March 29th 2020

Chapter 89
Their Summer in Sound

She was on her own today. Lucas was in Houston visiting his grandparents, Sam was off with the rest of the Hart-Lanes on an outing to a water park. She could have gone to either of these places with them, had been invited and everything, but she'd chosen to stay home and relax. It was one of those rare days where she wasn't due at the theater, for her regular duties, or Stage Ready, or the camp, and she didn't have any errands to run, or deadlines to meet… As hectic as her life could be at times, she knew better than to ignore an opportunity to just stop and breathe for a while. So here she was laid out on the couch, vaguely tuned into the sound of Trix and Lou munching on the food in their bowls in the kitchen, while little Archer snored on the ground next to her.

She wasn't bored, but she was also left to face the fact that she wasn't so good at sitting still from time to time. Right now, she was struggling with it. She was just… tingling… with the need to do something, anything more than this.

"Just relax, Hart…" she sighed, very aware of her feet tapping against the armrest. The sound of her voice, breaking through the quiet of the house, brought the pup to rise up on his front legs and give a curious bark. Maya turned her head at this, then turned on to her side to look down at Archer. "Hey, wanna go take a walk?"

That still counted as relaxing, yeah? A nice, peaceful walk out around the land surrounding their house, with the three energized dogs… Trix and Lou were old pros by now and could be allowed to run free. Archer, on the other hand, was still small and overly enthusiastic, which had already led to him wandering off on his own once and nearly being lost. So he got a leash on him, though he appeared to find this an acceptable compromise so long as he was outside and could still go sniffing and wandering, up to a certain distance.

Maya had only just slipped in her earbuds, watching the dogs further up ahead as she did so, and she had just started flipping through radio stations on her phone, when she chanced to catch a familiar hook. She stopped walking so suddenly that a couple seconds later Archer reached the limit of his leash and gave a little yelp of surprise. Maya was barely aware of this, too startled as she looked to her phone screen and it all hit her even more.

This song, her own composition, was going out across the country and beyond… and here she was, standing in an open field, with a dog barking for her attention.

In every wonderful way, she just wanted to scream out into that blue summer sky. There would be… millions of people hearing her words, her music, at this very moment. Millions! After a few seconds she just ended up sitting down in the grass, feeling as though her legs wouldn't have managed to support her much longer if they tried. It was so much, too much for her not to get overwhelmed. It was one thing to make the thing, and put it in the hands of others to make it into this finished product, but to be standing here now, hearing it… It left her heart ready to burst out of giddiness. And all she could do was sit here, and listen, as the dogs came dashing back around her like they thought she might be in trouble.

Weeks ago, when the contract had been signed, and all of it had been made official, she hadn't known what to expect, how long it would be before they got to a moment just like this one. But then not a week later she'd gotten a call. They had an artist who needed a new song after something else had fallen through at the last minute. Audra had taken this information and turned automatically to their new writer, asked if she might have something for them. All she did have at that point was the song she'd started to come up with, that day she'd first come by the theater, and the beginnings of something else, still in progress. The two songs were night and day from one another, and after hearing what there was of both of them at this moment, Audra had asked if she might be able to get a demo down for that second one by the end of the week. She'd told her she'd get on it, and she'd done it.

She hadn't even heard the finished song. Truth be told, she'd never found out who the song was meant for, just that she'd find out soon enough, and all she'd been left to go on was this feeling like when she did find out she would be floored.

This was not a floor, but it was the ground, and she was sitting on it now, hearing this voice in her ears, this voice singing her words, this voice she had known and often emulated… for most of her life. She was shaking, and that was okay.

It took her a moment to realize that her phone was giving off vibrations, alerting her to incoming messages. She looked down at the screen now and there were so many outbursts from one friend and another, telling her that the word had clearly gone out. She zoned in on one more than any other.

Lucas: MAYA YOUR SONG

Lucas: ON THE RADIO

Lucas: QUICK!

It made her laugh, as much as it made her realize she was crying. He'd heard it, too, back in Houston. What she wouldn't have given for him to be here with her instead of way out there… Still, she held on to her need to call him until after the song had come to an end, taking a few deep breaths and fanning some air into her face, wiping tears from her eyes before finally hitting that speed dial.

"My heart's beating out of my chest…" she spoke with a shaky laugh. "That means it's real, right?"

"Yeah, it is," he replied, and she could hear laughter in his voice, too, laughter and wonderful frenzy. He was so excited, for her.

"I'm sitting in the grass right now," she reported, her free hand having busied itself in scratching at Archer in her lap. "You might need to come and get me once you're back in Austin, I don't think I can get up from here." She told him about how she'd been walking the dogs when it had all happened. What were the odds that she'd turn on the radio just at the right time, the right station like that? No higher than the odds of having my first song get taken on so fast, taken on by her of all people…

"So I better excuse myself from dinner with the grandparents then?" Lucas asked.

"Oh, you should eat first, I'll still be jumpy in a few hours," Maya shook her head at him.

"And leave you in the grass all that time?" he joked.

"Somehow, I'll survive," she volleyed back to him. The memory of the song on the radio came back at her like a force of nature. "Ree Forster…" she said the name, almost reverently. She still couldn't believe it. Her legs felt like jelly all over again at the thought.

"You know this probably means she's heard you sing now, from the demo?" Lucas told her, and her breath shrank in a gasp.

"I-I hadn't even… thought of that, oh my…" she took a deep breath, pulling Archer closer in a one-armed hug. She'd never felt so self-conscious of herself, like she couldn't remember what she'd sounded like in the demo. Was it okay? What did she think of it? "This is all happening so fast…"

"Are you sure you don't want me to come back now?" Lucas asked.

"Really sure," Maya insisted. "Look, see… well, you can't see… but I'm standing up, all on my own," she reported as she did so. Sure, she was still feeling that wobbliness and hyperactivity like she'd just come down from doing a show with the added kick of super good news to really send her off balance, but this wasn't going to get resolved by sitting still, no, never. She needed to be back at the house, she needed to do… something… with all this energy in her. She had a particular itch to pull out her paintbrushes and all her colors…

"I'm not going to be able to think about dinner, you know that?" Lucas pointed out.

"You're already saying goodbye to the grandparents, aren't you?" she smirked to herself. In response, she heard the distinctive sound of a car door opening.

"Be there in a couple of hours."

"Better be." Ree Forster… my song… "I'll be in the attic."

She never made it up to the attic before he arrived. Walking back into the house with the dogs, her feet just took her down into the basement. There, on one of the shelves, sat a pair of long boxes filled with CDs. They had belonged to Katy as she grew up, and at some point they'd just become Maya's. It wasn't as though she ever even listened to most of them, but she loved just having them. They were a picture into who her mother had been as a teen.

There were a few she had actually pulled from their cases and listened to, again and again. One of them was Ree Forster's debut album. Maya pulled it out now, finding it without having to think of which box it would be in or where in that box it would rest. Ree had been all of sixteen when she'd come on the scene, which would mean she'd been in the public eye for the better part of her life, with over twenty-five years under her belt. She'd never stopped growing, never stopped putting out hits. And now… now she was singing her song.

After staring at that album cover for a solid minute, Maya pulled her phone from her pocket again, staring at the blank screen now as she considered if she wanted to go and see what people thought of it, or if Ree was talking about the new single… What if people didn't like it?

Before she could make up her mind, there was the doorbell upstairs. Maya put the CD back and hurried up the stairs to go see who it would be. She reached the top even as her mother let herself in, and they stopped and looked to one another for a few seconds before Maya bolted toward Katy, who had her arms wide and at the ready for the embrace as she practically leapt for her mother.

"Would you like me to pinch you?" Katy asked, hugging her firstborn close.

"No, this is good," Maya promised. "You heard it, too?"

"I was at the grocery store, Shawn called and told me about it. I'm not ashamed to say I may have caused a scene in the middle of aisle four," Katy informed her, making Maya laugh. "I had to find it online, once I got back to the car. You should see what everyone's saying…"

"Should I?" Maya asked apprehensively.

"Are you kidding? Maya, they're loving it," Katy pulled back, taking hold of her daughter's hands and giving them a good squeeze. "And look here," she presented her with her own phone, opened to a video of the audio track. The description was pulled down, and right there, like the binding of past and present…

Ree Forster – How You & I (Audio)

Music & Lyrics: Maya Hart

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners