Sorry for the delay in updating this story! This chapter took longer to knock out than I thought it would. Enjoy!

Chapter 2: We've Got Growing Up to Do

Maia grinned when her phone flashed the message from her mother saying that there wasn't a policy about her dating a non-American. When she got the second message she blushed deeply at the thought of talking to her mom about all the details. With the exception of the time she thought her mother was having an affair with Seth, Maia would have always said that she was close to her mother. She was. But while the two would have occasional heart to heart conversations, Maia saw how some of her girlfriends chatted with their mothers like they were friends. Maia had that chatty relationship with her dad, but with her mother it wasn't that they didn't talk, they did - but their relationship was built less on their conversations and more on love expressed through snuggling on the sofa watching movies, shopping together, or in little gestures her mother made like continuing to cut the crusts off her sandwiches and toast, or serving breakfast for dinner when she'd a rough day. These little gestures demonstrated just how in tune Joan was with Maia's preferences, even though they didn't have the playful or chatty relationship that Maia had with her dad or her girlfriends had with their mothers.

Over the past few years, however, her mom had started taking her to lunch once a month - just the two of them. They'd try different restaurants that sounded interesting or had been recently written up positively. When Joan instituted the practice, Maia had been delighted but suspicious. "Mom, what's up? Is there some sort of news you're preparing me for?" her 12-year old self had asked her mother.

Joan had been startled by her daughter's question, and so it took her a moment to recover before just shaking her head as Maia slid into the passenger seat of the car. "Nope," she finally verbalized, "I just thought we needed some mother-daughter time."

Maia threw her mother a still suspicious glance. It was a quick glance, but it didn't go unnoticed by the ever watchful and observant Joan. Keeping her eyes on the road, Joan called her daughter out, "I saw that look Maia." After a momentary pause during which time Maia blushed a deep shade of red, Joan continued, "Spill it - what are you really thinking?"

"I hate that you can see me even when I'm not looking at you," Maia pouted but without whining because mostly she was intrigued by this side of her mother that seemed to be inviting her to just talk with her like they were girlfriends.

"That's not what you were really thinking Mai," Joan said in a teasing voice while still keeping her eyes on the road.

Maia didn't say anything but instead turned and stared at her mother as she continued to wonder just how her mother always seemed to one step ahead of her. With her hair falling in loose waves over her shoulder and perfectly manicured nails clasped around the steering wheel, Maia smiled a little before turning back toward the front windshield and staring at the road in front of them. They had the same hair that day. Maia's hair was naturally more wavy - well more so than Joan's, but Joan often kept her own hair in curls. On that day both mother and daughter had their hair in loose waves that they were falling down their backs. Joan's hair was side parted, and Maia had part of her hair pulled back, with the rest of it fluttering over her shoulders. Popping on her sunglasses then, Maia kept her own eyes facing forward and hoped that the sunglasses could work like a shield from her mother's mind reading abilities.

"What are you doing Maia?" Joan asked then in a playful tone.

"Trying to block you from being able to read my mind," Maia got out before she couldn't help but laugh a little. Out of the corner of her eye Maia could see that her mother was smiling and trying to suppress a laugh too.

"What are you talking about? If I could read your mind I wouldn't be asking you what you're thinking?" Joan protested.

"Mo-om - whatever - you know you know more than you let on when you use your spy skills on me to decide when I'm not being forthcoming!" Maia shot back at her mother.

"Okay fine - I know you're not telling me what you're thinking, but I don't actually know what you're thinking," Joan admitted as she continued to keep her eyes solely on the road.

Maia huffed then, but with a smile on her face, "I'm thinking this is super random that we're having lunch together and you don't have some other agenda. What's the motive behind all this mom?"

Maia was earnest when she asked the question, and Joan could tell that - not because of any spy skills, just good mother radar. "Well, I guess the motive was to start something that could be a tradition for us so that even as you grow up and get busy with your own life we make time to catch up with each other," Joan tried to tell her daughter nonchalantly. The truth was, however, that Joan felt anything but nonchalant in admitting this. Just a few months before Joan and Maia had gone through a particularly rough patch in their relationship. Maia had thought that her mother was cheating on her father with a guy named Seth Newman. This thinking led Maia to give her mother the cold shoulder for months, and ultimately to spy on her before accusing her of not being a good mother and having an affair. And then Maia had run away.

Although she and Maia patched things up pretty nicely afterwards, Maia's accusations had stuck with Joan long after they'd reconciled. Joan had spent a fair amount of time thinking about what to do to avoid a similar situation happening again, and she'd decided that part of the issue with her and Maia was that they didn't talk to each other that much. It wasn't that they weren't close, or that they didn't talk - they did, in fact they were actually more likely to have heart-to-heart conversations than Maia and Arthur were, but Joan was naturally shy with emotions and she was worried about what that would mean as Maia made her way through adolescence. In a conversation one night Joan had told Arthur that she was worried about herself and Maia. Ever the one living in the moment, Arthur had been confused, insisting that things were normal right then. Joan agreed that in the moment everything was fine, but what she wanted Arthur to understand was that even though they were OK in the moment her own shyness and strictness with Maia worried her. Arthur had then looked even more confused. Joan tried to explain, and ultimately Arthur seemed to understand. Joan was afraid that Maia's perception of her as emotionally reserved and critical would mean that she wouldn't feel comfortable talking to her about things that might come up for her as a teenager - from boys, to peer pressure, to all sorts of other things that Joan thought a girl should probably be able to talk to her mother about. Deciding that it would be just too much to do anything too drastic - for both Maia and herself - these once a month lunches were Joan's idea for helping to transition Maia into seeing her differently, as more approachable. And truthfully Joan was looking forward to to this one-on-one time with her daughter. Where Arthur and Maia had always been able to bond over everything, she found it more difficult to do - perhaps because of all of her worries about everything. But with Maia being older they could really talk now, and so making this time for that seemed exciting to Joan.

"We're going to do this a lot then?" Maia asked her mother suspiciously. When she saw the way her mother whipped her head around to look at her before looking back at the road, Maia realized that maybe that wasn't the right response to have. She just couldn't help asking; it just seemed so out of character for her mother to be making time for them to just hang out like friends.

"Well if you don't think it's a good idea then we don't have to," Joan offered quietly then.

"Mom, that's not what I meant. I think it's a really nice idea. I'm just, like - I guess I'm just surprised," Maia offered quickly as she tried to fix what she felt like she'd undone in her mother.

"Mai - I just want to make sure we always have a space to talk, so you can always ask what you want to, and so I can't really run away," Joan said before pausing momentarily. Maia didn't interject anything, but instead blushed thinking about what had happened when she'd run off to New York. And so Joan continued, "I don't want anything like what happened before to happen again, and so I thought it would be good if we had a regular time to talk, even if it was only like once a month. Plus, now that you're getting more grown up I thought we should try out doing things together like grown ups, not just like mother daughter stuff."

Maia rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses before taking them off and teasing her mother, "You sound like a hallmark greeting card mom." But then she quickly added on, "And mom, I think it's an awesome idea. Where are we going to eat?"

Joan took her eyes off the road to glance over at her daughter and smiled, before she told her, "Cafe Sorriso - by the zoo."

"The one with all the gelato?!" Maia asked excitedly.

"Yup. That's the one. I knew you always liked that place," Joan commented. Relaxing a little since it seemed like her lunch spot choice was a good one she added, "Hey Mai, I'm glad we're doing this. I don't want to miss out on you growing up."

Maia turned to look at her mother. This woman who she'd always looked up to and loved, and worried over displeasing was, for the first time, looking more like just a person to her. "There's no way you'd miss out on me growing up mom. I know you'd never let that happen," Maia offered quietly as she tried to reassure her mother.

Since then & for the past two years Joan and Maia had been lunching at least once a month, and over time what started out as sort of awkward conversations where Joan worked to draw Maia out, became conversations that both Joan and Maia looked forward to and readily engaged in. Seeing her mother as a person, as a woman who'd gone through her own adolescence and who struggled to balance family, work, and relationships helped Maia feel more normal, and like she had an ally as she made her own way through school, life, and growing up. So when Joan messaged Maia about wanting to hear about her potential date, Maia was a little embarrassed because the moment had been a private one for her and talking about it was going to make it more real - but she was nonetheless pleased that her mother wanted to know what had happened.


Joan pulled into her driveway a little after 6 that evening. When she'd left the office Arthur was still there and didn't think he'd be home until about 8. Just as well, she'd thought to herself, she needed to talk to Maia and it would be easier to do if Arthur and all his nervous energy stayed away until the conversation was over. Before she'd left him in his office, however, Joan had forced him into a conversation about parameters for their daughter's dating life.

"Do we really have to have this conversation now Joan?" he'd protested.

"Yes," she'd been firm, "Maia is at home waiting to see if she has permission to go, and some boy is probably also nervous about whether or not she will say yes to him - we can't keep them waiting until whenever you are ready to talk."

Sighing deeply and knowing that Joan was right, but not liking it anymore Arthur finally offered, "How about you decide if she can go with this particular boy, but she has to tell us exactly where they're going, they have to be back by 11, we have to meet the boy in advance, and no touching!"

Joan rolled her eyes before assenting to some of his parameters, "Fine - on all accounts except for the touching. You can't dictate terms like that. You don't want her to be some sort of social pariah because she has to stay an arm's length from every boy."

"I'd rather her be an outcast than have her groped by some boy," Arthur scoffed.

"You do not want her to be an outcast. You're just being ridiculous and scared of her growing up," Joan said as she softly tried to bring her husband around to see just how crazy he was being. "I'm going to talk to her about the other parameters - and you're going to be polite to the boy when he comes by to meet us," Joan explained to him as she reached out and took his hand, squeezing it in a way to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. Arthur hadn't said anything in response, but he squeezed her hand back.

Joan recounted this interaction and smiled a little at how nervous and over protective Arthur was being of Maia. Letting herself into her house, she swung by the home office to drop off her bag, before heading into her bedroom to change her clothes. Slipping into some dark jeans, a cobalt blue Marc by Marc Jacobs scoop neck shirt, and black flats with a cobalt blue capped toe. Grabbing a gray, open front cardigan on her way out the door, Joan ran her fingers through her hair as she headed back down the hall to find her daughter.

With her headphones on and her back to her bedroom door, Maia hadn't heard her mother come home, and she didn't notice that her mother was standing in her doorway. Rather than just knocking and calling out to her daughter, Joan leaned on the doorframe and just let herself watch her daughter. Maia's hair was still long - as it was when she was younger. She'd straightened it out that morning, just curling the ends under a bit. Her glossy blonde hair was the most prominent feature in Joan's view at the moment, but Joan smiled because it was bouncing around as Maia danced a little in her desk chair to whatever music she had in her headphones. Her biology book and notes were in front of her, and her laptop was open. And apparently she had her friend Sadie on Skype on her computer, because it was Sadie who saw Joan first. "Mo-om!," Maia had exclaimed as she pulled her headphones off and plopped them on the desk. Then she turned around and typed in what was apparently a message to Sadie that she had to go, because Joan just got in a quick wave to Sadie before her picture disappeared from the screen.

Joan raised an eyebrow at Maia. She didn't understand how her daughter could do homework, listen to music, and Skype with a friend all at the same time. Maia knew exactly what that raised eyebrow was about, "I'm a new generation mom, don't worry so much about my multitasking abilities!" she tried to playfully remind her mother.

"It's not your multitasking abilities I'm worried about. I just think you might actually learn more easily if you weren't try to do so much at the same time," Joan commented as she tried not to come off like she was scolding her only child.

"Maybe. But my grades have always been good - and they still are mom - so how about when I start struggling then I'll try your way," Maia offered.

"Deal," Joan said, relenting. Maia smiled then as she took a turn at being the one with the raised eyebrows.

"What?" Joan asked her daughter when she saw Maia's right eyebrow go up.

"Come on mom, you know you have things to tell me and ask me," Maia said as she rolled her eyes a little bit.

"Oh yeah. That. You can go," and that was all Joan got out before Maia launched herself from her desk chair toward her mother, wrapping her up in a bear hug and thanking her.

After Joan recovered from the surprise of the hug attack, she pulled back from her daughter and told her, "BUT there are some ground rules."

"I wouldn't expect anything less!" Maia replied as she grinned at her mother and did a happy little twirl before asking, "So - what are they?"

"Well - you have to tell us exactly where you're going. You have to be home by 11. Your dad and I need to meet this boy before you go out, and I have to approve of the boy before this whole plan gets set in motion," Joan told her daughter firmly before cracking a smile and telling her, "And your father would prefer if you stay an arm's length from each other at all times."

Maia laughed out loud then and rolled her eyes. "Deal?" Joan asked her then.

"Deal," Maia responded as she nodded her head.

"Okay then, come out to the kitchen to keep me company while I get some dinner together? -and you can tell me about who this boy is and all the other details that your dad couldn't hear because he was so panicked that you were interested in boys," Joan told Maia.

"You have no idea, "Maia said in reference to how things had gone on the phone with her dad. As Maia followed her mother out of her bedroom and towards the kitchen she told her mom, "I'm glad you were there to help him calm down."


Joan put Maia to work setting the table and making salad while she put together some dinner. Glancing over at Maia as she laid out silverware on the table she smiled at her daughter. She was dressed casually in skinny jeans and a collection cashmere dot sweater - gray herringbone with mango dots. Even in what was essentially weekend wear, Maia was pretty enough to make it hard to look away from her. She'd shot up in height recently. She was still growing, but was almost Joan and Maia were almost the same height now. Joan had relented and let Maia wear make up when she started high school, and after a good amount of education Maia mastered how to use makeup to look naturally pretty rather than painted up some like doll. That, plus her natural good looks and her sense of style made her an exceptionally attractive girl - and her sweet personality that balanced silly and series just added to her attractiveness. No wonder someone had asked her out, Joan thought. "Mai," she called out to her daughter, "So - tell me about this boy - who is he?"

Maia paused before spinning around toward her mother. She bit her lower lip and blushed a little before she telling Joan, "His name is Marc. He's a junior, and he's from Mexico, but he'd been in the States for the past five years." Maia stopped talking for a moment and looked at her mother, who gave her a little head nod and gestured for her to keep talking. "He's really smart mom, and nice, and cute" Maia said as she blushed before then telling her mother, "He asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him this Friday night in Bethesda near where his family lives. It's just dinner in town there and then a movie. And if you don't want him to drive, we can take the metro - everything we're going to is right off the red line."

Joan chuckled a little at Maia's offer to take the metro rather than having her ride with Marc in his car. "We'll talk to your dad about transportation," Joan told her before adding, "I'm really happy for you. You seem really happy about this." Maia blushed (again) and nodded. Joan took this nonverbal response from Maia as an opportunity to keep talking, so she asked, "Hey, how did you get to know this junior guy?"

Maia blushed again. Apparently that was going to be the theme of this conversation - her blushing. "We're in math together," she said shyly, "We're partners on our math projects for the year"

"Wow!" Joan exclaimed as she burst out laughing. This reaction confused Maia and she threw her mother a questioning look as she watched her mother have to wipe away tears she was laughing so hard.

"What are you laughing about mom?" she asked her mother. Once Joan pulled herself together she was able to ask her daughter, "You mean your pre-calc class?"

"Yes?" Maia replied, still confused about how math was something this hilarious.

"Well you know it was your dad who really pushed for you to do that junior high fast math that got you on track to take pre-calc your freshman year of high school," Joan explained before bursting into laughter again.

A smile widened across Maia's face then too, "So you're saying it's because of dad that I ended up in class and able to meet Marc?"

Joan nodded then, unable to make words. She was still laughing. She couldn't wait to tell Arthur that he'd been responsible for this whole situation.


Once Joan and Maia got over thinking about how Arthur was going to take the idea that he'd created the situation for Marc and Maia to meet, they got down to the details. Joan realized she and Arthur had already met Marc when he'd come over to do math homework with Maia. Their math teacher had paired them up at the beginning of the year, and each week a different partnership would teach their peers about the key ideas of one topic, explaining how it fit with other concepts they were learning and built on what they knew from Algebra I and II. Maia and Marc had been working for weeks on a project on conic sections that they'd be presenting in a week in their math class.

Joan had liked Marc when she'd met him on the few occasions when he'd been at their house working on math with Maia. He was polite and adorable. Tall, dark, and handsome - features he'd inherited from his parents. His father was a Mexican business executive from Monterrey who moved his family to the States when the drug cartel violence erupted. They'd lived in the States for the past five years - first in San Antonio and then in DC. His family maintained a home in Monterrey, but it was only for his father who continued to travel back and forth to Mexico. He spent the week there, returning on the weekends and making his wife and two children nervous all the time he was there. He would have preferred it to be different, but the travel and accompanying fear was a reality they'd lived with for the past five years. At least, Marc's father thought, his wife and children were safe in America. Marc's mother was actually the impetus for their move to DC. Educated at the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in cultural anthropology and international relations, and fluent in English, Spanish, and French, she'd been snapped up by the Mexican Cultural Institute - overseen by the Mexican Embassy in DC. Education was of utmost importance to Marc's family and so that was why they'd enrolled both Marc and his younger sister in the same school that Maia attended. All of these details made Joan feel better and better about this potential new boyfriend of Maia's. A family that was focused on family, that was well educated, and that was worldly made Joan think that she and Arthur could get along well with Marc's parents. But then she had to stop herself, she didn't want to get ahead of herself in thinking about this yet to be real relationship between Maia and Marc. Still - it made Joan feel good to know that she'd already met and liked Marc, and that he seemed like he came from a good family.

Joan closed out her quizzing of Maia about Marc and what Maia liked about Marc - mostly that he was smart, funny, and didn't treat her like a little kid even though she was just a freshman and he was a junior. Both Maia and Joan were pleased with how the conversation had gone - not only because they both seemed happy with the idea of Marc, but because it had been an exchange of serious information but it remained lighthearted. Maia had sat herself down at the kitchen table during the conversation, and once Joan had dinner simmering on the stove, she sat down across form Maia. In a more serious tone she said to her daughter, "Sweetheart, I'm really excited for you and this date, but your dad is kind of nervous." Maia's eyes shot up from looking down to looking straight at her mother. Was her mother going to tell her that her dad was going to keep her from going out with Marc, she wondered

Joan saw Maia's reaction and she smiled at her and told her, "I'm not going to let him stand in the way of you growing up," she reassured her daughter who breathed a sigh of relief. "But," Joan continued in a still serious tone, "Mai I think your dad is just afraid of losing you, so be patient with him as we talk about all this stuff okay?"

"How could he think he'd lose me mom? It's only one date! It's not like I'm moving in with Marc or anything!" Maia responded. She'd anticipated that her dad would be overprotective, but this level of anxiety was something that surprised even her.

"Maia, he's already moved on to that idea - but DO NOT even joke with him about it, I'm fairly certain he won't take it well," Joan admonished her daughter gently. Maia rolled her eyes and nodded, as Joan relayed just how upset and worked up Arthur had been when he'd burst into her office saying that they'd lost Maia. Maia's eyes grew wider and wider as Joan shared what had happened earlier that day.

When Joan finished talking Maia was quiet for awhile. "What do you think I should do?" Maia finally asked her mother.

Joan's dimples appeared as she smiled at her daughter's earnest question. "I'm not sure there's one definite thing you should do," Joan started. "I'm really glad you want to do something though; your dad loves you more than anything and I think you growing up has been really hard on him. I think he misses Saturday morning cartoons and tea parties with you."

"Mo-om, I'm not 7 anymore!" Maia protested, "And we do hang out - just while we watch Modern Family, Game of Thrones, or football!" And it was true - they did hang out.

Joan agreed that they did those things, but also pointed out, "I know you guys hang out, I just think that your dad is worried that you'll have less and less time for him, and that's hard on him - even if it's just part of you growing up. You have no idea how much being a father means to him." And Maia really didn't - she knew that her dad loved her to death, and she knew that he was always up to spending his free time doing whatever Maia wanted. But unlike Joan, Maia didn't know how before she'd been born her father wasn't nearly as tied to home. He was at work even more than he was since she'd been born, he'd been a little ethically sketchy, and he and Joan had spent a good amount of time at odds with each other. Since Maia was born Arthur had taken his father role seriously, trying to be home as much as possible, trying to do everything to make the world a better place for his daughter, and listening more to Joan than ever before. He'd really wanted them to be a picture perfect family, and where he'd been more unwilling to compromise when it was just him and Joan, with Maia in the picture he did everything he could to try to make things work for him, Joan, and Maia.

Maia mulled over what her mother said before she offered, "Okay. I don't think he really needs to worry though, it wouldn't be a Sunday in the fall if dad and I weren't weren't watching football all afternoon together and screaming at the TV. So at least through football season, he's got quality time with me every Sunday!" she laughed as she told her mom.

Joan smiled at her daughter then, "Good. And sweetheart don't worry too much about your dad, he'll come through all this adolescence stuff okay. I'll help him out with that - but I just want you to be aware of the fact that your dad is nervous, and to remind you how much he values his time with you."

Maia rolled her eyes then, but instead of a sarcastic glint in her eyes, Joan could see a twinkle there that let her know just how pleased Maia was that her dad was as worried as he was. Telling her mom that she needed to get a little more homework done before her dad came home for dinner, Maia excused herself. And while she did go do so some homework, she also tried to think about what she could do to make her dad feel less worried. It was endearing, but she also wanted to make sure he didn't worry unnecessarily.


Have to stop here to do some writing for my job. But the next chapter should be up in the next few days and it'll bring the whole family to the table for the conversation about Maia's date, and it'll follow the actual date itself. :)