Girl in the Spotlight Page 2

  He swiped his knuckle across his upper lip again. “Really?”

  “And it’s not like a secret or anything. Maybe ’cuz she doesn’t look like her mom and dad.”

  “I see.” He rubbed his chest, as if sending a signal to his heart to slow down.

  The camera zoomed closer to Perrie Lynn sitting on the bench next to her coach. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The wide smile that took over her face, her olive skin and the large dark eyes. And the one-of-a-kind widow’s peak. Like Lark. The birthday. Minnesota. It all added up.

  Suddenly the audience roared as the scores came up. Perrie Lynn got to her feet and thrust her arms over her head to wave to the crowd. He heard the commentators talk about her “personal best,” and “having a shot at the International Figure Skating Championship.” One warned she had to do well at the upcoming North American Figure Skating Competition.

  “Did they just say Perrie Lynn could go to the Internationals?” he asked Brooke.

  “I guess so. Looks like she won the bronze. That’s a big deal, because no one expected it. Woo-hoo!” Brooke laughed. “Mamie is probably jumping up and down right now.”

  Wild speculation whirled through his head, spiraled down through his body and left him weak. Calm down. It’s a coincidence. Happenstance.

  Brooke sighed. “I can’t wait for the NorAms.”

  “And when does that happen?” He forced the question through his nearly closed throat.

  Brooke frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  “Want me to look it up?” Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed his phone.

  Brooke leaned over his shoulder and watched him search for North American Figure Skating Competition.

  “See, it came right up. It’s in January. Let’s see when the Internationals start.”

  “Mamie said February,” Brooke said.

  “Right you are.” He focused on the screen, fighting the urge to search for Lark online. He’d wait until he was alone, but once he found her, he’d contact her immediately. She’d either take him seriously or brush off the whole thing. He wouldn’t know until he tried. Or maybe this was crazy. These little details could add up to exactly zero.

  With the skating program coming to a close, the network had reporters backstage for interviews. When the camera focused on Perrie Lynn, she waved with both hands, her face still showing the thrill of a winner. The curve of her mouth set in a smile sent a pleasant shiver through him. In that moment of happiness, she might have been Lark.

  His phone chimed, alerting him to a new text. He glanced at the screen. “It’s your mom. She just turned into the complex.”

  With Brooke following, he got up and crossed the room, then lifted her coat off the hook next to the front door. “Here, put your jacket on and go out to the car. I’ll get the rest of your things.”

  He hurried to Brooke’s room and stuffed her clothes into her pack. The hairbrush and pajamas stayed at his house. Only the clothes and her favorite doll-of-the-moment went back and forth, along with the library books he grabbed off the nightstand. With his arms full, he headed down the hall and out the front door to the driveway.

  “Sorry,” he said to Andi when she buzzed down the passenger window. “We got involved in figure skating.” Brooke pulled her backpack through the open window and put it between her knees, then rested the pile of books in her lap.

  “No problem,” Andi said pleasantly. “We have plenty of time to get to the dinner.”

  “You give your parents my best.”

  When he had Brooke for a weekend, which wasn’t as often as he’d like because of his work schedule, Miles usually kept her until Monday morning, when he dropped her off at school. But this was a special occasion, a retirement dinner for Andi’s dad. Miles was okay with letting Brooke go back to her mother early because he harbored no negativity toward his former in-laws. They’d been nothing but kind, had welcomed him into the family and then expressed sadness when he left it four years later, shortly after Brooke’s second birthday.

  Six months after that, Andi had impulsively married some guy named Roger, a less than blissful union lasting only a few months. That fiasco caused Miles’s stock to rise in his ex-in-laws’ eyes. They gave him credit for staying close to Brooke, especially during what turned out to be Andi’s tumultuous second divorce.

  He squeezed Brooke’s arm through the window before giving the roof of the car a quick pat. After Andi raised the window and pulled away, he watched until the car disappeared around the next corner onto the winding road that led out of the complex. When he turned to go back up the walk to his town house, he waved to Edie and Christopher, his elderly neighbors two units down. They were sitting by their patio doors, as they did most days, acting like unpaid security guards as they chronicled the comings and goings of the residents of Bay Trails, the multiunit condo development he’d moved into when he and Andi separated.

  As for Edie and Christopher, he’d long harbored the feeling they didn’t wholeheartedly approve of him, or maybe they found all single dads suspicious. On the other hand, they assured him they kept an eye on his unit during his frequent absences and were unfailingly pleasant to Brooke. That’s all that mattered.

  Back inside, he wandered into Brooke’s room, straightening up the stuffed animals and making the bed, but all the while images of Perrie Lynn spinning like a magical top raced through his mind. He had a hunch, a strong one. But what to do? Squash it, forget it? Not a chance.

  Lark McGee passed through his mind whenever he wondered about the baby—that’s what he used to say, the baby. But as the years passed, he’d rephrased that. Whoever the baby had become, wherever she lived and whatever she was doing that very minute, she was their girl, their child. He always thought about Lark herself on their child’s birthday. Today.

  Unless she’d moved, Lark likely wasn’t far away. He knew a few of the basics. He and Lark had both eventually come home from college and settled in northeast Wisconsin. They’d each married and started their own families. He didn’t know the state of her marriage. Maybe she’d had better luck with love than he had. Miles knew she’d married because he’d run into her once about five years back, an awkward encounter consisting of three minutes of superficial small talk. She’d been coming out of a mall in Green Bay as he was heading into it. She’d introduced the boy with her as her son. Miles remembered little about him, other than noting he was older than his Brooke and had inherited Lark’s light brown hair. Miles had greeted the boy, who returned a shy smile. He’d then explained he was on the hunt for a present for Brooke’s third birthday.

  Her eyes had darkened, but just for a second. “How nice,” she said, pleasantly. “I’m happy for you.”

  Miles had almost blurted that he was divorced, but he’d stopped himself in time. Lark wouldn’t have taken the slightest interest in his marriage, a sad tale of a mismatch that had revealed itself all too quickly and hadn’t changed with Brooke’s arrival.

  He and Lark had limited their conversation to an exchange of basics, including the fact that she lived with her husband in Two Moon Bay, a lakeside town not too far from his town house in Green Bay. He in turn said he had a condo out near the airport and the botanical garden. When they’d run out of trivial details to exchange, their conversation had come to an excruciating halt. They’d both laughed nervously, wished each other well and gone on about their business.

  Miles winced as he remembered that encounter. He wandered into the kitchen, where his laptop sat open on the table. He typed Lark McGee into the search box. It was the only name he had for her. If she’d changed it when she married, he’d have to find some other way to reach her.

  He breathed deeply to calm the shaky waves of emotion that had been crashing over him from the instant he’d seen a close-up of Perrie Lynn. Her coloring and nearly black hair. His skin, his hair. Not particularly unique,
he reminded himself. But the wide smile, the widow’s peak? Lark’s distinctive features.

  Okay, he’d concede the chances were good the skater’s physical resemblance and the fact of her adoption were coincidences. But on national TV he’d heard three commentators wish Perrie Lynn a happy birthday. Her eighteenth birthday.

  For the first time in his memory, he was glad Brooke wasn’t with him on Sunday night. He usually hated to see her leave even one minute early. He especially enjoyed a companionable ride to her school on Monday morning. That was true, even if Brooke’s accusations that he wasn’t paying attention to some of her meandering conversations were justified. He had to watch it. His little girl was getting old enough to notice that in these days of texting and emails, he was at least half-distracted more often than he cared to admit.

  His search yielded pages of citations for Lark, including her website as the first item. She used her own name, professionally, anyway. He clicked on the link and a second later, there she was. He grinned at the small photo on her home page. He’d always thought of her as pretty in a distinctive way, defined by the prominent widow’s peak at the top of a heart-shaped face. Her smile appealed, too, maybe because it looked like the prelude to a hearty laugh. Lark’s hair hadn’t changed and, of course, neither had her clear blue eyes.

  Miles drew in a breath. Wow. If Perrie Lynn really was their daughter, the mix of their features had made her an unusual beauty, like Lark.

  The website filled in a few impressive facts about what Lark had done with her life. Like him, she worked for herself. He hadn’t known Lark for very long, but she’d talked of becoming a writer, and she’d accomplished that goal. She was a health and parenting journalist, and an impressive list of her latest published articles appeared on the right side of the screen.

  The short bio told him she still lived in Two Moon Bay. He knew that town, if only because it was usually noted as one of northeast Wisconsin’s most charming among the collection of quaint small towns on Lake Michigan. It was about an hour away from where he lived on the far west side of Green Bay. But that was enough distance to explain why he and Lark hadn’t crossed paths more than once in all these years. Since Brooke spent so much time with Andi’s family at their cottage on a small lake up in northern Wisconsin, Miles rarely took his daughter to the Lake Michigan shore.

  Miles clicked on the “About” page, quickly scanning the longer bio that reinforced his first impression that Lark had done herself proud. She’d even coauthored three books with doctors. He’d fulfilled his dream when he’d found his niche as a consultant and speaker specializing in collaboration and team building, and now he took satisfaction in knowing Lark had also made her dream come true. She deserved her success. He was certain of that.

  He mulled over his options. He could forget the whole thing and simply write off the afternoon as a string of coincidences. He scoffed out loud. Out of the question. Not when he couldn’t get his mind off the dazzling girl who had turned eighteen that very day. Was there any possibility Lark would have forgotten their daughter’s birthday? Somehow, he didn’t think so.

  He scanned the bio again. It said nothing about a husband, but he’d need to tread carefully. She could be married and have chosen not to put that detail in her bio. He noted she’d written many articles about kids’ health issues and tied them to parenting, so mentioning a son in her bio made sense.

  Deciding to keep it simple, Miles used the email address on the website and typed in his cell number and a message: Need to talk, please call tonight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LARK SIPPED HER decaf coffee, hoping the waiter would come by to top off her cup. Pretending to reach into her handbag that sat on the floor, she checked her wristwatch. Only 7:45 p.m. This dinner was crawling by. She’d give it another thirty minutes, and then she could politely make her exit.

  Why had she said yes to this fix-up in the first place? To distract herself? She’d never forgotten the significance of the date, so what made her think this year would be different? But she’d behaved as if packing her schedule would allow the day to pass unnoticed. Lark had started the morning with brunch with half a dozen women friends from her book club, followed by Christmas shopping in a nearby town. That should have been sufficient to keep her distracted. Of course, it could have been fifty women wandering the streets of Paris and her mind still would have drifted into the past. But she’d known one thing for sure—this could well be the year she’d finally disclose what she’d kept hidden in her heart for so long.

  Lark had always thought it curious that no one could look at her and detect the slightest clue about her secrets or regrets or her deepest hopes. In every external way she’d lived out the adoption cliché. She’d gone on with her life. But every year, as November faded into the flurry of December and the holidays, the memory of the tiny newborn baby she’d held in her arms, oh, so briefly, rippled beneath the rhythm of each day, strengthening and intensifying as the date came closer. The rest of the year, Lark managed to tuck that period of her life away. Instead of dominating her days, it was more like a low hum in the background, not intrusive or disruptive, but never completely vanishing, either.

  “Lark is a big movie fan,” Dawn said, casting a pointed look her way.

  Hearing her name gave her a jolt and forced her to refocus. She shifted in her chair and said, “I sure am.”

  “But I bet you and Dawn only like chick flicks.” Bruce, Lark’s blind date, mocked a reproachful tone.

  “I plead guilty.” Lark grinned. “Bring on a screen filled with women talking about life.”

  The loudest groan came from Dawn’s boyfriend, Chip, whose youthful looks matched his nickname. Real name, Henry. Lark found it odd, even a little off-putting, that he’d never outgrown being called Chip.

  “I guess that means you’ll pass on the latest zombie takeover movie,” Bruce teased.

  “We’ll both take a pass, thank you,” Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

  Lark could find nothing wrong with Bruce, an affable fortyish bachelor looking to settle down. At long last, Dawn claimed. Too bad he wasn’t romantically appealing—to Lark, anyway.

  Guilt alone forced her back into the conversation. Filled with optimism about introducing Lark to Bruce, Dawn had done everything a best friend could to make this evening a success.

  Lark sent Dawn a reassuring smile. It wasn’t her friend’s fault that on this particular evening she couldn’t quiet her inner turmoil and be 100 percent present at the table. She vowed to be pleasant, even enthusiastic, until she could duck out. Thankfully, she had her own car, so there’d be no awkward moments at the door to contend with.

  “How long have you two been friends?” Bruce asked, pointing back and forth between Dawn and Lark.

  “Not all that long, really,” Dawn responded. “Three years or so. We bonded over the snack committee for our sons’ basketball team.”

  “Dawn and I noted that it was left to the mothers to figure out the snacks on game days.” Lark knew she sounded resentful, but so what? Way too many of these school sports rituals fell to the moms to handle, as if the dads couldn’t manage to pick up boxes of granola bars on their way to the games.

  Dawn playfully bumped her shoulder against Chip’s. “We actually solidified our friendship over the plan we hatched to get the kids’ dads more involved.”

  “Did it work?” Bruce asked.

  “Not really,” Lark said, chuckling, “but we planted a seed, or so we like to think.”

  This small talk was getting old. As close as Lark was to Dawn, she’d never for one minute considered confiding details about certain parts of her past. Lark could talk freely and without embarrassment about her ill-fated marriage and, paradoxically, her confidence-building divorce. She had no trouble bragging about her son, or grousing about her sometimes troublesome parents, but she’d become completely re
signed to silence about one of the most significant—and wrenching—events of her life.

  Lark was content to listen as Dawn switched topics. “Lark and I have our best times during our weekly coffee dates, where we brainstorm about our businesses. We’ve both worked for ourselves for years, but it can be isolating, too, especially for Lark. She spends so much time hunched over her laptop.”

  “Ah, yes,” Lark said, putting the back of her hand on her forehead, “the loneliness of the writer in her garret. Seriously, though, I do have my nose buried in research much of the time. My regular trips to the Bean Grinder with Dawn provide the best breaks.”

  “It sounds interesting, what you do,” Chip said. “Were you a science major in school?”

  “No. Typical English major, specifically creative writing and literature. Not the most practical degree, but rewarding in other ways.”

  “Seems so,” Bruce said, smiling in a genuinely admiring way.

  By the time they’d finished their coffee, Lark’s spirits had lifted. They’d passed a pleasant hour chatting about Dawn’s latest PR client, a new fitness center and Lark’s recent series of articles about learning disabilities for a parenting magazine. Chip and Bruce contributed stories about office politics in the accounting department of the energy consortium they worked for.

  The stilted conversation that defined the atmosphere over dinner had subtly given way to an amicable camaraderie as they topped off the evening with blueberry pie and coffee. By the time they said good-night in front of the restaurant, Lark was sincere in telling Bruce she’d enjoy seeing him again. Perhaps for dinner one night soon.

  And for almost one whole hour, she’d pushed the memories into the storage box in her mind. She arrived home and let herself into her house, grateful that Evan was with his dad for the weekend. After shedding her coat and boots, she filled the kettle to make herb tea. Then she sat at her table to check her phone, starting with the texts. Nothing urgent. Mom seeing if they could meet for lunch at the Half Moon Café soon, maybe on her day off from the gift shop in town, where she’d recently been promoted to assistant manager. Lark mentally pictured her day planner. She could probably manage time for lunch with her mother. She hadn’t seen her in quite a while.