2. Chapter 2 #2
Lark loved Daisy, and Daisy loved her. There was no question about it.
Even when Daisy’s arthritis got so bad she could barely make it out of her doggy bed, she’d come padding over to Lark whenever she came over.
I have a picture of the two of them sitting in the grass at a park, just looking out at nothing.
But when we put Daisy down, Lark was there.
She held my hand in silence while I tried—unsuccessfully—not to cry.
And then when it was all over, she went home for a few hours.
I remember thinking I just wanted her to stay, but I understood that she needed some space.
Turns out she crafted a whole shadow box with pictures and Daisy’s favorite toy Lark had swiped from my room.
I would have stolen her collar, too, but you wouldn’t let it out of your sight , she had said. I laughed then—a huge, wet sound that caught me completely off guard. I still don’t know why I thought that was so funny. Something about Lark has just always made it easier to laugh.
I could use a laugh right about now. This certainly isn’t at the level of losing Daisy. I’m not even all that worried about losing my apartment or this gig. I’ll find something else if I have to. But it complicates things enough to be really inconvenient.
Ten-thirty Michigan time isn’t too late to call her, probably, and I really want to see her face, so I push the Call button without thinking too hard about it. I sit on the edge of my bed while the phone rings a few times.
When she answers, the room is dark. I can barely see the outline of her face in the ambient light from her screen, and she’s clearly in bed.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say quickly.
“You didn’t.” She’s not facing the screen, and her voice is heavy. Not with sleep, I realize, but with sadness. A quiet sniffle confirms it.
I sit straight up in my bed, my knuckles going white as I grip my phone. “Lark, are you crying?”
“No,” she says obstinately. She wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. “Maybe.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Who do I have to kill?”
She huffs a laugh. “Father Time?”
I’m not getting it, but I can play along until I do. Just like that improv class she made me take in high school. Yes, and…
“He’s a dirty thief,” I grumble as my hand loosens on my phone.
She wipes her face again, then finally turns to look at the screen. Her nose and eyes are puffy and red, indicating she’s been at this for a while. One minor inconvenience and she’s the first person I want to talk to. She’s been crying for what looks like a long time. Why didn’t she call me?
“I’m fairly certain it was only a few weeks ago that you were coming out here for my thirtieth-birthday-slash-divorce party. Devin was eight. Eight , Lennon. Second grade.” Her voice wobbles on that last part, as if she’s on the edge of breaking down again.
“She was a spitfire. She sassed me the whole time I was there.”
Lark sniffles again. “She’d still sass you. You know, if you ever came out here again.”
I don’t miss that not-so-subtle dig, but that’s not the issue here, so I ignore it. Instead, I jab her right back. “Just like her mama.”
That was not at all the right thing to say based on Lark burying her face in her pillow and shuddering.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry,” I groan, rubbing a hand over my face. I’m not winning at much today. “I meant that as a compliment.”
Her shoulders shake for another minute as I internally kick myself for picking the wrong time to throw out my sarcasm. I watch as her short blonde hair falls over her cheek, fully obscuring her face from me.
Finally, she turns to the camera. I fully expect to see more tears glistening down her face, but she’s smiling and her blue eyes glitter with mirth. “You’re the worst.” She chuckles.
“I don’t know why you put up with me.”
“Habit, mostly.” She sighs heavily and shifts so she’s lying on her back and holding the phone above her face. Even swollen from crying, she’s beautiful. She always has been, like a bright light in the darkness.
The mood has shifted, and the worst of it seems over, so I risk asking, “What’s going on, Songbird?”
She turns her big blue eyes away from the camera, staring at her ceiling. “When did I get old, Lennon?”
I reel back a bit, then fall against my own pillows. “Nope. Nuh-uh. If you’re old, then I’m old, and I’m not old, so…”
Lark rolls her eyes, then glares at me as best she can through the screen. “We’re forty.”
“I’m forty. You’re still thirty-nine.”
“Close enough.” She pauses, and her gaze falls as if she’s lost to thought again. “This isn’t exactly where I saw my life going.”
She doesn’t let herself admit it very often, but getting pregnant with Devin changed the entire course of her life.
Not in a bad way, but she had her sights set on professional acting after college, and once Devin was here, that was off the table for a while.
Her parents would have helped, but Lark is so fiercely independent that she refused to ask.
Plus, between school and work, she wanted to be home with her baby as much as she could.
Throw in a divorce and a pandemic that shut down theaters right around the time Devin was old enough for Lark to get back into it, and she never really got the chance.
But one thing I know for sure about Lark is she always feels worse when she lets herself admit that Devin interrupted her plans.
The guilt of wishing, even for a second, that things had worked out differently pulls her deeper into her sadness for days at a time.
I won’t let that happen if I can help it.
“Well, you’re not dead yet.” As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I give myself a mental facepalm, and I backtrack. “What I mean is you have a lot of life ahead of you. Devin is graduating, and you’ll have time to do whatever you want.”
Her lip wobbles again at that. “I’m going to miss her,” she whispers, as if even giving it full volume could keep her from what’s coming.
“I know,” I say, because I do.
A few more tears slink down her cheeks, and she squeezes her eyes shut against them.
She rolls to her side and takes the phone with her.
I imagine us both lying next to each other in the same bed, not two thousand miles away.
I put my hand against the other pillow on my queen-sized bed, wishing her hand were there so I could hold it until this passes.
Lark clears her throat, and I can practically see her zipping up that part of her sadness and packing it away for later. “It’s not like I can just jump back into acting anyway,” she says, changing the subject. “Who is going to hire a forty-year-old woman who hasn’t been onstage since undergrad?”
It doesn’t matter that Lark is still an absolute knockout, with her blonde ringlets and big ocean-blue eyes. This industry sucks for women over a certain age, and there’s no use trying to pretend otherwise, no matter how gorgeous she is.
She was the most beautiful girl in our high school, and that’s an objective fact.
Everyone loved her. Why she settled for that asshole, Richard, is completely beyond me.
She could have had any guy she wanted. And no small part of me blames him for Lark’s current state.
He couldn’t even step up to be enough of a partner in raising his own daughter for Lark to have time to pursue her passions.
He never thought acting was a good enough profession for her.
I remember him telling me that she’d grow out of it eventually once when we were all home for the summer.
Which was after he more or less told me to get lost for her sake at the end of our senior year.
“Well, one thing I know, Lark Caspian, is that you are the most determined woman I’ve ever met. Not everyone can get a master’s degree while caring for a newborn and land a job as a professor at a university—”
“Community college,” she corrects me.
“Tenure track, though,” I counter right back.
She screws her lips to the side, conceding. Point goes to me, because I’m right. It’s a coveted position no matter how you slice it, and she got it while balancing Devin on her hip.
“Regardless,” I continue, “if there’s anyone who can figure out what to do next, it’s you. The curtain’s not closing on the show; it’s just the start of the next act.”
Lark groans. “If I had known you were going to bust out theater metaphors, I wouldn’t have answered the phone.”
“I’m glad you answered,” I say softly. “I like being here for you. Why didn’t you call me if you were feeling like this?”
The screen bounces as she shrugs. “I didn’t know if you were out, and I didn’t want to interrupt your fun.”
I search her eyes as best I can through the screen.
Ten years without looking at her in person is too long, but neither of us has been able to get away.
I make a mental note to see if I can shift a few things around now that this audiobook is probably dead on arrival to make it to Devin’s graduation.
“It’s never an interruption when it’s you.” I try to infuse as much honesty as I can into those words, because I mean it. I’d do a lot more than leave a bar if she asked me to.
She shrugs again. “I was just having a moment, you know? It’ll pass.”
It’s not worth pushing, so I just nod. “You’re my favorite person in the world. You know that.”
She covers her mouth against a huge yawn. Her eyelids start drooping. “It’s late here, and I have an early morning.” Then, her eyes pop open wide again. “Wait. You called me .”
I laugh lightly. “I did, but it’s not important. Go get some sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. I can tell she wants to protest, but sleep is going to win. “Good night, Lennon.”
“Good night, Lark.”
I hang up and flip onto my back and clasp my hands over my chest to feel the gentle rise and fall of it with my breathing.
I stare at my ceiling for a long time, wishing I could fix this for her.
Or even just give her a big hug. Maybe steal some of Devin’s stuff and make her a shadowbox. Or get her an audition somewhere.
The realization that I might be able to solve both of our problems dawns on me slowly as my bedroom darkens completely with the setting sun.
It’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it while we were on the phone.
I must have been too consumed with her emotional state to see the solution that is so clearly staring at me.
Lark could narrate this audiobook. She’s done some voiceover work before, so she knows the basics. It would give her something to do, let her scratch an itch, and allow me to keep this project.
I remember Jessica’s picky nature with a groan. It’s probably a slim chance that she’d allow an unknown actress like Lark on this project. Then again, Lark can charm anyone if given the chance. Maybe I just need to warm Jessica up to the idea.
I pick up my phone to call Lark back but remember how exhausted she looked when we hung up earlier. She’s probably already asleep, and it isn’t worth waking her up for an opportunity that isn’t a sure thing. I’ll run this by Noah and Jessica tomorrow and then call her if they seem on board.
But I have a good feeling about this. For once, I have the opportunity to make Lark feel better, not the other way around, and the possibility makes me fall asleep with a smile on my face.