Ascension of Larks

by Rachel Linden

  “We didn’t want to make you feel left out,” Lena explained, trying to calm Maggie’s ire. “We love you.”

  But even in that statement, Maggie understood it was now two and one, not three. Marco and Lena together and her separate. She isolated herself from them, refusing to acknowledge her hurt, refusing to allow them to get close enough to understand what she didn’t even understand. She stayed busy with her spring project, with the circle of photography friends she’d made on the trip to Greece.

  “Maggie,” Lena pleaded after a few weeks of her roommate’s aloof behavior, “we miss you. We want to see you. Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean things have to change.”

  But she was wrong. Things had changed so fundamentally that Maggie couldn’t see a way to make them right again. The world was off-kilter, and she was off-kilter with it. Her concentration suffered. She lost weight, becoming more solitary and brooding, consumed by angst she couldn’t understand.

  Lena seemed worried but helpless. Marco gave Maggie space but seemed to have no clue as to why she was avoiding him. Maggie herself couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. She couldn’t neatly label her feelings like jars of spices—jealousy, envy, longing, love. Instead, she felt eaten from within by a general discontent, a feeling that the world was wrong, and she was wrongly placed in it.

  One evening, restless and unable to concentrate on her project any longer, she wandered down to the pub where Marco bartended part-time. She had found a Modern Bride magazine in Lena’s toiletry drawer that morning while hunting for tweezers. It had shocked her. The bride on the cover looked like Lena. She shut the drawer as though it contained a terrible secret and left the room. She’d avoided thinking about it all day.

  The pub was crowded, and she slipped in unnoticed, taking a tiny table for two tucked into the corner opposite the bar. Half hidden by a long velvet curtain, she could watch the bar in relative anonymity. A young woman in leather boots and a mini dress took her order, a Coke, and brought it a moment later.

  Maggie sipped her drink slowly, watching Marco at the bar. He fed off the energy of the place, smoothly talking to patrons as he filled their orders, laughing heartily with his head thrown back. She loved that laugh. He flirted professionally with the women, discussed sports scores with the men, all the while his quick hands moving—uncapping bottles of beer, pouring, mixing, popping maraschino cherries and olives into cocktails.

  She felt a flood of warmth as she watched him with a possessive pride, proud that she knew him better than anyone in the room. He’d been hers before anyone’s, before these patrons at the bar or even Lena. She felt a kind of ownership of him, as though she had a right to him, her intimacy with Marco predating anyone else’s.

  A fierce surge of longing swept over her as she watched him. How beautiful he was, how self-possessed and sure. She gripped her glass of Coke, unable to look away. His square hands, that low laugh, the pull of his shoulders against his dress shirt, casually rolled up at the sleeves, the deep, smooth flow of his voice with his accent like warm caramel. And right then and there Maggie realized the truth. She was in love with Marco Firelli.

  At once, everything fell into place. Of course. How could she not have realized it sooner? She must have loved him for so long. The epiphany felt almost anticlimactic, so normal and so right, as though she were recalling something she’d always known but had momentarily forgotten.

  She felt strangely calm as she sat there, half-empty glass in hand, suddenly enlightened. Her revelation had not set the world to rights, but somehow it had set her to rights within it. It felt like coming home. She knew what was inside herself now. She could face it head-on.

  She took another sip, considering. Did Marco know? Would he still be with Lena if he did? He and Lena were opposites, not just in looks, but in personality and even in motivation. Maggie and Marco were twins, born under the same fierce star, driven to succeed. They shared a deep, instinctive understanding she was sure Lena couldn’t relate to. They were kindred spirits, but Marco had never indicated that he felt more for Maggie than affection and friendship. He had been admiring and nothing more. With Lena, he had pursued. With Maggie, he had stayed a step back, never crossing the line between admiration and intent. She swirled her straw around in her glass. Should she tell him how she felt? If she did, it could ruin everything.

  She glanced up at him once more. He was looking straight at her, his expression quizzical. She smiled, inclining her head in a tacit invitation for him to join her. She wouldn’t say anything yet. Perhaps he and Lena would discover for themselves how mismatched they were. Perhaps he would wake up one morning and have an epiphany of his own.

  Marco wiped his hands on a towel and rounded the bar, coming toward her. She steeled herself, her heartbeat quickening. Somewhere on the other side of the room, a patron slipped two quarters into the jukebox. A moment later the air was filled with the pulsing beat of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Maggie laughed as Marco approached her table. She felt half-drunk with self-revelation. “Now, that’s what I call ironic,” she called to him, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She raised her glass to him in a mock salute, then took another sip.

  After Maggie’s epiphany, life returned to almost normal. She found she could be with Marco and Lena again, though her secret burned steadily in her rib cage. Lena seemed relieved by Maggie’s apparent return to normalcy, Marco a little puzzled. Maggie was simply glad to be near him again.

  Someday, she assured herself, he’ll see we’re soul mates in a way he and Lena can never be. Someday he’ll see we should be together. This hope buoyed her. It was strange to see him with Lena now that Maggie knew she loved him, but she had faith that he would open his eyes one day and see the truth. She was confident all would turn out well.

  Marco graduated that spring and was awarded an internship with a prestigious architecture firm nearby. It would keep him near Rhys for the next year until Lena and Maggie graduated. Lena and Maggie were both thrilled.

  None of them went home for the summer, preferring to stay together. They spent long hours in each other’s company, talking, picnicking, boating on the lake with a rowboat they rented by the hour.

  Maggie felt like the heroine in her own novel. She was no longer the third wheel. She was the right one, not yet acknowledged. Her love heightened every sensation. She became aware of nuances, undercurrents, tiny gestures she would have overlooked before. And somewhere in those golden summer hours, Maggie discovered something astounding. Marco wasn’t in love with Lena. He was the perfect boyfriend—attentive, caring, sensitive to her every wish. He brought her white lilies for no reason, took her to concerts he knew she’d love. But something was missing.

  Lena, though, was head over heels in love with Marco. Every night she’d lie in bed across the room from Maggie in the utilitarian one-bedroom apartment they’d rented for their senior year, talking about him, dreamily sketching their life together. But all the while Maggie was becoming increasingly convinced Marco did not share Lena’s enthusiasm. It was something in his eyes. Sometimes when he looked at Lena, Maggie caught a touch of resignation. It gave Maggie hope. She continued to believe he would yet see how wrong he and Lena were for each other, and how perfect Maggie and Marco could be together. She told herself Lena and Marco were like two puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. Surely they would see that before it was too late.

  She felt a sliver of guilt when she realized Marco’s lack of enthusiasm. She loved Lena and wanted her to be happy, but Maggie brushed away her discomfort, reasoning that Lena would never be truly happy with Marco and vice versa, not when they were so ill-suited for one another. It would be better for everyone when Marco and Lena saw the truth.

  Then two weeks before Maggie and Lena began their senior year, Lena’s grandmother collapsed while at a bridge party and was hospitalized. Lena flew home immediately. Both Maggie and Marco offered to accompany her, but she assured them it would be better for them to stay. Marco kissed her at the te
rminal, and they both watched her walk through the security line. Then it was just the two of them.

  They spent the time together in lazy enjoyment. Long meandering hikes through the rolling meadows outside of town, a few foreign language films in either Spanish or Italian with the subtitles turned off, a gesture that made Maggie feel elite. They discussed current events, a book on early pilots Marco was reading, Maggie’s current obsession with photography from the Great Depression. Sometimes in the evenings they would curl up side by side and simply read together, sharing choice tidbits aloud.

  It was perfect, and Maggie wondered if Marco could see it. Once or twice she caught him looking at her with something she almost dared to call longing. It sent a jolt of awareness through her body like an electrical current. For the next few minutes every breath and movement was heightened, every moment hummed with anticipation. But then there was Lena—sweet, beautiful, naïve Lena—calling every night with updates on Grammy’s condition. Marco would leave Maggie’s side for a few minutes to talk to Lena, alone in the hall. He would come back from these talks heavier, silent, often curtailing the evening shortly thereafter.

  The night before Lena returned, Marco cooked a Southern Italian feast for Maggie. He made homemade pasta puttanesca—rich with olives, capers, and tomatoes, accompanied by a full-bodied red wine. They finished the meal with dark, strong espresso and a rich tiramisu he’d whipped up by hand. Afterward they watched a documentary on the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Then Marco pulled out a book of poetry he’d been reading, Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish. He read aloud to her a poem about longing and loss, washed with moonlight and desire. He read it slowly, not taking his eyes off the page.

  Maggie sat beside him, riveted by the words. Their thighs were touching. Maggie could feel the heat of him through his trouser leg. She couldn’t breathe. When he finished, he abruptly closed the book. He would not meet her eyes but stared straight ahead, face as fixed as a Roman statue, brooding and stern. She sat up slowly, inching closer until she was facing him.

  “Marco,” she said softly, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might fly from her chest. He turned to her, so near she could feel his breath on her lips. She swallowed, gazing straight into his eyes, letting his look sear her. “I love you.”

  He kissed her, hard and deep. He tasted of cabernet and olives. She felt dizzy, as though he was pulling all the oxygen from her lungs. He crushed her to his chest, and she could feel his heart pounding against her breasts. When he finally pulled back, he released her quickly, as though she’d burned him. He stood abruptly and backed away.

  “Marco.” She put out a hand to him. Surely he would see now what they could be to each other. “Marco, wait.”

  He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked down, breathing heavily, as though steeling himself. When he looked up, he met her eyes with no hesitation. “I’m going to ask Lena to marry me when she gets home. I bought a ring.”

  Maggie stared at him, dumbfounded. Her hand dropped slowly to her side. After all this, how could he possibly still not see the truth? That they belonged together. That she, not Lena, was the one made for him.

  She opened her mouth but found she couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say. He came forward, kneeling before her, cupping her face in those strong hands, running his thumbs across her cheeks, pressing against the skin of her jawline so hard that she found a faint blue bruise the size of an olive there the next morning.

  “Maggie, my Maggie,” he murmured. “Listen to me. I adore you. Since the first moment I laid eyes on you. But we’re too much alike. Don’t you see? We’d tear each other apart. I’ve tried to make it work in my mind a thousand times. And every time there’s only one ending—one of us has to give up what we love. We are too strong for each other.”

  His voice was low, almost pleading, as though he were desperate for her to understand and somehow approve of his choice. “Lena . . . I love Lena, and she wants me to be happy. If I’m happy, she’s happy. She’s never known the . . . the crazy hunger that drives you and me. I can make a life with Lena, a good life. I need her. She’s loyal and gentle and loving. But you and I . . . we’re stars in different orbits. We’d burn each other out.”

  He stopped for a moment, looking at her with an almost tender expression on his face, a little wistful. But when he spoke his tone was determined. He had made his decision and would not be swayed. “I won’t do that to you, Maggie. I won’t ask you to give up who you are. So I’m going to marry Lena. Do you hear me?” He shook her a little, as though trying to shake his conviction into her bones.

  She nodded, stunned, feeling numb. Somewhere inside of her a dark fissure of disbelief and shock was cracking her fragile hope in two. In the silence after his words, her heart began to keen.

  Chapter Seven

  MARCO AND LENA’S WEDDING WAS A LAVISH affair. Lena’s parents spared no expense. Ingrid, Lena’s mother, an elegant woman with manicured nails and a sharp eye for detail, took the event in hand, scheduling it for late May, just two weeks after Maggie and Lena’s graduation.

  “It’s going to be at the conservatory in St. Paul,” Lena explained, glowing and toying with the princess-cut diamond solitaire on her left hand, enjoying the novelty of seeing it glittering there. “And, Maggie, Marco and I want to know if you’ll stand up with us, for both of us. Just you.”

  Maggie, caught off guard, agreed. She could think of no alternative, no excuse good enough to say no. For the remainder of their senior year, Lena was caught up in the whirlwind of wedding planning. Maggie and Marco joined in when they were needed, which was rarely, offering opinions on petit four flavors (lemon with butter cream frosting) and the color of the invitation ribbon (pale green) but little else. Maggie numbly submitted to a barrage of details each night, drifting to sleep with Lena cataloging possible appetizers, poring over invitation fonts, and dwelling endlessly on veil designs. Maggie allowed herself to be fitted for a custom dress, a pale-green silk sheath, and submitted to a dozen different hairstyle trials. Ingrid was incensed that Maggie was the only attendant, that Marco wouldn’t pick several dashing college friends and Lena wouldn’t choose among her cousins. But on that point Lena was adamant.

  “Only Maggie, Mother, and that’s final. She’s our best friend, and we want her to share the day with us. I won’t discuss it anymore.”

  Those words were like a knife twisting in Maggie’s heart. She was sharing their day, but she could not share their joy. She still couldn’t believe Marco would actually go through with it. Lena was overjoyed, reveling in wedding details and planning their imminent move to New York, where Marco had landed a starting position with a prestigious architecture firm, but Maggie saw the look in Marco’s eyes in unguarded moments. It was the look of a man who has resigned himself to something he knows is good for him but does not necessarily want.

  Three weeks before the wedding, Maggie confronted him. Lena was at a conservatory student appreciation dinner, and Maggie had taken her rare absence as an opportunity. She’d called Marco and asked him to meet her at the lake near the edge of campus. The willows were budding new green and the air was chilly but fresh, smelling of damp earth and sprouting things. It was twilight, the sky the cobalt blue of a medicine bottle. Against it, Marco was just a dark outline, the nuances of his face replaced with bold strokes, the stark jut of a cheekbone, a square angle of brow. They walked side by side for a few minutes, the lapping of the lake water and the twitter of sparrows settling in for the night the only sounds around them.

  “Why are you doing this?” Maggie demanded suddenly, rounding on him in the middle of the footpath.

  He stopped, hands in his pockets. “Doing what?” He sounded surprised.

  “Going through with this wedding when you and I both know it’s not what you really want.” She said it boldly, presumptuously, stating a fact only the two of them knew.

  He shrugged. “I want it enough.” His voice was calm, impassive.

  “Are you
serious?” She stared at him, aghast, in the near darkness. “That’s not fair . . . to Lena or to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well,” she sputtered, “it’s misleading. You don’t love her like she thinks you do. At the very least you should be excited about getting married, and Lena should be getting someone who adores her. Don’t you both deserve better than whatever this is?”

  “Whatever this is,” Marco stated calmly, “is the fact that I love Lena and asked her to marry me. And she loves me and said yes. The end.”

  “That’s not the whole story,” Maggie accused. “Lena wouldn’t want to be half-loved. And why are you so bent on marrying her when you know she’s not what you really want?” On impulse she stepped forward, cupping his face in her hands. The stubble of his beard scraped her palms. She rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

  Marco jumped back as though her touch were a hot coal. He raised his hands, putting distance between them.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice low, a warning tone that sent chills down her spine. “I’ve made my decision. There is nothing to discuss. And how do you know what I want? Do I want someone like you, who shares my passion and understands what it’s like to burn for something we might never achieve, to love something more than we might ever love a person? Is that what you think I want?” He made a gesture in the last glimmer of light, a denial of her presumptions. Maggie said nothing, rooted to the spot by his words.

  “Do I want someone who understands me, but whom I can never make happy and who could never make me happy?” Marco continued, his tone relentless. “Hmm, is that what would be best for all of us? Because let me assure you, Maggie, I do love Lena. I’ll make a good life for her. And I asked her to marry me because I want her to be my wife and the mother of my children. Lena is loving and loyal and generous. She will work her fingers to the bone for me and for our family. That’s what I want in a wife. Not this. Not you.”