February 29th 2020
Chapter 60
Their Contract on Connection
By the time they had left their adventures in dress shopping, Maya knew her sisters would be happy to hear that part of the reason why Abigail and James were coming to collect them in Austin on Sunday was so that they could all go shopping for said dresses together, while they were all in the same place. It would have been just as easy for her Tucson sisters to do this back home, yes, but Abigail had wanted to enable them to share in this experience. Maya was eternally grateful to her for that chance. She also fully expected this to turn into some kind of attempt to get her to show them her dress, but she wasn't going to give in on that one.
Of course, now she was discovering that some of them might be in the market for not one but two dresses. Abigail and James were getting married…
She didn't have any details, only the fact that it was happening, according to Teddy, but even for all that… She could only be happy for the two of them. After the losses they had both suffered, the fact that they had found one another was truly just wonderful. She wished them nothing but the best.
Maya was glad that Lucas had told her about it though. As much as she felt well-adjusted to the news, she saw the need just as he did to check in with her young siblings, to see how they'd do with it. Maybe they would do just fine, but maybe they wouldn't. Everything she had seen of them after their father had passed away… Cara's fights, Eliza's silence, Wyatt's clinginess… She didn't want to outright say 'hey, did you hear, Abigail and James are getting married!' If she could preserve the surprise, that would be better, especially if it would make them happy. All she could do for now was keep attentive.
"So, did we pick a color yet?" she asked, as the group headed down the stairs. She had Haley in her arms, her littlest sister sound asleep and holding on to her.
"Everyone wants a different one," Cara informed her. "I want blue, Eliza wants red, and Emma green, then Nellie wants yellow and Gracie purple."
"Wow, so literally a different color for everyone," Maya chuckled. The truth of the matter was, even if she picked one color and told them all to get a dress in that color, even if it hadn't been the one they had originally wanted, they would be happy anyway. That was one way of going at it… She had another one. "Okay then," she nodded.
"Okay what?" Eliza asked.
"Okay, do it, wear your colors," Maya told them, very nearly causing a collision on the stairs. The peril to many little limb had been stopped thanks to Cara, at the head of the pack. Once the squealing had ceased, ending in Haley's waking up in distress, they'd all looked up to their big sister. "You okay?" Maya asked, trying not to laugh.
"I can have my yellow dress?" Nellie asked, hopeful.
"Yeah," Maya let that laugh out now. "My Sunny in yellow."
The collected sisters were very much on the upbeat side as they continued down the stairs and ended up back in the kitchen. They still had the practice portion of their plans to get to, but for now it getting on toward dinner time, and they had a choice to make: ordering or cooking. It had been a quick debate. They wanted to make something. Taking a page out of Chiara Mantovani's book, Maya decided to show them to make pasta. It was sort of a go-to, just as she'd done once when… Oh… She had a thought now, and with a smile she told the girls to go and wash their hands before they started.
"Cara, can you get them all covered with something?" Maya asked her sister, thinking they really needed to equip themselves with smocks or aprons…
Maya: If you're free tonight, would you like to come over for dinner? There's some people here you should meet.
Trusting in the fact that it would take some time just to get the girls ready, and to decide what kind of pasta they would make, Maya was pleased to find that they were only just about to start when the doorbell rang.
"Still won't use her key…" Maya mumbled to herself as she went to answer the door.
"Who's that?" Nellie asked, moving after her big sister, which led Gracie to follow, and then one by one the rest of the group, too.
When the door opened, there stood Cecilia, startled upon finding so many faces staring back at her.
"H-hi…" she blinked, looking to Maya with curious confusion. Maya could just see the thoughts working themselves out in her mind. She knew the twins – who knew her, too, and were thrilled to see her – and she knew Haley – ditto – but then there were three other girls… and one of them looked like a younger Maya, another bore a strong resemblance as well, while also appearing to be the same age as the black girl at her side. Therefore… "You're… Sam's other sisters?" she asked, looking to Cara, Eliza, and Emma.
"Is that his girlfriend?" Eliza whispered – poorly – tugging at Maya's arm.
"Okay, come on in, this is just weird now," Maya waved their new guest into the house and shut the door after her. "Everyone, this is Cecilia Winstead-Jones," she made the introduction. The trio out of Tucson smiled at once. That was definitely their brother's girlfriend. "Cecilia, you know my sisters here, here, and here," Maya indicated Haley with a nod to the girl perched in her arm and the twins with a tap to the top of either of their heads. "Meet my sisters there, there, and there, or as they're more commonly known, Cara and Eliza Hart and Emma Lane.
Some shy hellos were exchanged, before the 'awkwardness' of the unexpected meeting was broken, of all people, by Gracie. She loved Cecilia very much, ever since they'd met, by chance, one afternoon as the twins had been coming from ballet class. Cecilia had told her how she used to do ballet, too, so much in fact that, a few years prior, she had been cast and performed with a touring company of the Nutcracker. Neither Maya nor Lucas had known about this, though by the look of him Sam clearly had. The Nutcracker had been Gracie's introduction to ballet, the reason she'd been taking lessons for over two years now.
"We're making pasta, want to help?" she asked Cecilia.
Soon, the group was reconvened to the kitchen, where they kicked off their session of pasta making. To be honest, Maya had been just a bit concerned as to what line of questioning her Tucson sisters would employ upon meeting Sam's girlfriend. They were sweet girls, but they could be overly direct about some things, and the last thing Maya wanted was for them to start interrogating Cecilia about things she might not have been at ease discussing. They'd known the girl for nearly half a year already, and she was sure they'd only scratched the surface on a lot of what made Cecilia who she was.
"Hey, we're good, yeah?" Maya quietly asked her, when the opportunity came up. "I'm sorry I just sprang this on you, I just thought…"
"It's okay," Cecilia nodded with a smile. "Really. I was hoping I'd get to meet them, and the boys…"
"Oh, they're in the city, you can meet them over the weekend," Maya revealed. "And they've been okay with you?" she tipped her head to where her Tucson sisters were making gnocchi like they wanted to see who could do the most and the most perfectly shaped.
"Yeah, of course," Cecilia blinked, like she didn't see why they would be any other way. "Cara said I was 'definitely going to visit in Tucson soon.' I don't know what that means, but whatever it is, that's a good thing, right?"
"That… Yeah, it's a great thing, uh… Can you excuse me for a second?" Maya carefully stepped back, wiping her hands before approaching the girls, passing the twins. Nellie would roll, and Gracie would line up the finished product with the others they'd already made, carefully reshaping when she thought there was something out of shape. "Sorry to interrupt the competition," she told Cara and the others. "Need to talk for a minute."
They went into the living room, where the dogs were lounging on the couch.
"Right, so… You mentioned something to Cecilia about her maybe going to Tucson?" Maya asked Cara. The thirteen-year-old had little to no poker face. It was amazing to look at her sometimes, her mini-me. She was the same age she'd been when she moved out from New York, and it really was like looking into a… slightly altered picture of herself at the time. "This might not have anything to do with your mom and James, would it?"
"How do you know?" Cara gasped.
"How do you know?" Maya cut in, her big sister status apparently enough to gain priority on having that question answered.
"I was there when he asked her… sort of. I was supposed to be in bed, but I was thirsty, and I went downstairs. I was trying to be discreet, because I could hear them talking, and then when I looked to see if they could see me, he was, like, on one knee and everything. I didn't know what to do, so I ran back upstairs as quiet as I could. Mom didn't say anything about it the next morning, so I didn't say anything either."
"Okay…" Maya nodded. "You didn't tell anyone? Eliza? Emma?" Cara shook her head. "Are you okay about it?" She knew it had been hard on her sister to adjust to her mother dating again, moving on from their father, but that was a while ago now, and she got along great with James…
"Yeah, I think so," Cara replied. "We kind of figured it was going to happen sooner or later, with them wanting to move in together. I think they should be moving in with us, I mean there's more of us than there are of them, and we just moved in not that long ago, I don't want to have to pack everything all over again… Emma can stay in mine and Eliza's room, they can get bunk beds like they wanted, and Teddy can have Sam's old room. It's not like he's going to move back in when he finished college."
"Got it all figured out, huh?" Maya smiled.
"It was weird in the beginning, but now it's just normal," Cara shrugged. "We all just want the same thing. They want us to be happy, and we want them to be happy, too. We're good now, so… they should get to be good, too, together."
"Makes sense to me."
"Can I go back now? I know they probably kept going without me…"
"Go, get it done," Maya offered a fist and got it bumped before her little sister jogged back to the kitchen.
Returning there as well, Maya looked to the girls, her sisters, working on their gnocchi. Cecilia was right there with them, right where she belonged. It was sort of early to think of it like 'she and Sam are together, so that sort of makes her my sister,' but one way or another, ever since the girl had come into their lives that was exactly what she'd felt like to Maya, like a little sister. Her being here tonight felt just as fitting.
"Hey, Cecilia, you want to stick around tonight?" she asked, and the girl looked up, even as Gracie voiced a great desire for her to do so.
"I, uh… I'll check with my dad," she replied, smiling. "Thanks."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
