April 13th 2021

Chapter 103
Our Start For Freshmen

To see the fully satisfied look on Morgan's face when she stepped into the art room at lunch time, Maya could only be amused with how much her friend, colleague, and bandmate had been looking forward to this moment, to the return of their shared meals. She had decided to ring this in by calling for an order out of Ma Maggie's from her fiancé Paul. It made Maya chuckle.

"What's the matter? I'm bringing you the good stuff," Morgan proclaimed.

"Oh, I know it's good, I had it for breakfast this morning," Maya explained.

"Ah…" Morgan understood. "Early date with the hubby?"

"Something like that," Maya nodded. She could probably tell her, yeah? Shouldn't she? At this point, keeping her in the know might not have been a bad idea, but… Right now, she kind of preferred having an untroubled lunch with her fellow teacher. Anyway, to her knowledge, neither of the Munroe kids were in music with her. Phoebe definitely wasn't unless she'd changed things up this year.

"So then, you don't want these waffles…" Morgan slowly pulled the bag back.

"Now, now, let's not get things confused here," Maya reached out and was rewarded with lunch. When asked about the morning, she shared the story of the shirts, at which point Morgan seemed to remember something. She set down her container, cleared her throat as though calling to attention a whole crowd, and pulled her vest open. Maya laughed.

"Definitely went with a text one. Walking into class with my face on my clothes would have been a little weird?"

"Tiny bit," Maya confirmed.

They continued to swap stories like this as they went on eating, and maybe for how primed she was for Rochelle McNeil prowling to sniff out potential freshmen, Maya's eyes continued to flick toward the open door and the hallway. On one of those turns, she did find someone there, but it was definitely not the junior girl, and for a split second she almost didn't recognize the man… He'd looked so different this morning.

"Dylan?" she blinked. Morgan turned in her chair, spotting their bandmate's husband, and she had a similar reaction of surprise. "What did you…" Maya stood and moved toward him. Her eyes couldn't help but get pulled up, to look at his head, and his hair… what was left of it. Just this morning, it had brushed at his shoulders, and now… Now he could have rivalled Bodhi for how short it was, a buzz cut most worthy of the name. It so changed his whole appearance that she might not have realized it was him if he hadn't been one of her closest friends for the last fifteen years.

He doesn't look like them as much anymore…

"I called to say I'd take the job, they wanted me to come in. It was Riley's idea, she took care of it," Dylan explained. Maya was still just stunned. She pointed and, when he nodded and bowed his head, she reached up and touched his head, like she had to get that contact to know for certain she wasn't dreaming.

She almost wanted to joke about whether Riley had cried, with how his hair had always been regarded as perfect in its length. They used to suggest that the idea of removing so much as an inch was sacrilege. But she didn't say it now, because she understood this had been a necessary sacrifice, accepted by the pair of them. It was his allowance past those school doors… a temporary fix on the problem that wouldn't go away.

"You're still you," Maya finally stated, and when he smiled… "Yeah, see? There you are."

Rochelle didn't end up showing up to spy, and the rest of the lunch period was spent with Maya reluctantly reading Morgan into the situation, once she'd shut the door. She was as stunned as the rest of them, even without the deep history with Dylan. Once she realized Phoebe and Taylor were his half siblings, it was like clarity. Of course, her brain would say, it made so much sense.

With the start of afternoon classes approaching, Maya was now on the verge of receiving the younger of the Munroe kids for the first time, along with the rest of the freshmen. Morgan helped her with the set-up, even as Maya was catching her up on the story, and now all she needed was for those kids to start coming along. They would be her fourth set of freshmen, even if she had been away all of last year. She'd still been there for the first class, and she was very familiar with the steps. They didn't know her, but they walked in and they sort of knew her? This year's class couldn't help but be different from the others, just as last year's had been, for coming after the world tour.

This class came after the tour, and the awards, and now today they had been walking around their brand new school to find a lot of people wearing TXNY shirts, some of them with the face of the woman standing in front of their art classroom, for some reason. It might take some explanation. At least, like last year, not all who came along were strangers to her.

"Hey, guys," she smiled when she saw Taylor Munroe arrive alongside Lambert Day. She would have been happy to see her third Day boy come along on any… well, day… But the fact that his father had been here all of last year, that he'd become such a presence in her life… A new Day boy felt like just the thing she needed to get this new year going the right way.

"Hi, Mrs. Friar," Lambert smiled. He'd already revealed himself as possibly the most open and curious of his brothers, from previous interactions she'd had with him, but she would let him introduce himself to his class when the time came, just like the others.

"Afternoon, Mr. Day," she tipped her head to him before looking to Taylor. He had definitely come away from the slightly awkward start they'd had this morning. He wasn't being led around like a baby bird in a new nest anymore. And he had a friend now. Did they know each other before today? Maya didn't recall any mentions from anywhere that would suggest these two were friends already, but maybe they were. "And Mr. Munroe," she followed her greetings in kind.

How she managed not to show the slightest sign of concern, the notion of Dylan being in the building just now being an easy way to get her spooked… she didn't know.

Possibly, she was distracted at the arrival of her young cousin-in-law. Lea Sullivan-Reyes presented herself now, cast and crutches and all, with her bag on her back and no sight of her aforementioned escort and bag carrier.

"You alright?" Maya went toward her.

"I'm good, really," Lea informed her, even as she definitely sounded a bit winded.

"You sure?"

"Sure," Lea nodded. "Did ask someone for help earlier, but then I told myself… no… It's better if I do it this way. Independent, you know?" She stopped, looked at the available stations. The ones nearer to the door did have the benefit of shortening her distance, but was that where she wanted to be? Eventually, she didn't have much of a choice left, so she hopped her way to a free stool. The station was occupied by three other girls at the moment, and by the time the bell rang, Lea looked on the whole very satisfied with where she'd ended up.

"Alright, good afternoon everyone, hello, welcome," Maya went ahead and called everyone to attention. "For those of you who don't know already," she went on, stealing a look to those three who did, "My name is Maya Friar, and I am your art teacher. I am… beyond excited to be here with you today. This is actually my first time back here teaching since the end of the school year before last. I was on maternity leave, but now I'm back. Your schoolmates in the sophomore class and above decided to have a little fun with this by wearing the shirts you've probably been seeing out there. I'm in a band called TXNY, that's what all that's about.

"Now, today is all about beginnings, for all of you and me together in this room. That means two things are going to happen while we're here. The first is easy, and it involves this box. Each of you will receive a blank sketchbook, and every week you'll have a small assignment to fulfill on its pages. We did this last year while I was away, to keep in touch, and I liked what it did, so I'm bringing it back this year, too. They're like diaries, which means no one else will see them, it's just you and me, alright?"

She took the box around the room, and one by one the students picked out the book that had their name on the spine. It was a precursor in her getting to associate the actual person to the name on the list, and she liked that a lot. Once the box was empty, she went back to the front of the room. She could see many of the students inspecting their diaries, the gold pen… They were intrigued, and that made her very happy.

"Your first assignment will be to use those gold markers to decorate the cover, however you see fit, to represent who you are. Right now, I want to hear a little from each of you, to introduce yourselves to me and the class."

As ever, the presence of kids who already knew her was an asset in that it got the ball rolling a lot easier than had she been faced with a whole room of strangers. To no surprise whatsoever, the first hand in the air belonged to…

"Kind of getting it out of the way, as you're married to my cousin. My name is Lea Sullivan-Reyes, I'm fifteen. I was adopted the day I was born by dads, same as my sisters. Don't know much about my birth parents except I'm half-Filipino, quarter-Chinese, and quarter-Welsh," she rattled off with the pride that Maya knew she had. It had become important to her and her sisters in recent years to connect as much with the history of where they'd come from as with where they'd ended up. "I'm a singer mostly, but I might try acting, too. I dance… or I did," she looked to her foot in its cast. "I've been told I can be a lot, but I try not to be."

"I can confirm, you're more than enough," Maya smirked, and she got a smile in return. "Who wants to go next?" She nodded to the raised hand of…

"Lambert Day," his hand shifted into a small wave. "Fifteen. I'm the third of four boys, my oldest brother graduated last year, next one's a junior now, younger one's in middle school. Pretty sure our parents were trying for a girl but gave up after four of us boys." It lifted a chuckle from around the class, and much as they all expressed theirs in their own way, the boy had what his brothers all had: charisma. "I want to be a chef… as soon as I can," he went on to declare. "It's sort of why I'm here, I think. It's kind of like an art, too, isn't it? I figure, this can help with… increasing my imagination."

"They don't call it the culinary arts for nothing," Maya nodded. Oh, she couldn't wait to see what he came up with. After him, maybe for being his friend and next to him, Maya was led to call on the hand of…

"I'm Taylor Munroe… fifteen, too. I have an older sister who goes here, she's… kind of weird," he said this with enough of a smile as to acknowledge that he liked that she was weird that way. "We're a big basketball family… Well, most of us. My mother doesn't really care about it, but my sister and my dad both play, and I do, too, so we watch games a lot, and we go sometimes… Not great with studying, I get distracted a lot. I started art class when I was in middle school, they said it would help, and it kind of did, so… here I am," he shrugged.

Maya had been so caught up in the potential drama, and just now she was actually getting to see this boy as the person he was. More than ever, she really wanted to make sure he got through whatever came next.

"I am very glad to have you here then, Taylor. Welcome."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners