May 7th 2020

Chapter 128
Their Cheers of Music

Waking up on the morning of December 11th, Lucas was in no way surprised to find the other half of the bed empty. He had pulled out more or less every trick in the book in order to get Maya to relax enough to go to sleep the night before, though his successes were not particularly… successful, not for a while, and now on the other side of it… It was the day of Ree Forster's concert in Austin, the day Maya would meet the woman and go up on stage with her, so to expect her to be asleep as the sun went up would have been a rookie mistake.

Lucas went out from the room, listening… The house was mostly quiet, though he could just vaguely hear the sound of music somewhere. It wasn't in the attic, and heading down the stairs brought him nearer but still… The basement?

There sat Maya, with her guitar, quietly going through her song, Ree's song, the one she'd be performing on stage that night. She was just on this side of fidgety, like she was second guessing every strum, every note.

"Do I need to break out the pep talk?"

"Might not be a bad idea," Maya estimated, looking up at him. "But waffles could do the trick, too."

Waffles were made, and consumed, and with that they were able to get on with their day, which would not be uneventful by any means. The very first thing was an interview at the local radio station. After having been a semi regular guest through the near decade of the band's existence, this would be the first time Maya appeared on her own, as far as TXNY was concerned. She wouldn't be on her own, no. She was there to be along for the ride on Ree's interview, as her special guest for the night's performance. This was the moment where she would meet the singer who had catapulted her burgeoning songwriter career from zero to… infinity…

She was going to make a fool of herself, wasn't she?

"You've got this, alright?" Lucas vowed as he drove her to the station.

"I'm getting flashbacks to the first time we got interviewed… We were sure someone was going to be sick, and right now I think I'm it."

"For real?" Lucas looked at her, already plotting how he might get off the road.

"I'll get back to you on that."

Maya's stomach managed to hold on, settled with the cool morning breeze and a lot of internal reassurances. She had seen and listened to a lot of interviews with Ree Forster over the years, enough to build the woman up as a genuinely kind person, and the conversation she'd had with her on the phone had painted her in that same light. Maya may not have had the worldwide fame she did, not to that degree, but she had gotten to a point where people would approach her with much the same kind of nervousness to them. Did this make her anything more than a human being? Not at all. She was just Maya, and Ree was Ree. She couldn't go up to her and be a nervous wreck, she wasn't going to.

If she needed any more convincing, the moment Ree Forster walked into the room where Maya and Lucas waited, she had such a smile on her, holding out her hand toward the young songwriter.

"Hello, oh, good morning!" Ree greeted her as Maya clasped hands with her and shook. Stay calm, stay calm, wow, she's real… "Will I be terribly imposing if I ask for a hug?"

"I-I… Not at all, hugs are good," Maya managed to speak without tripping. As the singer embraced her, it was like all her nerves were getting leeched out of her, replaced with sunshine and joy. There was no faking a hug, and this one felt like a direct journey into Ree's heart as a person. The immediate impression was that no one on Earth could possibly ever respond to her in any other way than open respect.

Ree was introduced to Lucas, who she greeted with 'ah, yes, the fiancé!' as she'd somehow picked up on this bit of information. They barely had a chance to speak here, as they were soon led to where they would go and have the interview, only the first pit stop in their whirlwind day. Later, Lucas would assure Maya that she had done great, which was good, because she barely remembered any of it herself. From the radio station, they had followed Ree and her people on the tour bus, on their way to three more interviews. In between the second and third, they had stopped for lunch.

"Do you know what, you remind me a lot of me when I was your age," Ree told Maya as the two of them and Lucas sat around the table.

"I… I do?" Maya asked, inwardly kicking herself for the falter, after she'd been doing so well.

"Oh, absolutely, look at you," Ree smiled. "Twenty-four years old, and you've had your band now for what, nearly a decade already?"

"Ten years this summer," Maya confirmed with a smile of her own.

"And you have managed to create a presence for yourself, with no help but your own, well around the world, and enough to catch Audra's attention. When I met her, she told me all about how she wanted to sign you girls, twice, but you stayed true to who you are, and I have so much respect for that. When I was starting out, I had no idea where I would end up, but I knew what I was after and I went for it." And she had gotten it, hadn't she? She had made her own climb, reached the top, and she was still there, not a single indication of slowing down or losing relevance. "I can't wait to find out what the future has in store for you, Maya."

The more the day progressed, with the interviews, and the lunch, Lucas could just see how Maya confidence returned, replacing the nerves. If there was one thing that might come and challenge this, he knew, it would be their arrival at the venue, and the moment she'd step on that stage, even just for rehearsals. With or without an audience, the place would look enormous, but really the emptiness made the whole thing feel as though they were standing in a cavern, echoes and all.

"Before you and I have our go, I want you to sing one on your own up there," Ree told Maya, who turned back to look at her with surprise. "I'm serious," Ree nodded. "If I've got you pegged right, whatever nervous feeling is wreaking havoc in your stomach right now, you'll forget all about it in no time, once you start to let it out in a song. You've done plenty of gigs, haven't you? This is the same thing, except the stage is bigger, and there are going to be more people. The same thing," Ree repeated with a nod before moving to join Lucas where he stood, off the stage, in his capacity as chronicler of this day. Maya caught his eye for a moment. As big and new as this place was, she had him there, the realest thing in her whole world. She took a breath, adjusted her guitar. After a moment, she reached up to take the chain from around her neck, wrapping it around her hand until she could grasp the pick between her fingers. Another breath, easier now, and she started to play, to sing… It was just as she said. Everything was better now.

Before they knew it, the concert began. Maya and Lucas spent most of it with their group, in the section they had gotten thanks to Ree. The best part of it all, they'd have to say, was absolutely Katy and Melinda right next to them, both of them looking like they'd reverted back to the girls they had been twenty-five years prior. As much as they had known that Katy was a huge fan of Ree's back in the day, Lucas' mother had jumped at the chance to be here today, and now they could see why. It was the most un-Melinda they had ever seen her be, and it was amazing.

When the time came for Maya to head up and join in for her performance, Lucas quietly took her hand and kissed it, a simple spell of luck, whether she needed it or not. She found her way to where she'd be led over to wait for her cue, waiting for Ree to introduce her and call her on to the stage.

All the while as she stood in wait, absently feeling at the grooves of the engraved fingerprints on the pick, Maya had her eyes closed. She breathed slowly, listened to the non-stop burst of sound from the audience, and Ree's magnified voice started going on about this song, and how it had come to her from someone right here in Austin. There were rises in the audience's cheers, whether for the city or from those who knew Maya and TXNY, she couldn't say. Finally, her name echoed out into the packed cavern that was the venue, and she walked out there, pulling together that old familiar thrill of being on stage and the memory of rehearsals earlier, the first time she'd gotten to sing with Ree and how happy she'd felt. This was more people, a bigger place, but like she'd said… it was the same. And Maya loved being on stage.

Out in the audience, you could not have found a prouder, louder bunch, than Lucas, Katy, Melinda, and all those who had come along with them today. There was no telling how well the video would capture this moment, with all the noise going around, but where Lucas was concerned, he didn't know how he could ever forget those few minutes, from the introduction, through the song, and then the couple more Maya and Ree did together before Maya finally left the stage.

Seeing her up there, there was no space to think anything else except that, if she'd chosen to do it, Maya Hart could have filled spaces like this anywhere she went. She came alive under those lights in ways she never could anywhere else. Despite all that, she'd chosen a different life for herself, and anyone who would tell her she was a fool for turning away fame like that… they couldn't have known her the way he did, the way everyone around him did. She had started out as someone doing whatever she could to get by, before growing more and more into the person she was now, where she had discovered new paths, discovered she could make her own choices, build the life she wanted. Lucas got to be a part of that chosen life, and he embraced that privilege every day.

When Maya returned to them, for the rest of the show, Lucas could tell she'd had herself a good 'did that really happen' cry backstage first. Lucas locked her in his arms, kissing the top of her head several times, whispering at her ear how amazing she'd been up there and how much he loved her. As loud as it was, with the audience cheering for Ree Forster on stage all around them, in that small moment neither of them could hear any of it, focused on one another instead, as they took in this whole mad day and how it could not have been any better. At the end of the night, they left and headed home, quietly contemplating all that they had experienced. Lucas would see Maya as they drove home, swiping through the pictures he had taken on his phone. She fell asleep before they even made it, and he carried her into the house, ensuring that he didn't wake her from whatever colorful and musical dream she was having.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners