Girl in the Spotlight

by Virginia McCullough

  Without responding to Miles’s words, Eric described the bubble the skaters lived in.

  Miles resisted the urge to interrupt. He already knew this part, and he desperately wanted to get on with more important things—these so-called terms.

  By the time Eric finished, Miles had been put in his place, more or less. But, oddly, even the chilly tone hadn’t put him off Eric. In fact, Miles realized, he respected him more for it. Overnight, the Olsons’ world had been rocked, just as his and Lark’s lives had been changed. As for the way forward, the only thing Miles knew for sure was that Perrie Lynn would be told nothing about Lark or Miles for at least a couple of months.

  Eric stopped to take a breath. “You’ll be hearing from Lisa Mandel, our attorney.”

  “That’s fine,” Miles said. “I—we—expected you would protect your daughter any way you can. And believe me when I say I never anticipated casually being invited into Perrie Lynn’s life. I hope you get that.”

  Eric sighed. “When it comes to Perrie Lynn there’s no such thing as being too careful. That’s why I needed to have a talk with you.” His voice softer, he added, “One dad to another. I was told you have your own little girl now.”

  The spinning sensation lessened with the turn of the conversation. “Yes, I do, Eric. That’s why I understand your terms.”

  “Let’s get something straight,” Eric said, chuckling softly. “I’m not just Perrie Lynn’s father, if you know what I mean. I’m her dad. I was Daddy until she was almost sixteen.”

  Miles knew well the indescribable pleasure of a little girl calling him Daddy. “If I’m lucky like you, Eric, I’ll be Daddy for a few more years. By the way, I’m still in shock, like you and Maxine. You see, Lark and I have only been in touch for a couple of days. Right after the baby...uh, Perrie Lynn...was born, we went our separate ways.” She asked me not to ever contact her again. But Eric wouldn’t care about that part of the story.

  “Hmm... I see. Well, I suppose I’ve come across as a little harsh here,” Eric said, a hint of regret in his voice. “Maxine and I still talk about the day we brought Perrie Lynn home. The happiest day of our lives. Our families were thrilled. Her three grandparents were in the house waiting for us. My mother was already gone, but my dad was about as happy as I’d ever seen him. He’s been watching Perrie Lynn from his place down in Santa Fe—never misses a performance on TV.”

  Miles felt a catch in his throat. The image of a grandpa loving his little granddaughter nearly did him in. Something in the conversation made every muscle in his body ache. From regret? Maybe. Miles had to finally face the fact that he hadn’t been all that young when Perrie Lynn was born—plenty of twenty-year-olds became good dads. How immature he’d been.

  “We made a promise,” Eric said softly, “that we’d help her find her roots—”

  “But not now,” Miles interrupted, enunciating the words. “I get it...we get it. We really do. We’ll be like your father, watching from a distance.”

  A couple of seconds passed in silence.

  “Are you certain Ms. McGee is with you on this?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Miles replied, exuding confidence, although doubts insisted on breaking through. He’d already witnessed Lark’s resolve melt and then harden again in a matter of minutes.

  “I had to ask. It’s my job to make sure Perrie Lynn and her mom have whatever they need to get that girl to the NorAms for the big show and then on to the Internationals for the even bigger one.”

  “Brooke, my little eight-year-old, told me all about it,” Miles said, deliberately lightening his tone. “It sounds like I’m pandering somehow, but she’s a big Perrie Lynn fan. The other day, Brooke explained that going to the Internationals is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  Eric laughed. “Hey—correction. It’s the rainbow, but don’t go talking about gold yet. She only graduated from high school last June. The girl’s got time—and getting a medal at all is astounding.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal,” replied Miles.

  “So, you won’t hear from us for months,” Eric said. “It’s all about Perrie Lynn now.”

  With that, the call was done. And the weather had broken. The boarding call for Miles’s flight came over the loudspeaker. Not wanting to grill Lark in a crowded plane, he decided his call to her would have to wait.

  * * *

  “COULDN’T YOU HAVE found a minute to even send a text?” Miles asked. “When Eric called I had no idea that all the steps had more or less been bypassed.”

  “A text was too remote, even cold.” How was she to know Eric would reach out to Miles? And so soon? “I had to handle a couple things. I was just about to call.”

  “Well, maybe so, but I was blindsided.”

  “I’m sorry, Miles. Really, I am.”

  “It would have helped if you’d left me a message, even if it said you couldn’t talk. Don’t you get that?”

  “I do, but—but...you won’t understand.”

  “Understand what, Lark?”

  When his tone softened, she let her guard down. “I couldn’t call, because I couldn’t talk. I could barely move at first. When I got off the phone, it was...I mean, the relief was overwhelming. I can’t describe it.”

  Silence.

  “Please, Lark, try.”

  “Okay. The truth is, I couldn’t stop sobbing. After eighteen years of worrying, and now suddenly the joy of knowing what happened to... Maxine’s empathy, her kindness, it all just overwhelmed me. So I cried. I couldn’t stop. And then I had to move. I started to pace. I can’t even—”

  “Oh, Lark, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, rising from the chair and going into the kitchen, “but I don’t think you understand, as much as you might want to.”

  “When you blurt out things like that, you box me in as a less involved father.” Miles’s tone was edgy.

  “Neither of us was involved,” Lark snapped. She picked up the kettle and filled it with water for tea. “That’s the point.”

  “Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?”

  Sighing, she said, “No. But at the moment, I’m frustrated. We should be, oh, I don’t know, celebrating. That’s not exactly the right word, but it’s the best I can do.”

  “Right.” He laughed. “Trust the wordsmith to rack her brain for the perfect word that expresses exactly what this is about.”

  “It’s all happened so fast. I don’t even know how to think about it.”

  “We can start by exchanging some information. Eric said you’d tell me why they called quickly after we contacted Declan.”

  “Ah, no wonder you’re impatient.”

  While the water heated for tea, Lark recounted her conversation with Maxine. “For eighteen years, she had my name in the back of her mind.”

  “I’m really glad,” Miles said, relief permeating his voice. “Ha! Look at all the trouble your beautiful name saved us.”

  Suddenly self-conscious, Lark said, “I know, and that’s part of what washed over me, Miles. I didn’t intend not to call. I just couldn’t make my brain connect with my mouth.”

  “It’s okay. I get it now. Sort of, anyway. It’s all so unbelievable.”

  “Yep. We’re sitting here in near shock because their lawyer made a mistake eighteen years ago.” She moved away from the counter as the sound of the water heating in the kettle grew louder. “But we’re in for a long wait.”

  “Hmm...not really, if you consider what Perrie Lynn is doing.”

  She scoffed at that. “Quit being so reasonable, would you?”

  “It’s my job,” Miles quipped. “I have a business—clients—because I’m the voice of reason.”

  “Speaking of that, where are you?”

  “Milwaukee. I�
�m speaking at a manufacturing conference and then I’ll be home for a few days.”

  Lark smiled. It didn’t take much imagination to see Miles standing tall in front of audiences, handsome in a suit and tie. The appealing kid had grown into a worldly and self-assured man. “I bet you’re good at what you do.”

  “I like to think so,” he said. “It can be a travel grind, though.”

  They hadn’t talked in detail about their work before, but she wanted to engage, defuse the earlier anger and get right with Miles. “No jitters or nerves when the introduction is over?”

  “Always,” he said with a chuckle, “but in a good way. I get the kind of butterflies that raise my game.”

  “Stage excitement, not stage fright?”

  “Something like that.”

  Dead end. It was so often like that. Lark had the sense there was more to say, but she didn’t know what.

  “Well,” she said, “I should get back to work.”

  “Um, yeah, I need to get down to a conference reception and mingle.”

  “And I bet you’re good at that, too. Let’s stay in touch. Christmas is coming up fast.”

  “And the North American Figure Skating Competition follows close behind,” he said. “So, yes, I’ll text, call, whatever. And if you hear from anyone...well, you get the picture.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll let you know. ’Bye, then.”

  The call ended. Awkwardly. When would she see him again? Odd how much he was on her mind now that she was mulling over the past. And the future. The events of the last couple of days even had her second-guessing their decision to get in touch with Declan. She stopped that train of thought. Who am I kidding? They hadn’t decided anything. She had made the choice and Miles hadn’t argued.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LARK CLOSED HER eyes and rested her head on the back of the couch in the TV room. It had been a half-hearted kind of day, she thought, playing with words to describe her divided attention. That included feigning disappointment when her mother called to beg off their tentative lunch date. With the increase of holiday shoppers and one salesperson out sick, her mom’s days off vanished. That was fine with Lark, convinced as she was that it was best to keep news of Perrie Lynn to herself a while longer. She wasn’t ready to delve into the past with her mother and spill her big secret.

  Meanwhile, Lark managed to finish the first article in her series on migraine headaches. Now she was giving half her attention to the political commentators on TV. It was after 10:00 p.m., but she wasn’t ready to climb into bed just yet. She was both tired and wired, living on two levels, trying to patiently wait while carrying on and working as usual.

  She lifted her head when she heard Evan’s footsteps in the tiny hall separating the two bedrooms, bathroom and linen closet on this side of the cottage. Her bedroom and her postage-stamp-size bath were on the other side of the kitchen and living room.

  “You okay?” he asked, sticking his head in the room.

  “Fine, honey.” She grinned. “I’m trying to decide if I should get up and go to bed or keep watching news.”

  “I was talking to Dad. He was going over the Christmas plans.”

  She muted the TV. “Oh? Anything different. I thought it was all settled.”

  Since their divorce, she and Lyle split their holiday time with Evan—their son spent Christmas Eve with Lyle and his family, Christmas Day with her parents and her brother Dennis’s family.

  “He wants me to go shopping with him this weekend to help him pick out stuff on his list.”

  Lark bit her tongue to keep from blurting some sarcastic remark. Typical of Lyle to wait until nearly the last minute. Smugly, she patted herself on the back for having already done her shopping. But she wouldn’t comment on the small stuff. As long as Lyle didn’t mess with the Christmas Day arrangement, she was happy.

  “Who does he need to shop for?” she asked, pretending to be interested.

  “I dunno. Probably everybody.”

  Evan spoke in as few words as possible, his aloof attitude typical for his age. But he didn’t yet carry that cynical edge to his voice that so often characterized Lyle.

  “Well, you’ll have a good time. Enjoy the big festive crowds at the mall and all that.”

  “I’d rather ski.”

  “You’ll be doing that, too, soon enough.”

  Lyle had planned a three-day ski trip during Christmas break, something she couldn’t afford to give their son. At first she resented the goodies Lyle provided, and with such a casual attitude, too. But on the other hand, things like skiing up in central Wisconsin and camping during the summer made Evan feel as if his life wasn’t so different from his friends’ whose parents were still together.

  “Do you ever think about ice-skating?” she blurted. “Do you remember when I took you out on the pond? You had brand-new skates.”

  He responded with a quick shrug. “Sort of.”

  “Okay, you didn’t enjoy it very much,” she admitted. “Maybe you were too young.”

  “Seems like a waste of time unless you’re going to play hockey. We don’t have hockey at school.” He grinned and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t like it, anyway.”

  “But skating itself is fun, Evan. There’s nothing like building up speed on a stretch of ice.”

  He scrunched his face. “If you say so.”

  “Message received.” She cast a sheepish grin Evan’s way, aware it was time to back off. “But anytime you want to give it another try, you can rent skates at the pond.”

  “Okay.”

  That’s as far as she was going to get. Not that it mattered. Opening up the topic was her substitute for sitting him down to tell him something big. Really big. A sister. What would he think of that? Probably not much, she admitted, at least at first.

  As Lark’s mind drifted to the future conversation she’d have with Evan, he said good-night and gave her a quick wave, then went back into his room and shut the door. How would she announce the news that he had a half sister? She expected shock, maybe anger in response. He’d no doubt be embarrassed. Feel left out, displaced somehow? Maybe.

  Before she talked to her son, though, the painful and risky conversation with Lyle loomed. Each time she started down that road in her mind, she shifted into Reverse and backed her way out of it. The exchange with Miles about their ex-spouses came back to her, especially his troubled expression when she explained why she’d kept that part of her past from Lyle. It was as if Miles had never considered using someone’s vulnerabilities to his advantage.

  Her buzzing phone yanked her back to the present. She smiled when she saw his name on the screen.

  “It’s not too late to call, I hope,” Miles said.

  “Not at all. I’m here with my feet up in the TV room watching a cable news show. Not concentrating too well, though.” She pressed the power button and both the picture and the sound disappeared. “There, that’s better.”

  “Can you talk?” he asked.

  She got to her feet and walked through the house to her bedroom. “I can now. I’m in my room, just shutting the door.” Suddenly uneasy, she asked, “Do you have news?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that we haven’t spoken in a couple of days, not since the lawyers and all that.”

  His voice was smooth, a radio voice. No wonder he was such a good professional speaker.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re mentally going over and over your conversation with Eric.”

  “Sort of. I understand him, so even though he was abrupt, I get it.”

  “I understood Maxine, maybe because she could identify with me, just as I could with her. But when Lisa-the-lawyer called a couple of days ago and was so terse on the phone, I resented her. Plain and simple.” Knowing exactly h
ow she’d sound, Lark plowed ahead, anyway. “And I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought about her so-called conditions.”

  “Whoa! But you do understand we have to stay away. Right?”

  She heard apprehension in his voice. “Oh, don’t take me so literally, Miles. You know a part of me wants to throw caution to the wind and all that.”

  “Lark—”

  “Don’t worry, I would do no such thing. I have a knee-jerk response to being lectured about anything, so I was a little irked by the attorney. She was so different from Maxine.” She paused. “But she’s just doing her job.”

  “Okay, then. You’ve convinced me.” A muffled sound came through the phone.

  “Did you just snicker?” she teased.

  “More like a snort. A little irked, huh? I’ll be sure not to bring up Lisa-the-lawyer again. I promise.”

  She hesitated, almost embarrassed to ask. “Look, you’re the only person I can talk to about Perrie Lynn. Aren’t you almost bursting, you know, wanting to shout the news to the world?”

  “One step at a time, Lark.”

  “You really are logical,” she said, laughing.

  “So I’m told—and not always in such a nice tone.”

  Another awkward moment, Lark thought, because she had no light response to keep the banter going.

  “I actually called to run something by you,” Miles said. “But it’s probably too late. I mean, because you’ve already got Christmas plans.”

  “For Christmas Day,” she said. “I take Evan to my brother’s house.”

  “But Christmas Eve?”

  “He goes to Lyle’s family. Then he drives Evan to my brother’s house in the morning.”

  “Oh, well, then, maybe we could have dinner together on Christmas Eve. What would you think of that?”

  Lark grinned. Was she really excited at the prospect of seeing him again? She tried to moderate her tone a little when she said, “Sounds good. Did you have a place in mind?”

  “Something close to you. Do you have a favorite restaurant in Two Moon Bay?”

  She knew exactly where she wanted to go. “Since you asked, the Half Moon Café runs a Christmas Eve special buffet—roast beef to grilled salmon and everything to go with it. I could make a reservation. You wouldn’t believe how many people—even big families—have dinner there on Christmas Eve.”