May 4th 2022
Chapter 124
Our Development of Staging
Maya felt deep down that no matter which of those two stages they would have ended up using for their workshop, they would have felt like the right one. They were both places that meant so much to her, especially with what each of them had seen come to pass. The stage out at the Silvan Hughes Theater had seen the rise of her Stage Ready program, it had been the place where her mother had started to act again, in earnest, leading her to where she was today. And the stage at her high school, for the last several years, had been the place where she'd watched her students rise into the spotlight and simply have their own star moments, unforgettable… It defied definition at times, in both the most wonderful and the most bittersweet ways. And now, today, it was to be the place where they would begin this next step in their MSC journey.
Friday afternoon, as everyone went and cleared out for the weekend, several of them would instead be making their way to the auditorium, even as others would be making their way into school rather than out of it. The time it would take for everyone to get here would be sufficient to see everyone cleared out who needed to be cleared out, and by the time they could actually get started…
"Did I hear right; your mom's being discharged tomorrow?" Maya asked Kelsey as they made their way into the auditorium. Her junior contingent had been kind enough to help her pick up around the art room at the end of last period, so now they were all on their way out together, Maya, Kelsey, Ava, Olivia, Anton, Johnny…
"Supposed to be, yeah," Kelsey nodded with a small, hopeful smile. Over that past week, Maya had been seeing her student make a turn, like she'd decided to cling on to the good news, to see those for signs of a good turn, rather than to let herself get pulled down by fear and uncertainty. Would it magically make everything better and guarantee that her mother would pull through? No, of course not, but what would she gain by letting herself sink into darkness? "Oh… What if I can't make it here…" she suddenly realized. The workshop was to stretch over this afternoon and the coming weekend.
"Don't worry about it," Maya told her. "Your mother takes priority."
"I know, but I just… I want to be in this, too," Kelsey admitted, and it made her teacher smile. There had been so little for her to get invested in like this since the start of the year, so Maya could see how she'd hate to miss out on it.
"Whatever needs to happen, it's entirely up to you. I have your number, you have mine… We will work this out, yeah?"
"Yeah," Kelsey smiled.
Slowly but surely, their group filled up in the auditorium. Little clusters could be found in the seats, or on the stage, or in the aisles… Maya quietly counted them out in her head as they came, all the while waiting for some faces in particular…
"Maya!" She grinned at once when she heard her, and she turned to spot the pair of them coming up the aisle. With his thirteenth birthday right around the corner, MJ was taking the room in like he was thinking of days, just a couple years off now, when he would be a student here. His ten-year-old sister had other things on her mind right then, primarily to reach their older sister and embrace her. "Did it start yet?" Haley asked.
"What, without you? Never!" Maya chuckled, and Haley beamed. "You're right on time."
"Are you going to know if the baby is a boy or a girl this time?" Haley asked, the change of subject as sudden as it was unsurprising. By now, her family and friends knew how she'd tend to go and bounce from one topic to another, so they'd be blindsided for a second, but then they'd just think 'right, Haley…' and move on.
"Well, honestly, we haven't really discussed it yet," Maya told her sister as she looked down at herself. Oh, there were plenty of people already pronouncing their predictions, based on any number of factors that supposedly dictated whether she was carrying a boy or a girl. Personally, she didn't feel like this time was any different than the others… well, than with Marianne, for sure. With the triplets, now, that had been something else entirely. Did that mean that she was having another girl, or did it have no bearing, and would the baby be a boy after all? She didn't know, and she really didn't care nearly as much as whether or not this child would be born healthy and thriving. "If we do find out, I promise I'll let you know. Even if we decide not to tell anyone else, I'll definitely tell you," Maya whispered, and Haley was satisfied.
The last to arrive were Ella and Lea, who'd hit traffic on their way from Houston due to an accident blocking things up. They had warned Maya of this, so she and Sam and Cara had already started talking to the rest of the group about what they were looking to do over the next couple of days. When they quietly came along and joined the others, the siblings were explaining how the coming weekend would help them figure out their plan for the coming weeks. The way they saw it, the workshop would likely hit its peak over the holiday break.
With so many people surrounding them, people even Sam and Cara were generally familiar with, people Maya had such a deep connection to whether it had been just a few weeks or months or for as long as they'd lived, it really felt like they had exactly the team they needed for this step in their musical journey. If she was honest, Maya would say that even facing all these kids, so many of them having entrusted their own stories in her over the years, standing here and sharing the musical's story, she felt nervous. They could have easily kept it to the plot, the songs, the characters, but it had always been important to her and her siblings that they had made this project as personal as it was. It was based on them, their family, their story, so to really delve into the musical and bring it to life, they couldn't ignore that part. They had to bring everyone into it, and maybe some of them knew some or all of it already, but it was still strange to step entirely away from her position as their teacher, with so many of her past and present students sitting before her at one time.
But they were with her. All of them, sitting before her and Sam and Cara, they were listening, giving their entire and undivided attention. Every last one of these people had been ready to step in as soon as they were needed, and not even this pregnancy could account for how her emotions felt like a great bubbling rush in her chest.
That was really the extent of what they were going to get done for today. They would share their story, and explain the musical, and from there the next part would be put into their team's hands. Their performers were told of the parts they would play, their crew would be told what was needed from them, and then everyone would be given what they'd need to prepare for the next two days. When they would resume work in the morning, they would be expected to be ready to jump into act one. Looking at them as they started to head out, Maya was confident that they would be more than ready. She could hardly wait.
"Hey…" Maya chuckled when she realized her little sister was back for another hug. She hugged her back and, not for the first time, felt that little twinge in her that made her think of just how Haley reminded her of Marianne at times, as Marianne reminded her of Haley, too, especially the way she'd seem to have magnets at her ears or her hands, bringing her to feel at her belly when she was near like she couldn't help herself. "You won't let me go when this one starts moving around, will you?" she teased. The way Haley kept holding to her, it got to feel like this was less about the baby and more about her. "Hey…" she tried again, brushing at her sister's hair. "Are you alright?"
"Uh huh," Haley finally spoke up.
"Then what…"
"I just… I didn't know," Haley mumbled. "I didn't get it." Maya was about to ask her what she meant, but then she understood… Of course…
It was getting to be this thing, in their family's life, that sooner or later the younger kids would come to learn of that part of their history, the one they'd mostly kept back before because it had felt to everyone that they might have been too young. They would have to have that talk, Lucas and her, with their younger daughters as they got older, but in the meantime her siblings were still coming into it. On the Hart-Lane side, it was down to Maisie at this point, and this she left to Abigail and James' discretion, but on the Hunter side… Haley had known only the basics up to now, that her mother had been married before and that was why Maya was older than the rest of them and had a different father and more siblings. Shawn and Katy would have explained it all soon enough, but they knew that involving her in the musical would mean that she'd piece it all together, so they'd entrusted their eldest daughter to it. And now here they were.
"Hey, it's all in the past now, yeah?" Maya moved so that she'd look up at her again. "It's all good, I promise. I'll tell you more about it tonight if you want, okay?" Maya suggested and her sister nodded. Because of the weekend-long event, they had decided to hold a sort of mini Sleepster, with the little Hunters and Ella and Lea staying at the house, to make things easier all around. It was really hard to pinpoint who was most excited between Maya's siblings and her daughters.
"We're going to practice tonight, too, right?" Haley asked as they moved to join MJ and the twins, who were currently enjoying the freedom of the big, empty stage with a three-way chase.
"Yeah, we are. It'll be great, you'll see."
The evening would be everything Maya had promised. There was singing, and some dancing, and there were stories shared of a time before some of them were born. Not until everyone had been put to bed and it was just them alone did Maya extend Haley's first question to Lucas, to see what he had to say. Did he want to know what they were having before April?
Lucas stood there for a few seconds, quietly thinking to himself. Finally, he looked back to his wife.
"No," he shook his head with confidence, and Maya smiled. "Unless you want to," he amended, but she shook her head back at him and walked up to loop her arms around his neck, guaranteeing that he'd then loop his around her waist.
"A surprise sounds good to me," she promised. "Will it still count as a surprise if it turns out that we have another girl?" she pondered after a beat. He just smiled.
"Absolutely," he tipped his head and caught her in a light kiss.
"Good, just checking," she replied before their lips could connect. Oh, this could be very fun. Picking names alone would be a good kind of tricky, even if it turned out that they didn't get to use some of them in the end…
"You want to look at the name book, don't you?" Lucas asked when they pulled back, and she didn't know whether to be shocked, or amused, or both, that he'd figured her out.
"Yes, please."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
