January 16th 2020

Chapter 16
Their Tradition For Anticipation

"Hey, what was that guy's name? It was like… sophomore year? You told me he'd come to see one of the plays and he'd ended up backstage looking for someone to blame for how the actors spoke their lines?" Maya asked, poking her head into her mother's office. Katy looked up at once, as though her daughter had just dredged up a memory she would have rather never recalled. Maya winced apologetically.

"Vince something…"

"Campbell?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Damn it…" Maya groaned, walking into the office proper.

"Why?"

"You know how when someone's being all know-it-all about something someone would say 'well who put you in charge?' Turns out, Mr. Campbell is kind of up there with the elocution crowd… Not that there's a crowd, it's just… well, you know what I mean." Katy motioned for her to sit and Maya gladly did so. "You know, I still don't know what I'm supposed to call you in here," she admitted sheepishly.

"What do you mean?" Katy laughed.

"Just that it might be weird for me to call you Mom around the theater… Not weird for me, just… everyone else. What does Matilda call her mother?"

"Siobhan," Katy shrugged.

"Yeah, see, I don't think I'm 'there' with calling you Katy to your face… Is that…"

"I get it, don't worry," her mother laughed. "Even I couldn't call my mama by her name, and I was a very… stubbornly independent girl." Maya slowly nodded.

"So what's it going to be? 'Ma'am?'" she smirked. "Sounds kind of mom-ish…"

"Don't push it," Katy pointed at her though she was resisting a chuckle.

"And all the same letters as 'mama.'"

"I will toss you out of here." Maya held up her hands in 'surrender.' "Call me what you want to call me, okay? Just… not that one… What are you going to do about Mr. Campbell?"

"I don't know," Maya groaned, getting up again. "Waiting to hear back from other people, hopefully one of them will bite."

"Good luck!" Katy called after her as she made her way back to her office. Lily had gone out to pick up lunch for the both of them so she was on her own for a while. She'd been fine to go along with her, but then there's been a call, so she'd stuck back to answer and Lily had gone on ahead.

Sitting back in her desk chair, Maya's eyes would keep travelling about the space. It was a decent-sized office, really, roughly the same as her mother's, just a bit smaller than Professor Robinson's back in Houston… and it was hers. There were still moments, just like this one, where she thought she must have been dreaming. But then it couldn't be a dream, she wouldn't let it. Even though they were still months from holding their first classes and all she was doing at the moment was about making those classes exist at all… she loved it, all of it.

All those days she'd been waiting to hear back from Siobhan, she'd been terrified she was about to make a huge mistake, that she would fall flat on her face as soon as she got to this part, but no… far from it, she was legitimately thriving. She tended to gauge her excitement these days by watching the smile on Lucas' face whenever she'd tell him about her day. It was reflex in him that seeing her happy made him happy, and the levels always corresponded, the higher the stronger.

As though her thinking of him had summoned him, her phone rang and she pulled it from the desk in front of her.

"Miss Hart's office?" she answered with a smile. Her voice was in no way an imitation of her actual assistant and emanated instead from some kind of old time sort of movie.

"Is she in?" Lucas asked, and there was that smile in his voice, too.

"Hold, please, sir, I will see," she told him before switching gear and manufacturing some kind of 'hold' music for a few seconds.

"Ah, my favorite song…" he sighed, nearly making her break character before finally making a 'beep!' sound and returning to her own voice.

"Hey, there, hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

"Oh, it's alright, I had some music."

"So long as you weren't bored. Everything on track for tonight?" Maya asked, checking the time as though there weren't still some hours before either of them would be headed home.

"I'm going to be late," he revealed, which was likely the reason for his call in the first place. "Ramona has to see one of the professors and she's still going to be teaching one of her classes when we get out of our last one. There's no other time for the two of them to meet before the end of the day." And this week it was her and Robbie at the wheel, so he had to wait. Then again, even if he had been up there with his car he would have waited for his friends; he wasn't the type to ditch people just because he had plans, movie night or no.

"Well…" Maya looked to her computer, her ongoing list for the day involving several phone calls, some of them likely to be long, others likely to require multiple attempts… It was like this day was working overtime to make her anxious for tonight. "That shouldn't be a problem," she made a disgusted face at the laptop. "Just have them drop you off here, we can drive home together."

They were all anxious for that night, and how could they not? For the girls in the band, it was a return after an extended break. They hadn't performed together in over three months, not since Zay and Nadine's wedding. Between all the moves, the new jobs and new schools, they just hadn't been in a place where they could genuinely feel as though all five of them presently in the band were able to justify fitting practice into their schedules, much less any kind of performance.

Then there was also Nadine, who was learning to play a whole other instrument, to substitute for the drums she used to play, now in the hands of Kayla Banks. She hadn't told any of her bandmates just what she'd been up to just yet. The only one who knew, far as they could tell, had to be Zay, but he was guarding that secret with the pride of 'husbandly duties.' He wouldn't even tell Lucas. The best friend and best man cards were evidently worthless against that wedding band.

After the band's practice, of course, there would be movie night, and it was starting to feel as though they might need to get a bigger screen than the one they had. Lucas had been trying to keep count, and so far the list included: himself, Maya, and Sam, then Zay and Nadine, Riley and Dylan, Rosa, Dora, Kayla and Will, Rebecca – with her new boyfriend, who they would be meeting for the first time…

After that, there were those driving in from Houston, namely Sophie and Chiara, Asher and Ray, and Willow and Lion, Bishop and Leona, and Franny and the girls from Weaver Kings… And if that wasn't enough, there were the newbies. It wasn't like they'd meant to turn this into a party, but then in the weeks since they'd started school, or work, they'd made new friends, hadn't they? Sooner or later, the subject of movie night would land on the table, and those three magic words would be given over freely: You should come.

Those words had thus rallied Maeve from the bookstore, Simon Shin, Robbie and Ramona, and – to spare himself a headache – Josie and Zelda. They also brought Sam's new friends from school, fraternal (though very nearly identical) twins Josiah and Deanna Schmidt. All they'd heard about them so far was that they were seventeen, as close as Sam was likely to find anyone of his age, and they had grown up all around the world, following their parents wherever their mother had been deployed, until finally college had gotten them off that train.

If he wasn't missing anyone – and he genuinely didn't see who else they could have – then that made thirty-three. There would be thirty-three people in their house, packed in the living room. Thirty-three people who would require feeding… Dinner was easy enough, everyone would pitch in, they'd order pizza, but then movies meant snacks, so they'd told everyone to bring something if possible. Past experiences told him some wouldn't bring anything and others would bring too much, so in the end it would balance out. At least they had no immediate neighbors, right?

"Are you really sure you want all these people to know where we live?" Maya had asked him the night before as they'd been getting ready for bed.

"I like how you're not naming names but we both know who you mean," he'd shaken his head with a chuckle.

"Can you blame me?" she'd shrugged, pulling her hair into lazy bun.

"It'll be fine," he'd promised.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to keep my eye on You Know Who," she'd nodded, giving him a pointed glare. "And I realize that that's literally a Voldemort thing, which is fitting even if she's not as bad as she was before, but you get what I'm saying."

"Like she won't be stuck to your heel all night as it is," he'd laughed, looping his arms around her.

"Talk like that, it's a wonder you ever make a sale," she'd shaken her head at him, like he wouldn't notice her smirk.

To be sure, the group was very excited at the prospect of coming over for movie night. They hadn't decided what they'd watch, which was bound to be quite the process with so many of them there that night, but they'd just have to accept whatever won the vote. Lucas had put Bishop in charge of driving Simon, Josie, and Zelda. It was his best shot that no one would go rogue and think that this was the kind of thing where you could pass the word on and, next thing you knew, there were a hundred people at your house. This way, no one had an address to give to anyone.

"Lucas, are there going to be children there tonight?" Josie had asked him when they'd gone into their last class of the day.

"No," Lucas shook his head.

"Didn't you say that Maya's little brother was living with you?"

"Yeah, but he's fifteen, he's not a kid… He's in college." They hadn't known that part, and he felt some pride for Sam for how surprised they'd all looked.

They were lucky to be finishing out this day and this week in Professor Lindgren's class. She kept them all as captivated as ever, and in due time they were dismissed and sent off to their weekends. As the group split off, Bishop and his passengers off to his car and Lucas and Robbie with Ramona to her professor's office, Lucas caught Bishop's eye with a thankful tip of the head. Thanks for this it said, and maybe a bit of Good luck with her…

Not so long after, back at the theater, as she swayed back and forth in her chair, stuck on hold with her last call of the day, Maya received confirmation that Lucas was on his way back. She'd been getting other messages like this from other groups, and that all meant exactly one thing: their long awaited Friday would be upon them in no time… If this guy could just pick up the phone already… Sitting back forward, Maya tugged her notepad closer with the help of her pen, which she clicked open before starting to doodle what soon got to looking like a melody.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners