy of his visit with his parents and his sister, April, and her family. He had a hunch Lark would understand the paradox of wanting to be with his family, but also feeling more than ready to leave when the visit wound down. She picked up his call on the second buzz.

  “A call this time, not a text,” she said with a laugh.

  “Yes, it’s time for a conversation. But I enjoyed your timeline—arriving at your brother’s house, leaving and heading to your dad’s place in Sturgeon Bay...then home.”

  “And I got a kick out of the rundown of your day, too,” she said. “Truthfully, I’m awfully glad to be home.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Uh, well, I don’t know exactly. I haven’t analyzed why it felt good to pull into my driveway with Evan. Maybe it was such a long day. Something like that.”

  “It wasn’t a trick question,” he said. “I asked only because I feel the same way.” He paused to think of the right words. “For the first time since, uh, that first Christmas break, I was tense. Worried about
what my sister and her family are going to think about all this. Let alone Brooke.”

  “Ah, Miles, that’s inevitable. Even up at Dad’s house I speculated how he’d react when he heard about Perrie Lynn. And I have much less at stake with him.”

  “Less at stake?”

  “Like I told you, I’m not close to my dad. Never have been. And since he’s not especially interested in Evan, I’ve drifted away. For all my mother’s eccentricities we’re close in our way.”

  Another unsupportive man in Lark’s life—what was with these guys? No wonder she had such an air of independence about her. Single or married, she’d been alone. “I’m glad you have your brother.”

  “Yes, Dennis is a good man. But enough about my family. Aside from being tense, did you have a good time?”

  “Well, it’s easy enough. April has always treated me like a much younger brother who doesn’t have much sense, and as for my parents, they prefer the grandkids.” In a voice he hoped was light and didn’t reflect his irritation, he added, “My dad still wonders when I’ll get a real job with retirement benefits and a paid vacation. You’re probably used to that kind of talk.”

  “Oh, yeah, I sure am. Usually it’s Lyle warning me about a bleak future as a bag lady sleeping on the park benches down by the lake.” Deepening her voice to mimic his, she said, “‘Lark, you will likely die poor, maybe even homeless.’”

  “Nice guy,” Miles blurted, making no attempt to cover his cynicism.

  “What bothers me most,” she said, “is the assumption that I couldn’t possibly know anything about getting health insurance or setting up a retirement account.”

  “I hear you.” Miles laughed at Lark’s indignant tone.

  “Hey,” she said, “let’s change the subject. I’m counting down the days to Boston. I’ve already composed a pitch for some articles, so I’m covered in terms of a reason for going away. I’ll talk with Lyle this week. If for some reason he can’t cover the extra couple of days, I’m sure my friend Dawn will be happy to have Evan overnight. Last summer, her son stayed here while she went on a camping trip.”

  “It’s good to have friends like that.”

  “I’ll probably miss one of Evan’s basketball games. He’s not a starter, and grumbles about why he bothers playing at all, but still... I always make the games.”

  Over the next few minutes, Lark’s voice took on a happier tone when she described the way Evan treated his little cousins. “Knowing Dennis and Donna, the kids will have their miniature school and zoo set up in the living room all winter. My brother’s home is everything our childhood home wasn’t. I always feel good when I’m with them.”

  “And it sounds like Evan fits right in. It’s obvious you’ve done a good job with him.”

  “Thanks for that,” she said quietly.

  The conversation hit a dead end, so he pivoted away from it. “Our trip is only a few weeks away.” Our trip. That sounded so intimate. But he’d said it, and now it was out there.

  “Right you are.” She let out a snorting laugh. “I was about to thank you again, but I guess you’re tired of hearing that.”

  “Absolutely. It’s our new rule. No more excessive expressions of gratitude.” He deliberately feigned a formal tone.

  “Okay, I get it. So what’s on your agenda the next couple of days?”

  “I’m doing a presentation and a workshop at a family retreat a long-term client hosts every year over the New Year’s holiday—in Florida. Theoretically everybody returns home revved up with new ideas for the coming year.”

  “Really? Sounds interesting.”

  “They invite me to speak every year and work with small groups to help strengthen collaboration skills.” He wished he could invite her to come along. “What about you?” he asked.

  “Evan will be just back from his ski trip up north. So he’s with me that weekend. We’ll order pizza and watch fireworks on TV. I suspect there won’t be many more New Year’s Eves with Evan okay with being at home, so I’m going to enjoy it. As moody as he’s been lately, he’s pretty good company.”

  “Sounds nice, actually.” Suddenly, Florida didn’t seem so attractive. He’d never brought anyone with him to these gatherings, although he’d promised Brooke she could come next year, when she’d be old enough to participate without his supervision in the planned kids’ activities and the day trip to Walt Disney World.

  “Well, I better get to bed. It’s been a long day,” she said. “And happy New Year. It has some special meaning this year.”

  “Yes, it certainly does. Oh, and keep those texts coming.”

  She said good-night first and ended the call, leaving him at the kitchen table staring at his phone. He already missed the pleasant lilt of her voice.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  STILL OUTSIDE THE main entry to the airport, Miles spotted her through the glass wall. She sat on a bench near the check-in counter, e-reader in hand and deep in concentration. When he went inside and approached her, Lark looked up and her face beamed with happiness. That smile. It got to him every time.

  “I’m not checking luggage. I have my laptop in here,” she said, patting a leather shoulder bag, “and other than that, all I have is this rolling carry-on. I’m good at packing light. I won’t need that much, actually. I...” She stopped talking abruptly and let her head drop back. “I promised myself I wouldn’t be nervous. But here I am, chattering away.”

  “And here I thought we were past being awkward,” he teased.

  “Easy for you to say,” she said, giving him a pointed look. “You always were better socially, if you know what I mean. It’s your aura of confidence.”

  If she only knew how ridiculous I feel. A secret trip with the secret mother of my secret child. Maybe that was a little dramatic, but the clandestine nature of the trip was a first for him. Granted, Andi knew about it, but no one else.

  “I’m kinda jumpy, too,” he said with a shrug. “I can’t explain it.” Then he laughed and smacked the heel of his hand on his forehead. “I do know what it is. I always travel alone.”

  “Ha! I bet.” She cast a flirtatious smile his way.

  She didn’t believe him? If Lark knew how seldom he dated these days, she wouldn’t be so quick to mock him. Would she be genuinely surprised to hear she was the most interesting woman he’d met in years? Many years. But if he said as much, he might scare her off. His attraction made it even more important to be careful and keep his distance.

  “I need coffee,” she said, extending the handle on her rolling bag, “so let’s get our boarding passes and head to the coffee shop.”

  Walking to a check-in screen, he asked, “Were you waiting long?”

  “Yes, indeed.” She grinned, clearly embarrassed. “But it’s not your fault I always allow way too much time. I don’t fly often these days, but when I do, I plan for every contingency. I’ve been here for almost an hour. If I weren’t so jumpy I’d have been halfway through a novel by now.”

  “If I lived as far away from the airport as you do, I’d be way early, too.” He changed the subject by pointing outside, where the sun glistened on snow that had fallen the day before. “Look at that—fresh snow is so bright and clean. Clear skies for flying today. Can’t ask for more than that.”

  “Driving in, I thought the same thing. I dropped Evan off at Lyle’s last night after pizza at Lou’s. I’d already packed, but still, I barely slept.” She grinned shyly. “Too excited to drift off for long.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  A few minutes later, cappuccinos in hand, they snaked through a maze of tables until they found an empty spot in the corner.

  “I’ve watched every online video of Perrie Lynn I could find, and I’ve played them multiple times,” Lark said when they’d settled in. “I can’t seem to get enough. Maybe because th
at’s all I know of Perrie Lynn.”

  “I’ve been watching, too,” he said. “I saw a couple of her interviews after she won the silver medal at Skate America. A big upset in the skating world. They were only sixty-second sound bites, but I was impressed by how poised she is.”

  Lark frowned. “I was going to add the cliché ‘for her age,’ but that doesn’t apply. She handled the interviews well, period.”

  “I’m sure she’s had some media coaching as part of her training,” he added. “She’s not just a skater, she has an image to create and maintain. In a way, it’s like show business.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “I know that sounds cold, but it’s part of the sport these days.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I’ve been focusing on the technical side.”

  “Oh, boy, I was in for an education,” he said, laughing. “Brooke told me the names of all the jumps, and now you can probably explain what they are and the aerodynamics of how these athletes manage to lift off the ice and complete those turns—and land on their feet, at least most of the time.”

  “Ah, don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you.” Suddenly, her expression changed and her forehead knotted up. “I’m expanding my article proposals to include more about head injuries. I’ve been digging, and the more I learn about concussions, the more worried I get.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I don’t know about speakers and consultants like you, but I’m never off duty,” she said, grinning again. “I’m constantly observing and tucking away tidbits of information. That’s where the ideas for articles come from.”

  He nodded. “I get it. Listening and observing are part of what we both do.”

  She smiled in response, perhaps enjoying that connection as much as he did.

  With time to spare, they finished their cappuccinos and then meandered through the airport to the security gate. As they boarded the plane, a wave of contentment came over Miles. He smiled to himself when he noticed a couple of male passengers eyeing Lark. Yes, he was in the company of a pretty woman. In your dreams, guys—she’s with me. He had to hold back a guffaw over that thought, but he couldn’t help himself.