January 15th 2020

Chapter 15
Their Tradition For Progress

Every year, every semester they had spent either in Austin or in Houston had had a tendency to have a few days to kick things off slowly before, sooner or later, they'd hit their stride. And when that happened, the days and the weeks would feel as though they started to go by faster and faster. Now, with the two of them back in Austin, the stride had indeed been hit, and it didn't matter that only one of them was in school. It worked for other things, too, like… well, work.

On the one side, there was Lucas, driving out to school four days a week. Little by little, his group out there was growing stronger, more defined. It wasn't even exactly the same as it had been in the beginning, those eight of them who'd known each other back in Houston. Tay and Mari had sort of migrated into another group, detaching from the rest of them, which was more than alright. They were still friends, better known than a lot of their classmates. And then, last week, Sue Ann had just stopped coming to class. It had taken a few days for them to learn that there'd been a situation in her family which forced her to withdraw for the foreseeable future.

The rest of them were still holding together, and it hadn't been long that they'd picked up a couple new faces, soon to make up Lucas' carpool, as they both lived in Austin, too. There was Robbie, who'd just moved from San Antonio to go to this school. He was as tall as Bishop, maybe even taller by an inch, though he was ridiculously lean compared to the French transplant, which had gotten him the nickname Stretch for most of his high school days, ever since he'd shot up in height at thirteen. And then there was Ramona, who took a while just as Lucas did to remember they had been in school together before. Only, she was his age, which was to say that they would have graduated together if he hadn't been held back by his suspension. They were even now, as her taking a year off after high school had put them on the same track as him. The two of them were a packaged deal, Robbie and Ramona. Like Zay and Nadine, they had just been married the previous summer.

They'd worked out a system, the three of them, wherein they'd trade out driving weeks. One week, Lucas would pick up his two classmates and drive them all to school, and the other week it would be the other way around, with either Robbie or Ramona taking the morning drives and the other taking those in the evening.

His classes were going great, too. Much as he'd applied himself back in Houston, much as he'd learned there and then working in the clinic with his aunt, he knew he'd only been scratching the surface on a lot of things. But here he was doing much more. Here, he was digging deep, past the surface and finding the core within. In a way, he guessed it helped that he was far from home while he was at the university. He would arrive in the morning, and whenever he wouldn't be in classes, or breaking for lunch, he would spend most of his time at the library. His professors were starting to notice him, pick him out as one of their more applied students.

It would get him thinking about his clinic work again, particularly about trying to get a similar set up out in Austin. His schedule was kind of on heavy lock, between school and the bookstore and what time he had at home with Maya and Sam, so he didn't know where he would manage to fit that in, but he knew he wanted to find a way. Maybe in January, when his schedule would change with the new semester…

These thoughts in particular had come about following the visit of an unexpected guest lecturer, in the form of his uncle.

Professor Hank Hillard had walked in, the previous Friday, essentially subbing for Professor Lindgren. The old woman, as it turned out, had been his professor and Tanya's both, back in the day, when they had been the Robbie and Ramona of their time. Ever since he'd started teaching, back in Houston, Lindgren had had him come for these lectures once or twice a semester.

It had been like a couple blasts from the past at the same time. On the one hand, it had taken him right back to that first day when the man had walked in, looking so much like Pappy Joe that it had left Lucas to distraction for most of the period, until he'd realized this man was his father's cousin, Pappy Joe's nephew by his estranged and now late sister. Then, on the other hand, he was now familiar to more than him. Bishop and Simon and the others, they all knew him, of course, and they'd all sat up and smiled when they'd seen him. Josie had waved, and he'd waved back.

"You could have said you were coming," Lucas had smiled as he and his uncle shook hands at the end of the period.

"Yeah, but the look on your face," Hank shrugged. "It's not the same without you in my class, you know?"

"You just need to come here more often," Lucas nodded, getting him a bit of that Pappy Joe laugh from the man.

"Maybe I do."

While Lucas had spent the last two weeks finding his stride with his new school, Maya had been the doing the same with her new job. Technically she'd only started for real on that second week, but even on the first she had been getting ready to start. She had gotten her new office set up soon enough. Her father had come along one day and they'd done it all, moving the furniture in the room the way she wanted it. She had one small window and she wanted to take advantage of it as much as she'd take advantage of the rest of her wall space. As personal touches went, the two most important ones were the frame picture Lucas had given her for her desk, as promised, and then a plant which had been her parents' gift, sort of an office warming. She had started referring to it as 'Fernando.'

It wasn't all about the office. That was merely a space, even if it was kind of an important space, what with it belonging to her. When she'd shown up on her first official day, she'd found a name plaque had been added on the door, much as there was on the other office doors. Hers read Maya Hart – Stage Ready coordinator. She wasn't ashamed to say she had taken a ridiculous amount of pictures of herself standing next to the thing, pointing up at it like 'oh would you look at this, that's my name!'

She had spent most of that week leading up to her starting at the theater to ensure she had a solid plan of action, to get her project off the ground and prove to Siobhan that she'd been right to take a chance on her. She'd never done anything like this, she realized that. There were plenty of small nuances she would probably have to pick up on the way. If she let herself fall by the way of feelings of inadequacy, she knew it would be a very rough hill to climb to get back to solid ground, so she'd adopted a different tactic. She was going to remain honest with herself.

She had taken a very big chance in putting herself in this position, in presenting her idea to Siobhan Hughes. But she'd done that, and she'd gotten the job, so now she had to make it all count. She didn't know what she was doing, not from the business side of it, and she lacked a lot of the contacts that might expedite a lot of what she had to do. That was okay, that was normal. Now, she just needed to find solutions to all these 'problems,' whether it meant research or counsel.

One of her sources, some might call unexpected, was Melinda Friar. She wasn't a businesswoman, not in the strictest sense, no. But if there was anyone who knew how to know people, to organize events, in Maya's book her future mother-in-law was queen. And when she'd been asked for advice, Lucas' mother had looked like she might cry for the privilege of it. She'd then gone on to her own mother, who had worked at the theater for a decade now. On that front, Maya quickly realized she'd already known more than she believed she did. She'd met many people over the years who either worked at or for the theater, and all her mother had to do was to remind her and Maya would feel those memories grow fresher all over again.

By the time she'd actually started at the theater, Maya was happy to say that she had a good idea of what needed to happen first. She'd met with both Siobhan and her daughter, Matilda, presenting her initial ideas, leading to her getting approval to start getting her team together. It wouldn't be a very big team, definitely not in the beginning. Most of it would be about getting hold of people who would be able to lead one section or another of the program, with the voice, the dance… and she could hire herself an assistant.

"I could do it," Sam had said at once when she told him.

"You have school," Maya had reminded him. "That's kind of the whole reason you're in Austin, isn't it?"

"Sure, but…"

"You know I will always be happy for your help in anything, but in this case I'll need someone full time, okay?"

"Yeah, I get that," Sam had nodded, though she could tell he was sort of disappointed anyway.

That same issue came up with the rest of her friends, too. She'd thought of Rosa, but she was also in school, Dylan, too, even Dora. And then the ones who didn't have school already had jobs going, and she was pretty sure they would be getting paid more if they stayed where they were. Anyway, everything sort of hinged on her project being successful, and if that didn't happen then they might regret giving up another job for a failure. So, she'd need to hire someone else, a stranger.

She'd found her person in a woman called Lily Florescu. She was older than Maya by a dozen years, which would make people assume the roles of coordinator and assistant went the other way from what they actually were. But Lily was a sweetheart, and all she wanted was to assist Maya in whatever way she needed her to do it. She had been a stay-at-home mom for several years and was only now getting back into the work force 'because it was time,' she'd say, though Maya had a feeling there was more to it.

All through that first week, the biggest accomplishments they could say they had reached were to set themselves some kind of schedule, with target dates. By one date they needed to have their team assembled. By another they needed to get out an actual curriculum to Siobhan for approval, and a budget… Maya was not looking forward to this, but Lily assured her she could help there, and the look on her face suggested that she might have been some math wiz in school.

A date to start registration. And a schedule for January 2026 classes… Those were the other goals. Now it wasn't all so overwhelming. They had checkpoints, and all they had to do was to reach and cross off each one. Maya wasn't scared… They could do this, she could do this.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners