Larkspur Dreams

Five


Lark stretched her arms out to a new morning. Sunday had gone well. Church had been good, but now Monday morning beckoned. The clock on the night table read 6:30 a.m. She never bothered with setting her alarm but instead let her natural body rhythms tell her when she’d had enough sleep. She flipped the light on and smiled at the bird in his cage. “Good morning, Igor.”

Bits of his softness floated about the cage as he fluffed his feathers. “Good morning, Igor,” the bird repeated.

Lark shoved her lavender comforter back, slid her wiggling toes into her slippers, and got up. She chatted softly to Igor as she checked his food and water supply. Still wearing her long, granny nightshirt, she padded up the spiral staircase, letting her hand slide along the cool metal railing up to her loft. No need for coffee since she let music rev her creative juices in the morning. Once in her studio, she flipped on her lights and her amplifier, strapped on her guitar, and prepared to rock. Was that classical music she heard coming from Everett’s office? Seems kind of loud. She listened closely. Wow! Vivaldi. Wind and brass. Cool.

She didn’t see Everett standing anywhere in his office so she decided to enhance the music with her own hard rock. Oh yeah. Oboe Concerto in D Minor. Lark positioned her fingers on the neck of the guitar and tapped out her own beat with her foot. Almost time for my part. Lark raised her guitar pick high in the air and lowered it on her strings, adding her own metal sound to the bright melody. She closed her eyes, swooning to the joining of two great musical styles. Crescendo. Oh, there’s that sweet spot on the guitar.

The classical music stopped. Lark turned toward her window. Until now, she hadn’t realized her large, bare office window faced Everett’s large, bare office window just a few feet away. And when the lights were on, they could see each other perfectly.

Everett stood like a soldier in his suit with a no-nonsense stare. All in all, he looked pretty daunting. In fact, on the jovial scale, he was a minus fifty. But even so, he had an irresistible earnestness about him, too.

He held up a large piece of paper with a phone number on it. She let her guitar make a slow dying sound and placed the instrument on its stand. While still humming the melody, she pushed in all the right numbers on the phone. One ring. Two rings. Why is he waiting?

He finally picked up the phone. “Hi. Everett Holden. Your neighbor.”

Lark had to pucker her cheeks to keep from laughing. “Yes, I can see you. . .right in front of me. Good morning.”

Everett cleared his throat so loudly Lark had to pull the phone away from her ear. “Please,” he began. “Please don’t tell me you get up every morning at six thirty to play your electric guitar.”

Okay, I won’t tell you. “I guess you want me to turn down my amp. It’s just that I loved your Vivaldi, and I couldn’t help but join in. It’s so exhilarating.” She shot him her sweetest smile and waited for his face to brighten. It didn’t. “But I don’t think it was any louder than your music.” Lark tried to stay lighthearted.

Everett moved around the room, stacking manuals on his shelves, obviously multitasking. “But your music doesn’t mix with my music.”

Did he actually say that? Lark wondered what the magic words were to turn up the corners of his mouth. Maybe spreadsheets and revenues.

Then she noticed it. Tiny lacelike specs floating just outside the window. “Look. An early snow!” Still holding the telephone, Lark opened the window and stuck her head outside. Fresh, crisp air swirled around her. “Everett. Isn’t this amazing? A snowfall never forecasted. Don’t you just love things as unpredictable as the weather?”

Lark heard nothing from her telephone partner, so she looked back at Everett, who now wore a fixed and intent gaze. It reminded her of the glassy expression held by the stuffed, wild boar hanging in Skelly’s den. She’d thought an impromptu celebration of the snow with some frothy cocoa would be fun. But Everett didn’t appear to be in the mood for a festive beverage.

“Don’t you like snow?” She heard his raspy breathing and wondered if smoke would puff from his nostrils at any moment. Rarely did she make anyone angry. Usually people left her presence with a hug and a kind word. The moment felt unfamiliar, yet strangely exhilarating, as if she were plummeting on a roller coaster ride.

“I like snow,” Everett said. “In fact, I like a lot of things. But right now, I’m trying to work.”

“Well then, have a nice day.”

“Thank you,” Everett said. “The same to you.”

Was that a simper? He has a chink in his rock wall, Lark thought as she let a slow grin overtake her face. But then Everett dampened her optimism by parking himself down at his desk as immoveable and cold as a slab of granite. Oh well, hope still reigned. Even granite could be carved with the right tools.

Lark gave up on Everett for the time being as the snow claimed her attention. She had to be a part of it. She headed back downstairs, slipped on some moccasins and put on a coat over her long nightshirt. Once she’d flipped on the outdoor lights, she hurried out into her backyard.

The glorious white stuff fell more heavily now, floating all around her, engulfing her in a cocoon of softness. Suddenly she realized she’d never painted a winter scene. I should memorize this moment.

The pristine flurries had already lighted on the pines and decorated their boughs. And what a unique quiet. As if the snowy splendor commanded all the rest of nature to an awed silence.

The delicate feel of the flakes on her face reminded her of a feather tickling her cheek. Lark licked the melting snow from her lips. A gust caused the flakes to do a little tango. She raised her arms and danced with the flurries, dipping and swaying and singing. She knew God looked on, sharing her pleasure in His creation. An icy gust made her shiver, so she raced back inside, laughing the whole way up to her loft.

❧

Everett slammed his coffee mug down so hard a three-tiered bead of brown liquid rose in the air and then plopped back in his cup. Cold, bitter brew again. He made a mental note to throw out his coffee beans and buy some caffeine pills. His concoction always tasted like crude oil anyway.

He glanced over at Lark’s office window. Her light was off, so she still must be out of her office. At least she’d finally gotten the good sense to come in from the cold. He’d seen her from his window, and she’d been outside twirling with her arms stretched wide. She looked stark raving mad. Or maybe she’s simply childlike.

It reminded him of something he and his sister, Greta, had taken pleasure in when they were growing up. Sneaking out one night to play in the first snow of the winter. The moon had come out full that night, illuminated the snow, and made it glisten like stars. They’d pelted each other with snowballs. His sister had quite a hefty pitch as he recalled. Several times they’d doubled over laughing. He hadn’t thought of that moment in years. But then he remembered they’d both caught colds, and his sister had been forced to the hospital when her fever and cough spiraled into pneumonia. He knew scientifically that their sickness had not actually come from being out in the weather, but in his mind he always associated the two.

He drank a glass of water, trying to get the acid taste out of his mouth. His sister had always been fun loving, yet so irresponsible. She’d always managed to convince him to go along with her schemes. But some of her ideas for amusement were reckless. In the end, her foolish behavior had been the undoing of their family.

Everett cleared his throat and wished he could clear his thoughts as easily. Yes, there had always been a price to pay for happiness. It had become his life’s lesson—joy might come, but there would be the inevitable price to pay at the end.

He stared out at the falling snow and wanted to say, “Humbug.” Maybe I need some window blinds to help with the distractions. Mental note: Caffeine tablets. And wooden blinds. Everett willed himself not to look out his window, but even as he made his private demand, he rewarded himself with one more glimpse. Hopefully, Lark wouldn’t catch him gawking.

Abruptly her office lights flickered on, and she appeared at the window, giving him a wave. She had indeed caught him staring. Heat spread across his face while she slipped on that perennial, pesky, sunny smile of hers. With her hair pulled back in a ribbon, he could see the soft angles of her lovely face. Not thinking clearly, he picked up his coffee mug and then dropped it on his bare toe. The brew sloshed all over his pant leg. Great. He grabbed some tissues and tried to wipe up the mess, but he did more smearing than cleaning.

Mental note: Suit pants to the dry cleaners, caffeine tablets, and very heavy wooden blinds. Maybe he should hire someone to run his errands for him. That way he could get even more work done. Since he’d just gotten a raise from his biggest client, he felt an unwritten pressure to give more hours and produce more work. Kind of like a treadmill that management conveniently forgot to turn off.

But the additional labor was no real problem for him. He had almost no family left. No real friends. No obligations. Just the job. A clean and productive life.

Everett did a double click with his mouse and looked at his computer screen, which now displayed an electronic ledger. He stared at the curser. It seemed to almost mock him with its incessant winking.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were balled into fists so tightly he could feel his heartbeat in his hands. Probably from the wrath of paying an obscene amount of money for a home which turned out to have no privacy. He glanced back at Lark’s window. This time she’d disappeared again. When did she ever get any work done? And surely illustrating didn’t pay much.

What was the name of one of her books? In a Giddy Pickle? Okay, so now that he thought about it, he might have seen the book back in Fayetteville. Perhaps at a bookstore and on a special display at the grocery store. Okay, maybe she was slightly notable. But if she were that big, wouldn’t she be working nonstop to keep up her position and lifestyle?

Everett heard some faint squealing noises next door, so he made a casual glance over to his neighbor’s window. Lark and another woman were doing that girlfriend ritual thing of jumping up and down while hugging. He shook his head and groaned.