April 4th 2020

Chapter 95
Their Fall in Festivity

Lily had gone off on a late lunch break almost as soon as Maya had returned from Siobhan's office. Left to her own office, Maya allowed her curiosity toward the radio to seep out a little, clicking between stations for a few seconds at a time before returning to the one she'd been on at first. Alright, fine, she was anxious to hear the song. It was almost making her wish she didn't know, like last time, so she wasn't so tuned in on the wait. Where her first song had gone to someone she genuinely considered one of her idols, this other one was being recorded by a girl group that was just starting out, and as soon as Audra had told her this, Maya had been so very on board. It was like an echo of her own group, if they had ever taken the offer when…

"Hello?" a woman's voice brought her back to reality, accompanied with a knock to her open door. She turned in her chair and stopped, her face breaking into a smile at once.

"Miss Alcott?" she blurted out, even as the woman's eyes went wide with recognition, too.

"Maya?" she laughed, moving into the office even as she came around the desk. "Can I…" she gestured, a request for a hug which Maya was more than glad to grant. All she could think was 'I remember her being taller,' but then how could she not? She'd only been thirteen when she'd met her new English teacher, first day of middle school in Texas. "Look at you, my goodness…" the woman pulled back, almost fanning herself to stop the urge to cry. "Last time I saw you, what was it, nine years ago?"

"Think so, yeah," Maya tried to count. It was wild to realize that, in this moment, she wasn't much younger than what her former teacher had been back when she had been her teacher. "You're the coordinator for the Fall Festival?"

"First year," she nodded. "I've been involved the last three years, since I moved over to the high school, and now I'm the one running the show."

"I remember Mr. Matthews telling me you were there now, totally slipped my mind for a while," Maya admitted. "Please, have a seat, can I get you something to drink?"

"I'm alright, thanks," Miss Alcott replied, moving to sit as she took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. She looked around with a smile on her face, still, in what Maya would imagine was the same sort of amazed disbelief she was experiencing, too, to find their paths crossing again in this circumstance. "I had no idea this was you, but now that I do… I can see it."

"Thanks," Maya smiled back, trying not to feel like a kid in front of her teacher. "It's been… almost a year now."

"And you put it all together?"

"I did, yeah, it was just… I came back here after college, couldn't find a teaching post yet, or a job that I…"

"Teaching?" Miss Alcott cut in, like Maya had brushed past a very important piece of information.

"Yeah," Maya felt like she might have been blushing. Miss Alcott looked at her for a moment like she was trying to pinpoint something.

"Art," she finally decided, and now Maya chuckled. "Explains all this then," her former teacher… fellow teacher… gestured around them. In her head, Maya could just hear what Nadine had told her once. You are an art teacher, Maya, even if it's not exactly the kind you set out to teach. Even Miss Alcott could see it. She told her as much, and when she mentioned Nadine, the woman's eyes lit up all over again, recalling yet another former student, and realizing the two of them were still friends. "You two, and the boys," she tried to recall. "Asher Garcia, and Dylan Orlando, Zay Babineaux, and…"

"Lucas Friar," Maya finished for her, nudging the picture frame on her desk until it was turned around and the woman could see the picture of the two of them and Sam standing in front of the house. She hadn't intended to be all 'hey, look at my ring!' about it, but it had been right there for her to see, and oh how she looked like the nostalgia train was hitting her at full speed. "We were supposed to get married last summer, but we had to move it over to next summer. Oh, but Zay and Nadine just celebrated their one-year anniversary," she revealed. "And Riley and Dylan should be coming around to that at some point… Asher and his boyfriend, too, he wasn't in our year, but you must have taught him, Ray Choi?"

"Yes, of course I do, oh…" Miss Alcott nodded, overwhelmed still. She looked at the picture again, pointed to Sam standing to Lucas and her. "Your brother?" she asked, in a tone that sounded like 'I don't remember you having a brother.'

"That is a… very long story, which I will be happy to tell you all about, but I'm thinking we should probably start talking about the festival," Maya nodded.

"No, you're right, absolutely," the English teacher nodded, reaching into her bag and pulling out a notepad and pen. Maya chuckled and she looked up.

"Flashbacks," Maya explained. Miss Alcott laughed along now. "So, where do we start?"

"Well, first thing, please call me Lindsay," she smiled, especially at the flash of 'but manners!' shyness across Maya's face.

Between Stage Ready, and the summer camp, and any number of band events and charity campaigns, Maya found that the initial ground work for the Fall Festival was really a lot easier than she might have foreseen. It wasn't as though she was in charge of the whole thing, sure. Everyone had their part to play, while Miss Alcott… Lindsay… oversaw every component. Maya would be overseeing the elements that involved the theater, which turned out to be a lot. They were close to the park, where the festival would be held, so the theater would be something like festival central for the people involved, and some of the structures at the end of each day.

By the time they had finished going over what they could go over, for today at least, Lily had returned from her lunch, joining in on the conversation, and Maya's work day was just about at a close. As she'd gone to escort out Miss Lindsay Alcott, Maya had asked after her own life, how she'd ended up going from the middle school up to the high school. It had been a simple matter of the position opening up, and all in all hadn't been too much of a thing. Half her students would have found her again the following fall, and the other half would have been without her for a year before getting to carry on with her for the next four.

What came up after this was the fact that she had gotten married, not long after they'd all left the middle school, only to have that marriage come to a rocky end the previous spring. Maya wasn't sure if it was nostalgia or a bit of sadness for the woman who'd started her on the path of making a turn with her education, but she found herself inviting her to come over to the house that night for dinner, with Lucas and Sam – and Cecilia, probably – and herself. She'd tried to say no at first, in a way that told Maya she actually wanted to say yes but then didn't want to feel as though she'd be intruding, so she had insisted.

"It's really the least I can do in return for all you've done." It was completely honest, and seeing this, Lindsay agreed. She would go and freshen up, grab dessert on the way – she insisted – and she would be at the house for six thirty. Maya gave her the address and some directions and they went their separate ways. As soon as her former teacher had gone, Maya hurried back to her office, collected her things, said good night to Lily, and went on her way back home. She had no idea what she'd be making for dinner.

"You're here early," Cecilia looked up from where she sat on the couch, reading a book, when Maya walked through the door. Even though they told her to use the key they'd given her, it still caught them by surprise to arrive and find her there at times. In this case, Maya was very glad to see her.

"No kidding," Maya nodded, pausing when she was accosted by the dogs, moving from where they were all gathered near the couch and up to where they could greet her. "Not to pull you away from your reading, but can you help me with dinner?"

"Sure," Cecilia shut her book and slipped it back in her bag before grabbing her crutch and getting up. "What are we making?"

"No idea," Maya admitted. Cecilia blinked. "Long story short, I'm going to be working on the Fall Festival this year…"

"Oh, I love the festival," Cecilia smiled.

"Yeah, me too," Maya smiled back. "Anyway, the one who's running it was the English teacher at the middle school when Lucas and I went there, and I just invited her to dinner. Wasn't planned, spur of the moment… When's Sam coming home?" she asked herself.

"He should be here soon, he texted to say he was leaving school, that's why I came," Cecilia explained. She hadn't started her new school year just yet, unlike Sam.

"Right, okay, dinner," Maya moved toward the kitchen. Cecilia followed her, as did the dogs.

Looking through what they had on hand, once she'd reminded herself she didn't need to put out anything overly fancy, Maya had made up her mind on the menu and she and Cecilia had gotten to work. As predicted, Sam arrived just twenty minutes after Maya had done so, and he was recruited at once into the dinner effort.

"I remember, you told me about her before," Sam nodded when his sister told him who was coming over that night. "When is she going to be here?"

"Little over an hour," Maya told him, looking at the time and picking up her phone.

Maya: ETA?

"Should I change?" she asked her brother and his girlfriend, looking at herself.

"I don't think so?" Sam shrugged, looking to Cecilia, who shook her head.

"Okay, good," Maya looked back to her phone when it dinged.

Lucas: Just dropped off RR. What's up?

Maya: Unplanned dinner guest.

Lucas: Be there in 15. Need me to pick up anything?

Maya: Wine?

"Okay…" she breathed before looking back to her brother, remembering now that today was his first day back. "Hey, Sammy, how was it today?" she asked, tapping his shoulder as though to say 'sorry I forgot to ask there.'

"It was good," he nodded. "None of the professors kept us for very long except the last one, he kept us the whole period, but I didn't mind it. He started telling us about what we would be doing over the semester and it was really interesting."

"Those are the best classes," Maya remarked with a smile. It took her back to those first days with Professor Robinson, of course, and History with Mr. Matthews, but also English with Miss Lindsay Alcott. She found it very easy to recall those early days going to school in Austin, how lost she'd been feeling, and how Miss Alcott had started her feeling just a little less lost, day by day, all starting with one book, and then another, and another… The Giver, she recalled with a smile. That had been the first one.

TO BE CONTINUED


(A/N: If you want a refresher on Miss Alcott in the old days, she first appears in A Hart in Texas chapter 18 :))


See you tomorrow! - mooners