February 12th 2021
Chapter 43
Our Family With Success
"I think it's time for another Sleepster," Maya stated. They were still waking up at this point, just enjoying the quiet of morning before either one of them would have to go and see to the baby and start toward their day. Lucas would be off to work, and she'd be here, but the thought felt like it had been important enough to her mind here that she needed to get it on the table before he could go anywhere.
"Okay," he replied. "When?" It would always be up to her, if she felt she wanted to have her sister sleepover, but one way or another she would always run it by him in case there was something that would prevent his availability. The sisters would have their thing, yes, but then the brothers would never go and sit idly either, no. They'd have their own thing.
"This weekend, if Abigail is able to send the girls out?" Maya replied.
"I'll let you make the calls, but either way, I'm in," Lucas nodded, and she smiled, stretching over to kiss him. He received this and responded in kind, because how could he not?
At the same time, he had a feeling like maybe there was more to this kiss and this whole springing of the Sleepster out of the blue. More than a feeling, he was of a near certainty that he knew what this was all about and what need was motivating her.
They'd been back from Los Angeles for a week now, and it had been a strange one. Not necessarily bad, just, well… They had expected for Maya's big win at Ree's side to cause a reaction, and they had absolutely gotten one or ten of those.
For one thing, one of their regular venues in Austin wanted TXNY to do a series of performances, and they wanted Maya to be part of that lineup taking the stage. Lucas had gotten that call, and much as he'd reiterated the fact that Maya was taking a break from performing while she was on maternity leave with their daughter, this was met with persistence. Couldn't she make an exception? This was a big moment, and it could be so important for her and for the band. What it felt like to him was that it would be important for the venue and the tickets and drinks they thought to sell at those shows. He didn't say as much, and he kept a surprisingly level head as he negotiated his way into booking that series for the band but without Maya. He'd need to check with Cara, Riley, Rosa, Nadine, and Morgan, but if they were available, then they'd have a deal.
"Was that Rob?" Maya asked when he told her about the call. It had been, yes. "Yeah, he can get like that, it's fine. I mean, I get it. You just have to hold your ground with him, and he'll let it go. Kind of glad you took the call, I mean I've got enough stage envy in me right now, I might have said yes."
"You should do it if you want to," Lucas smiled.
"No, I know, but I still want to keep my word more than I want that," Maya explained, and for that Lucas had nothing but respect.
Aside from the shows for the band – which they were all on board to do – the requests continued. The morning show, the radio station, they wanted to interview her. She couldn't refuse those, especially as there had been interviews in LA, before the awards. So, she'd gone and done those, a few days back. It wasn't the first time she'd been confronted with this awareness that more and more people knew who she was now, out in the world but also right here in the city where she lived. She could see it as being a simple thing, the product of what she loved to do and what she'd built from it all. She could take it, all of it. But then there was Marianne, and it was here that some of the situations started to clash. She didn't like the idea of anyone getting too close to her, to see her as an extension of anyone's curiosity or persistence toward her. Suddenly, this whole whirlwind of her expanding career and presence was turning into something else, and her concern was that it would spin right out of her control and her daughter would get caught in the middle.
Lucas had caught on to the fact that she hadn't left home in those few days between their return from Los Angeles and the interviews, and that could have been a coincidence, but it didn't feel that way to him. When he asked her about it, she didn't deny it. It wasn't that she was afraid to go out, to be seen, especially when Marianne was with her, but it did feel sort of… reasonably prudent to let a few days go by, to let the dust settle, didn't it? If she'd been working at the time, she would still have gone to school, every day, and she would have taught her classes, but she wasn't. She was on leave, so why not benefit from that?
Of course, whatever 'dust' she'd hoped to allow to settle from those days had been sent up again a bit by those interviews. That left Maya to make a choice, and what it came down to was just… well, would she really go and stay holed up out here forever? This was what her life was going to be from now on, so she was just going to have to figure out how to navigate it, with her husband and daughter, her family, her friends… She'd found that balance in everything up to now; this didn't have to be any different.
She didn't exactly go out of her way to test this, though she did go back to doing things as she would have done before. This included joining Grangie in picking up her siblings from school and spending some time with them at her parents' house. Seeing them all, her grandparents and her brother and sisters with Marianne, it really helped to remind her how, for all the things that had been changed by her growing more and more known, this right here… this didn't change. She was still a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a friend, a wife and mother… a teacher… and she was also a multi-award winning song writer, and a singer in a band.
Years of being in TXNY, of their being known enough for it to change the way some people behaved around them, had prepared Maya and Lucas both to some extent to deal with what might come their way now. They also knew that it only really felt overwhelming now because it was new. They would get used to it, and they would adjust.
Maya had had a couple of encounters in these past few days, at the mall, out to lunch with her grandmothers, and she'd told Lucas about them. They'd been fine, both times, the one at the mall bordering on awkward but never so much as to make feel her unsafe, which she did her best to telegraph to her husband. The one she was happiest to share was one that happened the previous afternoon, at the elementary school, when she had gone to pick up her siblings by herself. Her grandmother had been unable to go, so the solution practically went without saying. Maya was very happy to go.
She'd left Marianne with Granny Lizzie, figuring she'd have her hands full already with Nellie, Gracie, MJ, and Haley, maybe even Desi if she ended up following them back to the Hunter Hart house. She at least only had one stop to make, now that Haley was in kindergarten, and she spotted her out in the gym as she arrived, playing with others of her class also waiting to be picked up. She saw MJ in another group, and the twins and Desi in one more. They were all having a good time, so she let them keep at it and went to see what Zay was up to. He would joke how he was teaching twice as hard right now, to make up for her being on leave.
As she walked into his class, she paused… and laughed.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to a picture stuck to his board with a magnetic clip. Said picture showed the two of them at one of the Babineaux summer parties, one of the earliest ones she'd attended, going by how tiny they looked.
"Proof," Zay declared, with his head held high.
"Proof?" she repeated, chuckling. "Of what?"
"That we know each other and have been friends for a long time. They didn't believe me," he told her, sounding almost mystified. Maya could only laugh some more.
"Do I want to know how this came up?"
"Oh, couple of the kids came in the other day, I guess one of them saw you on TV before they left home, and they must have seen you at the awards or something. Anyway, they were going on about how they couldn't believe you were from here, so I told them, said you were from here, and I'd been in school with you since seventh grade and you were one of my best friends."
"And they didn't believe you?" Maya smirked.
"They laughed in my face," Zay squinted with shades of leftover disbelief. Maya just nodded, forcing down the urge to react too strongly. "But I showed them, didn't I?" he pointed to the picture on the board.
"Uh huh, sure did," she smiled, then seeing the look on his face, "Or not?"
"They said it was fake, that it wasn't you."
"Oh, come on, I haven't changed that much, have I? Are they still here?" she asked, pointing back down the way she'd come, toward the gym.
"Yes," Zay stood up straighter. "Yes, they should be. Come on."
"Just… be cool, okay?" Maya told him as she followed.
"Please, I'm always cool."
"You're telling this to me, who as you've been trying to prove has known you since you were thirteen years old?" she challenged.
"Friend code," he declared, pointing at her. "I am your daughter's godfather."
"Born cool, that's you," Maya corrected with a bright smile.
"That's right," he smiled back before they could burst into a laugh which they then had to pull in upon reaching the gym.
As they'd hoped, the kids had not yet been picked up by their parents. At the moment, they were playing with others of their classmates, not too far off from where the twins were playing, actually. And when Nellie and Gracie spotted their big sister, they called her name and ran over to her, Desi following after them, the whole thing getting the other kids to turn and look. Zay's young students spotted her, and even as she was greeting her sisters, Maya could see their faces, the shock, the looks going from her to their teacher and back. He'd been telling the truth.
It was all of this, the funny moments, the questions, the uncertainties, mixed together, which left Maya to awaken this morning and decide that what she needed most of all was a Sleepster. So much had happened to leave her wondering who she was anymore, how she fit in the world, and then she had been reminded of it. Getting to have this time with her sisters, and any others who might have fallen under the umbrella of the term, felt like the next logical step. It would be good, and just… centering… And it would be an introduction of Marianne into the fold. She was no one's sister, not yet, but then someday… For now, it was a first step.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
