January 18th 2022
Chapter 18
Our Connection to Music
"Why, Miss Orlando, what lashes you have... Very dramatic," Maya intoned as she picked up the baby from her seat.
Megan Orlando was only a week older than the Friar girls, but to look at her, she might have been a month or more ahead of them, which she technically was, as she had not come early like they had. Either way, she was just as small and precious to her Auntie Maya, who loved nothing more than to hold her close whenever they'd be visiting, her and her mother, or the entire Orlando family, Dylan, Riley, and their trio of wide-eyed chaos machines. That was kind of the joke in their circle, lovingly so. Between their mother and father as they were, Nicky and Emily already didn't fall far from the tree, and Megan would likely follow right along.
Maya looked over to where Riley stood, looking down on the triplets, awake in the bassinet. She was greeting them all in turn, touching this one's hand, that one's foot, this one's hair... As expected, she picked up the one with the kitten patterned outfit. Maya knew she wasn't even doing it on purpose, her reflex just went toward the girl who'd been named after her. However, today... She only had to get one look at her daughter in her best friend's arms and she knew. After turning her eyes upstairs, thinking of how her sisters had been the ones to dress the girls this morning - and wondering whether this had been done by accident or as a joke - she looked back to Riley.
"That's not Remy," she revealed. Riley turned to her, looked down to the baby she held. She frowned, confused, like she wanted to say 'but the cats...' "That's Kacey, trust me," Maya chuckled with apology, as Riley looked like she didn't know what she was supposed to do. She couldn't just put Kacey down, as though she didn't want to be holding her anymore. Just now, she might have finally discovered her own reflex.
"Should I change them back?" Riley offered.
"Well..." Maya trailed off, as a thought came to her. "Not yet. I'm curious..." Just what she was curious about, Riley didn't seem to understand right away, but after a few seconds...
"Oh!" she blinked. Now she laughed. "Okay," she grinned, happily recruited into the joke.
It was band practice day, and the others would be arriving soon, the current lineup of TXNY. Three permanent members, plus two substitutes, taking the place of the new mothers on leave. Neither Maya nor Riley had set down any kind of time-frame as to when they would return to the stage, but it would definitely not be before the turn of the year. In the meantime, the others were carrying on as ever, doing shows when they could, appearances when they were requested... And they practiced most of all, recorded, too, when new material came along.
"Hey," Rosa smiled when she picked up Lucy.
If Riley had a reflex to pick up Remy, Rosa would be drawn to take the littlest of the triplets, though in her case there was no chance that this was not intentional, at least as an opener. Whether or not Lucy's being the smallest would translate in her just being small all her life, it was too early to tell. But, for the time being, Rosa was very contented to bring the girl into the 'Shorty Club,' which counted herself, and Jenna, and Maya.
"And hey... Hey..." Rosa paused, after having successfully scooped up the last baby from the bassinet. She frowned, looked at her, then at the baby in Riley's arms, then the one she'd just picked up again... "Is it just me or is this not..." She turned to Maya, the great authority on the matter. When she laughed, it was all the answer needed. "Oh, I see how it is. Pulling tricks on me... Well, it didn't work," she declared, turning her attention back to the baby girls. For one who didn't intend to have children, she was very good with them, always.
The same would be said of Morgan, naturally, when she arrived, though she did not catch on to the swap, not until Cara arrived and saw her nieces. She didn't figure it out so much as she would look at them both and be taken with this feeling like 'something isn't right, and I don't know what it is.' Between that and the way Maya, Riley, and Rosa were acting suspiciously, Morgan finally put it all together. As to the Zhu sisters, Olivia was completely fooled, right up until Nadine came along. Next to Maya, she spotted the swap the fastest.
"So, now do we switch them back?" Riley asked.
"Not yet..." Maya smirked.
They had to wait until Lucas returned with Marianne, so he could look after the babies. Zay and Dylan were to join him and assist, bringing along the remainder of the Orlando and Babineaux children. Maya had no doubt that he would have figured it out the moment he saw them, but he never got the chance, as Marianne cut ahead of him to go and see her baby sisters. She looked at them like she never even processed the colors or the patterns on their clothing. She lightly touched Kacey's head and greeted her by name, the same with Lucy, and then Remy. After doing this, she finally looked at them, and frowned, and looked back.
"Mommy, they got the wrong shirt on."
With the four babies under the watchful eyes of Lucas and the Sheriff, the band migrated out to the Hex. Even if she didn't get to be on stage, Maya was happy to be back here, with her bandmates, doing music. She hadn't picked up her guitar since before the girls were born, though she was looking to get back to it in the coming weeks. But she would sit there with them, Riley, too, and they would all sing a while, the seven of them, before their five active members got on to their instruments and broke into the TXNY songbook.
"Maya?" Olivia stopped her as she moved to leave the booth that day, while everyone was getting ready.
"Yeah?" Maya asked her, slipping into that very slim margin where she wasn't her teacher just now but her bandmate, her friend.
"I was just thinking about when you're going to come back, or when I won't be subbing anymore..." Olivia told her.
Maya knew the question was bound to come up sooner or later. They had all told her that, no matter what, she was always going to be one of them, and that was one thing when they had only just recruited her. But now she'd been part of them for months, had folded herself into practice sessions, had done shows with them. She had a stake in this now, and she loved it, and she didn't want to lose it.
"Well, for starters, you can open for us, like Cara does," Maya told her. Olivia nodded. "But you want more than that, don't you?" she guessed, and the smile on the girl's face was priceless.
"I know it's not the same. You guys are kind of famous out there..."
"We weren't always," Nadine pointed out, appearing behind her little sister. Olivia turned to see, as Maya and Riley had already seen, the rest of the band huddled behind her. "We were just a bunch of girls, making stuff together, trying things..."
"Awkwardly," Maya nodded.
"Scared out of our minds..." Riley added, making the other long-timers laugh as they recalled those times all too well.
"If it's what you want, then you just keep at it, don't give up. And we'll be right here," Nadine promised. Olivia almost pounced at her, and Nadine gave as good as she got, until Morgan and Rosa nearly had to reach out in case they toppled over.
"I've been saying for a while how we could have another band, like a..." Cara pitched in, stalled as she searched for the right words.
"She's trying to figure out how not to sound like she's calling us old," Maya whispered.
"I was not," Cara laughed. "You're just... experienced."
"Ooh, ouch," Nadine winced dramatically.
"Old," Maya squinted. Riley gave a bit of an old lady cackle at this, and Maya and Nadine joined her.
"Anyway!" Cara cut in before any of the others could jump in. "Can we agree that it wouldn't be a bad idea? A sister band. Not literally everyone's sisters, even though..." she indicated Olivia. For the time being, their band of two was just that.
"It is not a bad idea at all," Maya finally got back on topic. "If you two can find some others and you think it could work, then you should do it, definitely."
Everyone agreed, the motion was passed. Cara and Olivia looked to one another like they were realizing they were now the founding members of this new, nameless, songless, understaffed band. There was no telling whether this would work, if they would get any traction the way TXNY had done, but they would follow the advice they had received, and they would function with the belief that they would succeed. If all they did was have fun, making music together, then that would be pretty good on its own.
"Oh, we missed it..." Eliza sighed when she and Emma walked into the Hex some time later to find only their sisters and nieces. Marianne was sitting on the couch, turning the pages of one of her books, while Cara sat next to her with Kacey and Remy. Maya had Lucy, sitting in her chair at the console.
"Sorry," she told them. They had been trying to sit in on one of these sessions about as long as they'd been in Austin, but they had somehow never managed it, their schedules intervening each time. "We'll call a special practice when you're here for sure, yeah?" That would work.
"So, how did it go?" Emma asked while Eliza picked up Marianne and sat her in her lap, the better to be shoulder to shoulder with her big sister and cuddle up her niece as a bonus.
"Well..." Maya looked to Cara, leaving it up to her to share the new plan with them, which she did, causing a rise of voices they quickly had to pull back, so not to wake the sleeping twins, or keep Lucy from following in that direction. She was not so far off from that.
They continued to talk about the sister band - quietly - and Maya watched them, listened in, all the while aiding her last born girl to doze off. There was still no telling who these new bandmates would be. Would they all be girls again, keeping to the way of TXNY, or would they bring in some guys as well? It was too early to tell, but at the same time, she could almost piece it together, their sound, going from Cara and Olivia. She had some bits of songs she'd been toying with, and just maybe they could evolve into something she could pass on, an offering to start down this new journey.
She didn't see herself as being solely responsible for their compositions. If they were lucky, they would have someone who could take up that position, even more than one someone, and their sound would evolve from there, just as TXNY had done, starting with Isadora writing for them until Maya had taken up the task and continued on. She would be there to assist if or when they needed her. The way she saw it, they wouldn't need her for long. She couldn't say absolutely for certain what would come of this band, but in her heart, she found optimism. They only had to assemble, and if they had that drive in them... Yeah, they would be great. She couldn't wait to see them go.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
