Girl in the Spotlight

by Virginia McCullough

  “Good. They’re almost ready to start.”

  Lark quickly got up and fetched the snack tray from the kitchen. Cheese and crackers, grapes, and pieces of rich dark chocolate. She topped off their glasses of merlot and flopped down on the couch.

  “A feast,” Miles said.

  In tandem, they leaned forward as they watched the screen intently, and there she was, standing outside the rink with the others, waiting to glide onto the ice in the now familiar blue costume and the white flower in her hair. Lark flashed back to the image of Maxine in her blue hat.

  “She’s so, so beautiful,” Lark said with a deep, long sigh.

  “Like you, Lark.”

  She turned her head at his words spoken only a note above a whisper. “What a sweet thing to say.”

  He pressed his warm lips on her forehead. “It’s true.”

  She knew she was flushing, something she couldn’t control. But so what? Miles always left her feeling warm all over.

  They stayed perched on the edge of the couch as the skaters went through their practice spins and jumps and only settled back once the short programs began. Miles joked that the skating world and its conventions and lingo had become familiar, as if he’d been a fan all his life. Lark felt the same way as one skater after another took to the ice. Unlike being in the arena in Boston, they heard the running TV commentary about the skaters, including the high hopes for Lilibeth Alain, a French skater who had won a bronze medal four years earlier. She was going for the gold this time.

  When Lilibeth lost her footing coming out of a jump and tumbled to the ice, the commentators immediately began to calculate the deductions for lost points.

  “So far, one of the top Russian skaters underperformed, and now the only French skater here had a glitch,” Lark said when Lilibeth finished her program and slowly made her way off the ice to loud applause from her loyal home-country supporters. “It’s scary that the commentators are so sure that one mistake is devastating—wonderful skaters all but booted out of the competition.”

  “They also keep track of who does better than expected, like Maya Watanabe, one of the Canadians,” Miles pointed out. “I wonder what they’ll say about Perrie Lynn.”

  At that moment, Katie’s voice broke in. “Well, so far, there’s room at the top,” she said, adding that the short program scores were topsy-turvy.

  “As soon as we come back, it will be Perrie Lynn Olson’s turn to skate,” Charlie said. “No matter what happens, the young woman’s presence here is a miracle in itself and a testament to her courage.”

  Lark muted the TV and picked up a piece of chocolate. “I’m ready to jump out of my skin. I was calmer while we waited in Boston.”

  “Me, too.” Miles’s eyes softened as he stared at her. “It may be a miracle that she’s there, but it seems equally miraculous that we’re here together watching her.”

  Surprised that she found herself unable to speak, she nodded her agreement.

  They moved closer together and Lark reached for Miles’s hand at the same moment he reached for hers. Seconds later, Perrie Lynn made her graceful entrance, quickly establishing her presence.

  As the music began, Lark found herself experiencing the skate as if she were on the ice with Perrie Lynn. With each jump, she held her breath, and almost felt the muscles in her own legs stretching into long extensions. The commentators telegraphed each move, including the jump near the end of the program. A double axel, Allen said, remarking that it often proved the bane of a skater’s existence.

  Perrie Lynn set up for the jump, but even Lark instantly noted the uncharacteristic tentative lift off the ice, resulting in an awkward landing. Perrie Lynn tipped to the side on one wobbly skate.

  Lark squeezed Miles’s hand as Perrie Lynn touched the ice with her fingertips to right herself—successfully.

  Miles exhaled. “She stayed on her feet.”

  Katie and Allen remarked that although she hadn’t exactly saved the jump she hadn’t lost all the points, either. “Unfortunately, the bobbled landing will prove expensive,” Katie added.

  Perrie Lynn finished her final spin and held her last position for a mesmerizing few seconds before breaking the pose. She lowered her head and for just a second or two she ran the backs of her hands across her eyes. When she raised her head, she was the proud skater once again, bowing, waving and smiling in response to the outburst of applause. Then it was Lark’s turn to release the air she’d held in her chest. Letting her shoulders slump, she felt her body collapse.

  As if on cue, Katie spoke about an otherwise flawless program. “Vintage Perrie Lynn, and it leaves her within striking distance. And considering what she’s gone through it was an incredible night for her.”

  By the time the rest of the skaters finished and the rankings were listed, Perrie Lynn ended up in fifth place. By all accounts, not a bad place to be.

  “I better check my phone,” Miles said. “Andi agreed to let Brooke text me after Perrie Lynn skated.” He read the message aloud. “‘Don’t worry, D. Mamie and I still think she’ll medal.’”

  Lark watched him text back. He spoke the words as his fingers worked the pad. “‘Not worried. PL was great. One mistake not too bad. See you tomorrow night.’”

  Lark sighed to herself. What a dad, especially for a little girl. She wished she felt as good about Lyle’s influence on Evan. Suppressing those negative thoughts, she watched the studio commentators discuss Perrie Lynn...one more time. She let her head rest on Miles’s shoulder as the sports journalists filled in some details of Maxine’s long illness.

  “Four years,” Miles said, echoing the commentator’s words. “Perrie Lynn was only fourteen when her mom got sick the first time.”

  “I know life isn’t always fair,” Lark said, “but that must have been a terrible struggle. And Maxine found the strength to take Perrie Lynn to Michigan to work with Declan.”

  Miles shook his head. “This whole child-athlete undertaking seems like a family affair for all the skaters.”

  When the commentators moved on to another topic, Miles got to his feet to go home.

  “This was so much fun,” Lark said, “but I’m really sorry we can’t watch the long program together.”

  As they moved slowly out of the TV room and toward the front door, Miles put his arm around her, drawing her closer to him. “I wish I didn’t have to be out of town, but I’ve had this booking for over a year. No way to change it.”

  Instead of dropping his arm when they reached the door, Miles put his other arm around her. “When I’m away I think about you all the time.”

  She rested her head against his chest. “It’s the same for me.”

  “I’m glad,” he whispered, running his hand lightly across her hair.

  Before she had a chance to consider if being this close was a good idea, his fingers lifted her chin and he lightly brushed his lips across hers. He raised his mouth, but she stood on tiptoes and found his lips again. As he deepened the kiss, his arms tightened around her.

  When they separated, he ran his thumb across her cheek and whispered, “Good night, Lark.” He hurried out the door.

  She touched her fingertips to her lips as she stood in the doorway and watched him drive away. They’d also come a long way from their stilted goodbye the morning they met at Hugo’s.

  But...the questions. They were always there, the questions that disturbed her ability to enjoy the moment. Why couldn’t she relax? Why was she sad when Miles left, but sometimes fearful of her own longings? Shutting the door behind her and leaning against it, she closed her eyes. Images of Perrie Lynn lifted her up into the joy of recalling her glide across the ice. When Lark opened her eyes again, she went to the window and gazed at the dark night sky. The moon was hidden behind heavy clouds. She smiled, resigned to her confusing emotions. Unable to sort
through them, she simply let them be.

  * * *

  THE KISS. IT WAS all she’d thought about the last two days. She sat on her couch in the TV room with her feet tucked under her, warm in heavy wool socks. Her open tablet sat balanced on her lap. How delicious to be held in his arms. She shook her head—again—to concentrate on the article displayed on the screen. Normally, a piece on rare and virulent viruses captured her attention. Dawn even teased her about her fascination with medical research. But not that evening. She checked her watch. Lyle should be bringing Evan home right about now. Evan himself had said he preferred to come home after dinner and work on his science-fair project rather than spend the night at Lyle’s house.

  When she heard the door open, she called out, “Hi, honey, I’m back here.”

  A weak hello followed, but then another voice came from the living room. She put the laptop on the coffee table and went to the living room where Lyle stood next to Evan. “Oh, hi, Lyle. I didn’t expect you to come in.” When was the last time he’d followed Evan into the house when he dropped him off? She couldn’t recall.

  “No, I suspect you didn’t.” His sneer sent a shiver down her back.

  “What’s up?” Was that a quaver in her voice?

  Lyle straightened. “I guess you’ll have to tell Evan what’s up. I decided he deserved to know the truth about his mother and her little surprise.”

  Lark glanced at Evan, who kicked off his second boot and stared at the floor. No doubt wishing he could drop through it. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of her ex. A low moan escaped, along with the words “How could you?”

  “How could I?” That nasty sneer remained, as if it had become a permanent feature.

  Why was he enjoying this so much? She pushed away her emotions. Evan was the priority now. “I’ll talk with you about this when we’re alone, Evan.”

  Evan nodded, cutting his eyes to her for the first time.

  “You can leave now, Lyle. I think you’ve done enough damage for one night.” She moved alongside Evan in the small space by the front door. Showing her alignment with her son was the only way to contain her rage at her ex-husband.

  “Yeah, well, like I said in my office the other day, you don’t have much room for judgment. You want to talk about damaging our son, look in the mirror.”

  “Get. Out.” She didn’t need to shout, nor did she need to hide her anger. And dismay.

  Lyle turned to Evan. “You call if you need anything, son. You can stay with me anytime. You know that.”

  Evan continued looking down, not reacting to Lyle’s words.

  Lyle let himself out the door and shut it behind him. Lark followed and snapped the lock with conviction, hoping her ex heard the sound of being shut out.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen and talk,” she said.

  “What’s to talk about?” Unfamiliar belligerence had seeped into Evan’s voice.

  “For starters, I want to know exactly what your father told you.”

  He brushed his bangs out of his eyes as he looked up at her. “That you got pregnant and gave away...you know, the baby.”

  Reeling at the stark words, Lark led the way to the kitchen and pulled out the chair. “There’s a little more to it than that. And your father never should have told you without my knowledge. I trusted him to let me work this out with you in my own way.”

  “It’s true, though, huh?” He dropped into the chair, plunked his elbows on the table and rested his chin in one palm.

  “Sweetie, yes, I had a baby girl and her father and I put her up for adoption for what we believed were all the right reasons.” She told the truth, but her heart pounded so hard her ears pulsated. “We were young and couldn’t give her the life she deserved. We weren’t ready to be parents, not at all like your dad and I were when you were born.”

  “But you lied to Dad.” He lowered his eyes and his voice. “That’s what he said.”

  Lark flipped the switch on the electric kettle. She needed a cup of whatever tea would calm her down. But no balm was strong enough to heal her heartbreak. “This isn’t the way I planned to tell you about this part of my past. I told your dad about it for the first time a few days ago, because I learned who she is—who that baby grew up to be.”

  “Dad said she’s sort of famous. But you were, like, careless and irresponsible. You never told him because you were, you know, ashamed of yourself.”

  No surprise Lyle had made her look as bad as possible. He was finally getting his revenge for her demand for a divorce. He’d never gotten over that. Hurt pride. An affront. Whatever. He’d never understood that his constant disrespect, especially with respect to her writing career, had poisoned everything in their marriage and had spilled over to Evan. Protecting their son from the constant negativity had been her primary motivation to leave him.

  “I made lots of mistakes, Evan. But I did the best I knew how at the time. The day she was born, I longed to keep her. But for so many reasons I knew I couldn’t do right by her.”

  “So her father didn’t want her, either,” Evan said.

  “Did your dad tell you that?”

  “Nope. But I can figure it out.”

  She turned away to steep chamomile tea and pour a glass of juice for Evan. When she sat at the table, she took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. “I’m going to start from the beginning. I really want you to understand this.”

  It didn’t take long to fill in the basics, especially admitting her mistake in withholding from Lyle this important fact of her life. She took a deep breath. “That was my biggest mistake, and one that affects you now. But your dad should not have told you—he had no right.”

  “So, she’s really a figure skater?”

  The question didn’t surprise her. “I was getting to that.”

  In almost one long sentence without pauses, she explained Miles’s December call. Evan’s blue-gray eyes opened wide when Lark began talking about the North American Figure Skating Competition and the Internationals. “So, to bring you up to the present, Perrie Lynn is due to skate again on Saturday.” She considered her next words. “I’m going to be here at home watching her, and I hope you’ll be here, too. No matter what happened in the past, she’s your half sister. When the time is right, you’ll be able to meet her.” She stopped to let that sink in. “But only if you want to.”

  “Dad said you really went to Boston to see Perrie Lynn.”

  “Yes, that’s why I went.” She took a sip of her tea. “And by chance I met her mother, Maxine. She was sick, and now she’s gone. She died only a few days ago.”

  Evan’s penetrating stare startled her. “You lied about that trip. And you missed one of my games.”

  “Your dad was there, right?”

  He nodded.

  Evan’s expression, his accusatory words and tone—they reminded her of Lyle. That started the smoldering in the pit of her stomach. She protectively wrapped one arm tightly around her waist as if that could settle her. “I don’t intend to get picky about this, but Miles was able to get tickets, and I said yes. No, I didn’t tell you or your father the whole story of why I was going. True enough.”

  “If dad hadn’t told me, when were you going to?”

  “Fair question, Evan.” She paused, nervously running her fingers across her mouth as she searched for the right words. “I was going to wait to tell you everything, start to finish, when I was free to make contact with Perrie Lynn. We think that will be later in the spring. But maybe it’s better this way. It’s all out in the open now.”

  “What about that guy...Miles?”

  Lark’s heart jumped at the unexpected question. “Um, what about him?”

  “Do you like him? Are you going out with him or something?”

  To lie, or not to lie. Not a difficult decision at th
at point. “Miles and I have become closer. We aren’t kids anymore. And we do like each other. A great deal. No matter what happens we’ll be friends.”

  “You talk to him a lot. And text with him, don’t you?”

  “Why, yes.” Puzzled, she asked, “Did your dad tell you that?”

  “No, you never liked texting, but now you do it all the time. And you go into your room and close your door after you think I’m asleep.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Nope.” He made circles on the table with his juice glass. “But here’s what I want to know. Why didn’t you tell Dad, back then, I mean, before you married him?”

  She took a sip of the still hot tea and felt its sting on her tongue. “That’s a hard one. But my silence was a mistake. I admit that. No argument.” Regardless of what Lyle had done, she didn’t want to violate the unspoken rule about not talking down the other parent. “Let’s just say that back then I was a little intimidated by your dad’s anger. You see, Miles and I weren’t careless, but I knew it would seem that way.”

  She laid her hand on his arm, as if signaling an important point. “Sometimes things happen even when you’re careful. But no one is perfect, and I didn’t think your dad would understand that I’d made a bad choice to get involved with Miles. Not because of who Miles was, but we were much too young. And we didn’t know each other very well.”

  Evan raised his eyebrows and nodded. Lark suspected her son understood more about his father’s judgment than he was letting on. He also might have more than inklings about the relative freedom of college life and the carefree mind-set that went with it—or could go with it. That had been true for her.

  Lark squeezed his arm. “I’ll answer any questions you want. And I’ll keep you posted about the way things unfold. But, facts are facts. You do have a half sister.”

  Evan quickly rose from the chair and said a perfunctory good-night before disappearing down the small hallway to his room. Lark let out a long low grunt, emblematic of her unhappiness about what Lyle had unleashed. As if the news itself wasn’t serious enough, she’d been forced to deal with it after Lyle put her in the worst possible light.