November 7th 2022

Chapter 311
Our Holidays With Cheer

The first half of this year had been by no means a supremely unusual one, but it had still felt just a bit disjointed. It was easy to see why, from Maya's perspective at least, with how she'd kicked off this term at home with her daughters. It had made it so that, even if she had been communicating with her students via their diaries, she returned to what felt like a world that was very much weeks ahead of her, there on their own, and she needed to play catch up. Oh, she was used to it, with her run of leaves over the past few years, but this was different, this was the start of the year, not the end, and… A lot of it was in her head, she knew. Things were falling into place, like any year, and by the end of it the start would hardly matter. And then today, well… Today was one of those days she looked forward to the most. It was the last day before holiday break, and it wasn't so much the coming break that made this day what it was so much as the energy that the anticipation for it would bring into the high school and the art class.

This was going to be a day for giddiness, a bit of freedom… and song… Oh, there would be songs, if she had anything to say about it.

Was she a bit emotional about her seniors on this day? Naturally, she was. She didn't know how else to be with last times ever, though she did her very best not to wear her emotions so plainly on her face for all to see. The last thing she needed was for all of them to think she'd completely lost it. Instead, she greeted them with her best smile and all the cheer that this day demanded.

"Mrs. Friar?" a whisper made her look up, even as everyone was settling down at their station. She turned to find that Jenny had come back up to her after leaving her bag on her stool.

"Hey," Maya smiled, motioning for her to come closer. "All good?" she asked quietly, matching her for tone.

"Yeah… Yeah… I think so," Jenny slowly shifted from assurance, to distraction, to uncertainty. After a beat, she lifted herself back up to a hopeful smile. That entire rollercoaster had all the makings, as far as Maya had come to know over the years, of being about exactly one thing: the boy. Jack.

"What's up?" Maya asked with an encouraging smile.

"The team is having a party, at Aden and Jack's house, a Christmas/not-Christmas thing, over the break," Jenny explained, and Maya nodded. The school teams did the same, had done since back in her day, and she knew that the LGBTeam had been invited to join them, but if they wanted to have a party of their own, too, then of course they would. "Those of us who have a boy, girl, or enbyfriend are bringing them, and I know everyone who's single is looking for… a date."

"Ah," Maya nodded again, slowly, as she started to see where this was going. There were two main avenues this could split into, but they all merged back together when it came to Jack. "And you want to ask someone… or be asked… or have you been asked already?" she asked.

"I don't know," Jenny replied. Off Maya's questioning look, she went on. "Jack texted me this morning. He said he wanted to talk to me about something, in person, today after school." She didn't have to go on for Maya to reach the same conclusion she would have done. Was he going to ask her to the party? "Lara and Maggie, they're worried maybe it won't be that, and maybe…"

"They think it's a trap?" Maya blinked, and Jenny nodded.

"I told them, he's a really nice guy, super supportive of Aden, the team… They still think maybe it could be an act, and if it is, then I could be in trouble. After what happened with Ronnie, I'm always careful, but this is not something I've ever… What if I've got like… a blindside, with Jack? What if they're right?" Oh, she didn't want them to be. It just might break her heart into tiny, little pieces if they were.

"Then bring them with you," Maya suggested. "Say you have to go and do something after class, so they had to come with you. Just step aside with him so they're not right next to you but they're nearby, okay?"

"Yeah…" Jenny considered this, nodded to herself, breathed. "Okay, thank you," she smiled and moved back to her seat. Maya caught Nika's eye where she sat, and the two exchanged a discreet few looks that boiled down to Nika promising to let her know how the encounter went.

She would just be in the process of buckling in the triplets after picking them up from preschool when she'd get Nika's report, and it would be just the start to the holidays that they could have wanted. It was as Jenny had hoped. Jack wanted to take her to the LGBTeam holiday party, to be her date, if she would have him, and he'd been a perfect gentleman about it, just as Jenny had known deep down that he would be. More to the point, according to Nika, he'd been a nervously smitten boy, asking the girl he liked to a party and looking as happy as she did when she said yes. Nika may have snuck a few snapshots of the encounter, though she didn't share them with her teacher. Either way, Maya expected she'd hear all about it from Jenny herself in due time, and she couldn't wait. If she came out on the other side of this party feeling even happier than she did now, it would be just what she needed and deserved as the kickoff to the back half of her senior year.

The day did not lack in good news, even before Nika's texts after the end of classes. This second bit of news was one she'd known to anticipate at least, each day whenever her sophomores would come along. Up to yesterday there had been nothing. But now today, as students came along for third period, she saw them both and there was no doubt to her that the big moment had happened, somewhere in the last twenty-four hours. It was the soft harmony between exhaustion and happiness that gave it away.

"Hey?" Maya still had to ask, approaching Luke and Meadow. "Did…" she started to ask, and as wavery as the new siblings' relationship had been all year so far, they were both giving her the same smile, even as Meadow had her phone out and offered to their teacher while Luke spoke.

"We barely got home yesterday when Mom went into labor. We spent the evening at the hospital, and just before midnight, she came," he explained, the most open she had seen him be in the last year and a half when he wasn't in the middle of a scene or a song in the musicals. "Mary Bailey-Ryan… our sister," he turned a look to Meadow, and they were in accord that this little girl meant too much to each of them to be anything but united as her siblings. Would it mean that they'd never bicker or disagree? No, of course not. But it was far more than where they'd started.

"Oh, look at her," Maya could not see that sweet babe, pictured with her parents, and not feel their love echoing out. Little Mary was as unexpected as they came, but now she was here, and she was everything. "You two must be looking forward to going home again, probably didn't get much sleep, huh?"

"It was like two in the morning when we left the hospital, me and him," Meadow confirmed. "I went right to sleep, didn't even change. Might have stayed home today, but we had to come in, so we did."

"Well, you've got two options. Either I give you an out and you go grab a nap in the nurse's office for this period, or it's a lot of singing and getting the energy up in here," Maya offered them.

She might have been biased, but she was very glad that they chose the latter option. They wanted to stay and be part of class with her, and it wasn't as though they wouldn't have done much of what they did today, but now with the sleepy new siblings to see to, Maya was on a mission to make this something good enough to border on 'the principal will be called with noise complaints' without going over it. With musical enthusiasts Luke and Meadow on hand, fighting off sleep, she knew just where to hit to get them both singing with full gusto. To hear their voices together, it was easy to see how – had they not been stepsiblings – casting them as the two leads would have been nothing short of a winning move. But then, by now, even they would have felt too weird about playing lovers, so Luke was perfectly satisfied with the role he'd gotten instead.

The afternoon didn't take long to start feeling like a sugar dream. The lunch ladies had gone all out ahead of the break and there was a bake sale triple show, between the quiz team, the theater department, and the senior class. The freshmen were at the height of it, coming in right after lunch, which led to some very comical caroling out of the likes of MJ, Lamar, Ash, Lydia, and XC Matt Cullen. It was easily their favorite day together, which held promise for what the new year might be like with all of them together again. Maya got to share a bit of it with her father and Mackenzie and Aubrey when they came over the long break, and with Phoebe when she came with Myles, too. They were having a cold day, so this gathering was in her classroom, which was spilling over with 'fairy magic' and students' art for the little Friar sisters to take in. By last period, it was to wonder how a sugar crash and her gold stars on the last period of the last day before the holidays would mix.

"Freeze, all of you," Maya swept her finger to point at the cluster as they came through the door together, Nellie, Gracie, Ethan, Bobby, Desi, Tre, and Rolly. "How much cake and cookies have you guys had?" she inquired and was treated to a mash of voices she had no time to tell apart as they went from 'too much' to 'not enough' and around to 'still got some.' "Alright, well, watch yourselves, huh?" she told them, putting on just enough of the mock stern tone to make them laugh and play along as they headed off to their seats.

Oh, the energy was very strange that day, but only in the best way, the kind where, at some point, someone got the giggles, and it started to spread like wildfire, and soon it was unstoppable. There were so many red faces from this that Maya ended up sending a couple of the kids to the cafeteria to grab everyone something to drink. And when they came back not only with those drinks but also with an offering of more treats from the lunch ladies, well, they were goners. One thing was for certain, and it was that they went on their way for the next stretch of school-free days in very high spirits. Maya wished them all the best of holidays and an early happy new year before they were reunited in the first days of 2037.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners