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“I knowI’m supposed to ask you a million questions and be all tough and ask about your intentions with my sister, but I’m just grateful someone actually wants to spend time with her that I’m going to beg you not to run away,” Lark said as we looked at our menus.
“Are you going to get a drink? I think I’m going to get a drink,” Honor said to me, ignoring her sister.
“Sure, I’ll get a drink,” I said to Honor.
“Surprisingly, I like your sister,” I said to Lark. “Takes her a little to warm up, and things definitely improved once I knew she wasn’t trying to marry my boss.”
“And now you’re walking home with Lark,” Honor said, not taking her eyes off her menu.
I reached under the table and touched her leg gently.
“I’ll be nice,” I said, and she softened.
“Okay, this is cute,” Lark said, putting her chin in her hands as she watched us from across the table.
Honor hid behind her menu.
The server finally came and we ordered drinks, and Lark seemed to have gotten most of her jokes out of her system and toned herself down a little bit. She asked me about my job and what it was like to take care of twins for so many years.
“It’s weird because it very much is a job, but also they feel like my family, so it’s a hard balance to keep,” I said. “When they were babies, I definitely wasn’t good about setting boundaries and I had to do that as they got older. My friends help.”
“I feel like I don’t know anyone in Arrowbridge, and I’ve been here the whole summer,” Lark said, pouting. “I don’t have a car, so it’s kind of hard to get around. I mostly hang out with Lorna and the chickens.”
She laughed, but I could sense that Lark was lonely under her bravado.
“I’m happy to take you out or to the farmers’ market or show you around if you want. My brother is your age and I know he’s got a good group of friends.” Many of them were fellow coffeeshop employees and they’d all get together at someone’s house to play games or even just have pizza and a movie night.
“Thanks, that would be great.”
Since I knew their childhood was a sensitive topic, I steered far away from it, but I hoped at some point I could get Lark’s perspective on their mother and herteachings, if they could be called that. They seemed to have much less effect on Lark than they had on Honor, but maybe because Honor was the oldest and might have shielded Lark from the brunt of it.
Lark talked about college and I reminisced about my college days.
“It was seriously so fun. All my friends were right there, and you could always find someone to hang out with, even in the middle of the night. I don’t even think I kept my door closed most of the time,” I said. “It was the best.”
“That hasn’t really been my experience,” Lark said. “It’s okay, but I’m not having the time of my life.”
That was strange to me, because she was so personable and open and bubbly that you’d think she would have no problem making friends. Maybe her mother’s “other girls are out to get you” had affected her more than I’d initially thought.
Now I just wanted to take her under my wing and maybe absorb her into my friend group, or shove her into Liam’s.
“Stop it,” Honor said under her breath.
“What?” I asked as Lark was distracted by something on her phone.
“Stop trying to figure out how you can fix her problems,” Honor said under her breath.
“You know I can hear you since we’re sitting at the same table,” Lark said in a normal voice. “I don’t care if Layne wants to fix my life. It’s kind of sucking at the moment.”
“Maybe things would be better if you had some direction,” Honor said tentatively, and Lark let out a loud sigh.
Fortunately, our appetizer plate arrived and thwarted a potential sister argument.
“You and my brother would get along. You can commiserate about being nagged by your older sisters,” I said to Lark as she dipped her boneless buffalo wing in ranch.
Honor had gone right for the spinach artichoke dip and was using a spoon to place it atop a chip. Things had changed so much since that first dinner with the Jewels where I’d seen her do that.
“Sounds fun,” Lark said.
