April 6th 2020
Chapter 97
Their Fall in Leaves
Lucas returned from school a week later, the clock already running past seven. He was fortunate this semester in that he only had one day where he finished late enough that Maya and Sam would be left to wait on him for a late dinner, as they'd done over the past year, and today was that day. Most times in those last two semesters, he would arrive and find the both of them practically chomping at the bits to finally sit and eat, though sometimes it looked more like they were playing it up to amuse him. It definitely worked, whether or not he'd need it on any given day.
He returned on this day to find what he could only describe as the 'Maya Hart brand of creative chaos.' It was the kind of overall image that needed to be broken down into pieces to be fully taken in. Here was part one, which were baskets filled with… leaves? Actually, they might have been fake, cut and traced from the heaps of construction paper and other materials spread over the coffee table… part two. Part three was a very long, hand-painted banner hung to dry from the banister, or maybe it was part four, after the bits of paper littering the floor, from where the leaves had been cut.
Part five was the centerpiece. Part five was Maya and Sam, standing in the middle of all this, loudly singing along to the music playing over one or the other's phone speakers, sat on the ground as they appeared in the midst of painting another banner together. Both their heads were adorned with something like a flower wreath made of paper leaves.
It took Lucas a moment to process all of this, but once he did he knew they had to be working on Fall Festival decorations, but more importantly he knew… That was Maya's second song, the one for the girl group. He had a feeling they had listened to it a few times already. Sam was stunningly great at memorizing things, so he could have heard it once or twice and been able to sing along with his sister, though that would not account for the amount of time it would take to get him to sing in the first place. He had given himself away for having a solid singing voice over the years, though it would take a lot to get him to show it on purpose in any way where he couldn't just get lost in a mix of voices like he did now.
"Hey!" Maya finally happened to look up and spot him standing there. Setting her brush aside and minding that she didn't knock anything over or stick her hands anywhere while she had wet paint stains on them, she stood and came up to him. "I can't touch, but you… well… I'm not finishing that sentence, I promise," she stole a look back to her brother, who looked at them like 'I'm sitting right here!'
"Kiss okay?" Lucas smirked.
"Not only okay, it's highly encouraged," Maya grinned, stretching up on her toes to press her lips to his. "I ordered pizza about twenty minutes ago, should be here soon," she revealed.
"Perfect," he breathed. That sounded great right about now. "I like this," he prodded her leaf wreath.
"Made you one, too," Maya informed him, which made him chuckle. "Hey, listen," she tapped his chest with her elbow, nodding to the phone on the ground next to Sam.
"I heard," he nodded.
"Turn it back to the start," Maya asked her brother, who was already on it, holding up the screen so Lucas might see. The image showed four girls, he'd guess, somewhere about late teens, stood together two by two and back to back so that the two on the end stared out and the two in the middle looked to one another. Keeping Secrets (Hush) – The Violets.
"It played this morning, too," Lucas pointed, realizing.
"You heard it?" Maya asked.
"Well, no. We were just pulling into the lot, they mentioned the group right before I turned off the ignition," he explained. "I would have stayed if I'd realized that was what it'd be."
"How was it today?" Maya inquired now, the mention of the morning now taking her out of creator mode and back to where she remembered about today.
After the first day, with the fight, and the talk, Ramona and Robbie had decided it might be best if they both took a few days to reflect on their own. It wasn't about splitting up, just… breathing, stopping themselves from accidentally stoking a flame they were trying to put out. Robbie had been crashing at a friend's place, driving himself to and from school, leaving Lucas to drive Ramona both ways as well. He didn't mind it at all, if it could help. It didn't change the fact that the two of them were still in most of the same classes every day, but they couldn't help that.
Now, today was to be something of a test. They were all three of them driving up and back again together, Robbie once again joining them.
"Awkward…" Lucas finally replied to Maya's question. "Not sure what tomorrow will be like, if he'll be there again or if he'll drive himself again. If I had to guess… I think it'll just be Ramona and me again." He hated to see his friends like this, but he knew this was just not one of those things where he could step in. They had to make up their own minds, and from there… all he could do was offer support.
Maya pulled her hands into her sleeves before giving him a proper hug. The shirt already had paint stains on it anyway, which she realized only after she'd put her arms around him would also mean she might cause a transfer on to him anyway. He didn't look like he minded. The best medicine, in being stuck watching his friends' troubles from the sidelines, was just to hold on to the good things he had waiting for him back here.
"Wreath me, please?" he asked, and Maya laughed, moving to find this third wreath of paper leaves and placing it atop his head. He stood back, trying to find a reflective surface so he might inspect himself. "How do I look?" he turned the determination to Maya, who looked like she really wanted to giggle right about now. She turned to her brother. Sam seemed to be much of the same opinion, so Maya looked back to her fiancé. She could just imagine him with small horns protruding from the top of his head, or elf like ears…
"Like an autumn sprite, and I am digging it," she finally declared, which immediately veered into imagining what Dora, the original woodland creature in the family, would look like with one of those on her head. Now she wanted to make more.
The pizza arrived, and the three of them were left to the conclusion that their habitual delivery guy was getting used to something like whimsy being part of the day to day at the house on the lane. Leaf wreaths were just something that happened. The headwear was left in the living room along with the rest of the leaves and banners and materials as they went into the kitchen to eat.
"So, all this is for the festival," Lucas looked back into the living room with a nod.
"Doing my part, pitching in," Maya happily nodded back. "With my trusty assistant," she smiled to her brother.
"Not sidekick," Sam chimed in.
"Only for crime fighting," Maya agreed, turning back to Lucas. "Also, I just like making lots and lots of leaves and other stuff… It's therapeutic."
"Just how many are you planning to make? Are we talking like a tree's worth or the whole forest?" Lucas wondered.
"An appropriate amount," Maya assured him. "Imagine being part of a tree and being turned into something that's pretending to be part of a tree… Want to help?"
"I have to read a few chapters for tomorrow," Lucas replied with an apologetic look.
"Right, education, good, do that," Maya sighed. "Come on, Sammy, banner time."
"Uh… Actually I kind of need to work on an assignment, too," Sam told her, finishing the last of his pizza. "No, not that look… Lucas! Make her stop!" he complained, faced with Maya's great big disappointment face. It usually worked in getting him to jump in on what she wanted to do, whether or not he had time. He didn't actually mind her trying to compensate for all the time they'd missed out on, not growing up together, doubling up on the 'big sister messing with little brother' bit. He loved to mess with her, too, just didn't have as much of a knack for it as she did.
Lucas and Sam had gone off to do their school work, leaving Maya to return to her leaves. It wouldn't be a forest, no. Once the leaves were all cut and traced with their details they would have messages and clues stuck to them, the better to be handed out, and hidden, part of a scavenger hunt. It was her one personal pet project in the festival, beyond the handling of the theater's involvement. She'd only started on it the day before, but already it was coming together and she couldn't wait to see it all unfold.
"Sam's still working?" Dropping one more leaf into the basket, Maya looked up to find Lucas coming down the stairs.
"Well, if he's not, he's staying in his room, so I'll just say yes."
"Does that mean I won?" Lucas joked, making her chuckle.
"Yes, you beat the sixteen-year-old, well done you."
"Sixteen-year-old college second year," Lucas amended. He came and sat on the couch, while she sat on the ground, surrounded by her papers.
"Right, so much more impressive then." Lucas picked up the notepad on the cushion next to him. The notes, in Maya's handwriting, looked sort of like poems, or lyrics, or… clues?
"You're doing a scavenger hunt, aren't you?" he asked, and she nodded. "We had one of those, the year you arrived," he recalled.
"We did," Maya smiled, cutting another leaf. "I didn't want to do it, because I didn't know the city enough to get the references, but you all convinced me to do it anyway, because then I could get to know all those places."
"You, me, and Asher, against Zay, Dylan, and Nadine," Lucas nodded, moving until he was sitting behind her, rubbing her shoulders. "Zay was so sure one of the others had cheated or something, when we ended up winning."
"Well…" Maya's voice pinched, in a way as to suggest…
"Wait, did they?" Lucas looked down at her, surprised.
"Uh…"
"Maya?" he laughed.
"Okay, okay, drag it out of me eleven years later," she set down her paper and scissors and turned toward him. "I was new, and weird, and feeling all… out of place… I can't help it if that inspired a bit of pity, really that just goes to speak about character."
"Who was it?" he had to know, more from curiosity than any sense of 'cheating bad, honesty good.'
"Who do you think? I mean, if you had to pick one person out of that whole group, besides you, who would do something like that for the new girl?" she challenged. Lucas considered this for a moment, and it went to show who their friends were that he honestly had to think about it. Any one of them would have been considered a likely suspect, even him… especially him… If he thought back, he had tried to think of a way to help her, but then why would he have needed to, if they were already on the same team, except just to give her The Win. So that ruled Asher out, too, and from there… Wait…
"I think I'm more annoyed at myself for falling for his whole protest act," he chuckled.
"King of the misdirect," Maya laughed. She still remembered how hard it had been for her not to break out into monster giggles, watching Zay go for that 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed' kind of diatribe, when all along he'd been the one slipping her clues when no one was looking. "I have a feeling this year will be perfect… for a rematch."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
