Maria Lark
The young "Medium" star gets into a fierce tic-tac-toe match at Miel
On the NBC show "Medium," which stars Patricia Arquette as a psychic who solves crimes, Maria Lark plays Arquette's middle child, Bridgette, who's known for her one-liners.
In real life, Lark is just as precocious.
On a misty summer day, the 11-year-old extrovert is standing in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel with her mother, Peggy, and the newest member of the Lark family, a stuffed panda Maria has named Cuddles Lark. The Larks are in town to visit Peggy's longtime friend, publicist Rosanne Mercer. Peggy and Rosanne worked together in Philadelphia years ago on "The Mike Douglas Show," which aired through the early 1980s.
"I don't normally do pink," says a scowling Maria, who is dressed in pastel Red Sox gear - a gift from a family friend. I tell her many people in Boston don't like pink Red Sox apparel.
"See?" Maria tells her mom.
Maria has always avoided girly things, Peggy says. In fact, for a history project in school a few years ago, she dressed up like John F. Kennedy.
"We're talking tomboy," Peggy says. "She won't even let me brush her hair."
The plan for the afternoon was to see the USS Constitution, but with rain threatening we settle for a quick walk on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway and lunch at the InterContinental restaurant Miel. On the greenway lawn, Mercer tells the Larks about the Big Dig and points out landmarks in the distance.
"Let's go grab some cash," Maria says, devising a scheme to steal the money she imagines is inside the Federal Reserve building. "Let's tell them we want to take some samples to the lab to be checked."
Maria and I talk about how we've both recently had birthdays. At 11, she explains, she gets more respect.
"Now people actually know me as a preteen," she says. "You get a higher status. I get to say to 4-year-olds, 'Respect your elders!' "
She's also old enough to consider mature material.
Maria, whom Peggy adopted from Siberia, was once asked to audition for a Mel Gibson movie that would have required her to read a line about the death of the character's mother. Peggy decided the material hit too close to home and pulled Maria from the audition.
"For us, it was loaded material," she says. "It wasn't worth it."
The part, for the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs," went to Abigail Breslin, who later skyrocketed to fame in "Little Miss Sunshine."
When we arrive at Miel, Lark is given a kids' menu and crayons. She begins to color the menu and decides, for the second time during her stay in Boston, to have chicken fingers.
Maria's first word was "pizza," her mother says, and her favorite type of food is
"Her eating habits are atrocious," Peggy says, and the two make funny faces at each other.
"They really know how to make fries, you know?" Maria says in defense of the Golden Arches.
I ask Maria about her celebrity crush, Orlando Bloom. Last year the actress confessed her love for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star on "The Tonight Show." Jay Leno then arranged for Lark to return to the show to meet the heartthrob on air. The day she was to meet Bloom, a security guard was stationed between her dressing room and Bloom's so that she wouldn't catch a glimpse of him until the cameras were rolling. Giddy with anticipation, she poked her "Pirates" sword underneath the door while she waited outside his dressing room, calling out "Orlando! Orlando!"
She's still smitten.
"Who else do you like?" Peggy asks. "Jesse McCartney?"
"He was so five minutes ago," Lark says.
After we finish eating, Peggy and Rosanne catch up on their personal lives while Maria and I play tic-tac-toe on the back of the menu. She keeps a tally of wins and losses, and after more than an hour, she's taken the prize: Maria 15, Meredith 6 - plus 18 ties. She accuses me of letting her win, but I didn't.
On top of the menu, she writes, "Meredith, better luck next time. - Maria Lark," in purple crayon.
With that, she's off to her room with Cuddles, maybe for a nap.
Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com.
