Girl in the Spotlight

by Virginia McCullough

  Later, at the hotel, they hit a stilted moment, when he got off the elevator at his floor. He’d booked separate rooms, but hadn’t thought about the ride to the twenty-fourth floor for him, and the thirty-first for her.

  “Half an hour or so?” he asked, confirming their plan to meet for lunch at the hotel pub.

  She nodded eagerly. “You bet.”

  Walking down the hall to his room, he shook his head, amused by his own behavior. Why did he feel about fifteen years old?

  * * *

  THREE DARK-HAIRED SKATERS were among the group of six who came onto the ice together and spread out in all directions to warm up for their short program, the first of the two ladies’ competitions. Feeling anxious, Lark was almost disoriented when she couldn’t immediately identify Perrie Lynn.

  “I think she’s the girl in blue with the white flower in her hair,” Miles whispered, as if reading her mind.

  Although the nearest spectators were several seats away, Lark kept her voice low when she replied. “Thanks. I don’t know why, but I was confused. She’s smaller than the others.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And a vision in that deep blue...midnight blue. But, oh, that flower, somehow it’s just perfect.”

  “And now that we’ve seen the pairs skate, we know what to expect,” Miles said. “So much riding on this one performance.”

  “I know. I’m even trembling inside.” Lark took in a breath and expelled it fast as she kept her gaze on Perrie Lynn. “I can only imagine how these girls feel. And I can’t stop looking at her.”

  Miles nodded. “Just think. This morning we were in Green Bay. And this is already our second event.”

  “The event.” Lark laughed and bumped her shoulder on Miles’s arm. “Nervous as I am, this first day has been magical already.”

  Earlier, when the pair skaters began their short programs, Miles remarked that their view of the gleaming ice from the arena’s lofty seats was like looking at a framed painting. “People say there are no bad seats here,” Miles had said, “and maybe that’s true, but ours are perfect.”

  “Ah, yes, they sure are.” She’d spontaneously squeezed his hand. Embarrassed, she quickly pulled back and folded her hands in her lap. Only a friendly gesture, she’d told herself. But his skin had been warm, just like the warmth he exuded. She’d been pleasantly surprised that Miles had wanted to attend all the competitions, pairs and ice dancing included.

  Lark had been riveted, completely enveloped in the romance of the pairs seeming to float above the ice and almost magically time their spectacular lifts and jumps to match their music. She could see Miles was less enthralled. Maybe for him, a little skating went a long way and he had no personal stake in the outcome of that competition. Yet, when the event was over, he’d suggested they wait for the crowd to thin before leaving.

  He’d been eager to come back to the arena after a quick dinner, even admitting to preperformance jitters, just like he had before his own presentations. They’d spoken little when the first group of skaters competed, followed by a second group that included two women considered among the top performers. One, Leeza Smith, was so outstanding she jumped ahead of all her competition, even a better-known skating star. Leeza had created a wide gap between first and second place.

  “So, Leeza is someone else to watch,” Miles said, groaning. “A bunch of them are clustered at the top and the scores are close. Now I know why they call it a competition.”

  As Perrie Lynn and the others warmed up, some sprinted ahead to gather speed, others skated at the pace of a relaxed stroll. Lark watched Perrie Lynn shake her arms and hands and roll her shoulders forward and back. Lark could almost feel her own muscles loosening, her body becoming limber. Pushing off the ice with one foot, Perrie Lynn extended the other leg behind her and bent in half to wrap her hands around her ankle before straightening up again. Such flexibility. Like me as a child.

  “What a variety of skaters in this group,” Miles said.

  “I can’t take my eyes off of them.” One had vibrant red hair, not a color seen in nature, but she looked fantastic in her purple costume. Another contrasted her white blond hair with a shimmering black costume. One of the other dark-haired skaters had chosen a flowing skating dress in delicate pink that seemed to shimmer against her dark skin.

  As she watched Perrie Lynn perform some practice jumps, Lark gulped back the painful realization that the young woman in blue truly was a stranger. She knew nothing more about the real Perrie Lynn than anyone else in the arena. The impact of that incongruity left her light-headed and shaky. Yet, she alone had held Perrie Lynn in her arms in the first hours after her birth.

  From the moment she’d spoken with Maxine on the phone and heard the kindness in her voice, Lark had settled into an indescribable connection with both Perrie Lynn and the woman who’d raised her. Maxine had taken Perrie Lynn to the skating rink for the first time. Maxine had monitored the endless hours of practice and conferred with coaches. She even made a move to another state to serve Perrie Lynn’s career.

  Painful as it was to admit, Lark didn’t know the name of even one of Perrie Lynn’s childhood friends. Had she gone to school dances? Who was her date? What color was her dress? What had Maxine and Perrie Lynn bickered about? What rules had the teenager rebelled against?

  As Perrie Lynn circled the ice with a steady pace, Lark flashed back to Evan’s first day of kindergarten. She had delivered him into the new world of school, not Lyle. She’d been the one to let go of his hand so he could race into the room, where he’d spotted a friend from his half-day nursery school.

  As Lark watched Perrie Lynn leave the rink, she caught a glimpse of her gray-haired coach greeting her, and her responsive nod. A vast, strange world separated Lark from the tiny infant she’d held in her arms. On the other hand, knowing the truth had knit past and present in one long piece of many entwined lives. Perrie Lynn belonged to Maxine and Eric the way Evan belonged to her.

  Miles squeezed her hand. “You were a million miles away.”

  Unable—maybe unwilling—to untangle her thoughts and attempt to explain them, she took an easier way out and told a small fib. “I was just thinking that even from way up here, I can see how much she resembles you.”

  Miles chuckled. “Every time I see a photo or video of Perrie Lynn my grandmother and my aunts come to mind.”

  “Such a contrast with the Olsons.”

  “Speaking of the Olsons,” Miles said, “I wonder where they are.”

  “I’ve wondered if we’d spot them in the restaurant. Or coming in and out of the arena. We don’t know where they’re staying.” Before Miles could say so, she added, “And that’s as it should be.”

  He grinned down at her. “Who are you convincing?”

  She sent him a wry smile.

  When the competition began, Lark took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Four skaters before Perrie Lynn,” she said, “and I promised myself I was going to enjoy every performance and embrace the whole experience.”

  “Here comes the first one,” Miles said, pointing below to a skater in a white-and-silver costume entering the rink to the sound of the announcer’s voice.

  “The first of our girl’s competitors,” Lark whispered.

  “Right,” he replied. “I have to remind myself that they’re not simply graceful dancers on ice, but athletes with grit and a will to win.”

  “I’ve been reading about the way they rack up points,” Lark said. “Sure is a complicated scoring system.”

  The first skater finished her series of jumps and spins in a workmanlike way. Lark could almost hear the commentators say as much. A section of complex footwork seemed inspired, but the audience greeted her final spin with only polite applause.

  “Brooke would have pointed out that as long as she hasn’t fallen out of a jump, she did okay,” Mi
les said, mildly amused. “I don’t know how to judge other than hoping they don’t take a spill.”

  And the second skater, the redhead in purple, did just that, falling but recovering quickly. The next competitor, Molly Walden, the current US champion, was greeted with loud clapping, and no wonder. A petite blonde in a sophisticated peach-colored skating dress, Molly took the ice like she owned it. And in a way she did. She held the title and would fight to keep it.

  Miles leaned in close. “That’s another skater Brooke mentions often. She took her US title to the world championships last year and walked away with the bronze.”

  “I saw that online. I got so interested in skating that I watched other skaters’ online videos, and there was one of Molly’s winning skate at the NorAms last year. She’s tough.”

  Like the others before her, Molly confidently started her program with what Lark had learned was a triple-triple-jump combination, which brought on a round of applause rippling through the crowd. Lark understood that minute differences in scores often came from the degrees of difficulty of various spins and jumps. Molly’s perfect landing and easy glide out of the jump set the tone for this twenty-four-year-old skater. No wonder that any medal for Perrie Lynn would be considered an enormous upset and a sweet victory.

  After a final set of catch-foot spins, Molly’s sudden stop brought roars from the audience as they got to their feet. She and Miles enthusiastically clapped right along with others. “I see why the audience loves her,” Lark said.

  “Well, according to a well-known authority, Ms. Brooke Jenkins, Molly is determined to keep her title and go on to the Internationals.”

  When the scores were announced, Molly jumped ahead of all the others, accumulating enough points to position her slightly ahead of Leeza.

  The skater before Perrie Lynn was the beauty wearing the dramatic black costume. Although her skating was good, she lacked a certain artistic quality and that led to a tepid response from the audience. Starting at the pairs’ competition, Lark began catching on to the varying reactions the audience had to the whole package, the term the commentators sprinkled liberally in their descriptions of the skaters. Technique wasn’t enough, but artistry without landing the jumps and executing intricate step sequences and spins led to scores below what was needed to win. To Lark’s unschooled eyes, the combination of technical perfection and the grace of dance seemed nothing less than magical.

  Finally, the voice coming over the loudspeaker announced Perrie Lynn. Lark put her hand on her chest, which quickly grew tight and ached with nervous anticipation.

  “I like the way she handles this part,” Miles whispered as Perrie Lynn appeared and raised her arms to greet the audience, who welcomed her presence with loud applause. “The audience is fixated on her already.”

  As Perrie Lynn started her slow lap around the arena’s ice, Lark drew in a calming breath. The air around her vibrated as she attempted to gulp back the rising sob caught in the back of her throat.

  Miles captured her hand between both of his, whispering, “I understand.”

  Perrie Lynn skated to the center of the ice, and after one last quick pivot, she assumed her starting position in the center of the ice and the melody of Moonlight Sonata began.

  Lark’s tears flowed freely. Miraculously, though, after the first couple of jumps her tears stopped, as she lost herself in the wonder of Perrie Lynn’s graceful journey across the ice and the triple jumps that brought outbreaks of applause. Maybe it was the lightness of her arm movements that enchanted Lark the most. No, it was the extension of her dramatic arabesques.

  When Perrie Lynn finished her final spin, Lark let her head drop against Miles’s shoulder. “Thank you for this.”

  He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead and then they stood with a few thousand other people and clapped long and loud. Lark closed her eyes to focus on the sound, but she quickly opened them again. She couldn’t keep her eyes off Perrie Lynn, visible now on the big screens in the arena.

  When they finally sat down Miles again took her hand. “Only a minute or two more for the score.”

  Lark knew that was the critical outcome, but somehow, the numbers didn’t matter. Perrie Lynn had been magnificent.

  When the score appeared and Perrie Lynn’s reaction was shown on the screen, the arena filled with the roar of the crowd.

  “Look,” Miles said, pointing to the board, “she’s just behind Leeza Smith and Molly Walden. Third place—so far. Wow.”

  “You’d have to be a real expert to see a difference in the technique, huh?” Lark said. “I get the overall performance impression, but small differences in the technical execution are way beyond my untrained eye.”

  Miles nodded his agreement. “I only know a few of those details because of Brooke, who, by the way, must be so happy. I’ll send her a text on Andi’s phone later.”

  Lark glanced around, noting how few people were seated near them, giving them a degree of privacy. “I’d have thought every seat would be filled.”

  “Me, too, but I guess the revenue comes from TV sponsors. Maybe the live audience is almost like an afterthought.”

  “Well, we’re incognito up here,” Lark said. “No one is going to pan a camera up this far.”

  “We hope,” Miles said, a frown forming.

  The last group of skaters took to the ice, but although one knocked the previous fourth-place skater down to fifth, Perrie Lynn’s third place short-program finish held.

  When the event ended, they waited until most everyone else had filed out before they left.

  “I’m keyed up,” Miles said as they approached the exit door. “I’m still jumping and spinning in my head.”

  “You, too?” Lark pulled on her fleece-lined gloves and wrapped her scarf around her neck against the cold wind blowing off the Charles River and the bay. “I need to keep pinching myself to remember this whole experience is real.”

  “Shall we get a cab back to the hotel?” Miles asked.

  “Are you up for a walk? It’s not far. And maybe a glass of wine in the hotel bar?”

  He grinned. “Great idea. Let’s go.”

  When Miles held out his bent elbow in an invitation, it seemed only natural to accept it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, Lark and Miles slid into a booth tucked behind an oversize banquette, where three couples sat with giant plates of pancakes and omelets in front of them. Even with the high leather seatback, she didn’t need to purposely eavesdrop to catch their conversation. Lark expected talk about Leeza and Molly, but the name that came up again and again was Perrie Lynn. The group had been at the competition and were chewing it over like she and Miles had in the bar the previous night. Catching her eye, he nodded to the banquette, silently letting her know he’d also caught some of the conversation.

  “Seems they like—and genuinely respect—all the skaters,” Miles observed, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. “Just by observing and watching the reactions of the audience, I’ve already learned skating fans are a breed unto themselves. Not quite as partisan as the Green Bay Packer enthusiasts—or should I call us zealots?”

  “If you’re like Evan and Lyle the word fanatic fits.” Feeling buoyant and carefree, she studied the busy restaurant filling up with a breakfast crowd. A skating crowd. “Isn’t this wonderful?”

  Miles flushed, as if embarrassed, but he nodded.

  “A delicious secret.” The remark just slipped out, along with the flirtatious tone. She cleared her throat. “I’ll bet Brooke would love to be here.”

  Miles frowned. “I’d have imagined her wanting to be like these princess skaters one day, but she’s happy being a spectator, playing soccer and waiting until she’s twelve and gets a horse.”

  “I understand,” Lark said. “For me, the thrill of skating didn
’t come in the form of costumes and glamour. It was about how fast I could pick up speed and race on the frozen river—the next best thing to flying. Maybe that’s the way Brooke feels about riding a horse.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Thanks a lot. My daughter on a horse cantering across Wisconsin fields at breakneck speed. Great image. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Don’t worry before the time comes,” she said with a laugh.

  As they fell silent and studied the menu, the mix of voices coming from behind distracted Lark again. Lowered voices. That made her more curious. She leaned to the side and tried to subtly turn her head to catch words and phrases.

  “She looks better than she did at the beginning of the season,” a woman said.

  A male voice responded with something about it, whatever that was, being only a matter of time before something happened, but the sentence trailed off.

  “Do you mean they expect it to come back?” a third voice whispered.

  It? Come back? In Lark’s experience, words like that usually meant an illness, often cancer. Miles opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her index finger in the air to stop him, so she could brazenly eavesdrop.

  One more person spoke up in a louder voice. “Her mother wanted to do as much as she could for Perrie Lynn. Just in case she doesn’t make it.”

  “It paid off, too. Look at the success she’s had,” a woman replied.

  Suddenly, a man warned, “I hear they’re being private about Maxine’s situation. We shouldn’t even be talking in public about the family.”

  But how do they know this information? And it involves Maxine.

  With Miles already staring at her, puzzled, Lark forced herself to study the menu, then said, “The French toast with bacon looks good to me.”