June 29th 2022

Chapter 180
Our Days of Cheering

Maybe the most important part as they set off to hold this 'Wakester' was to make sure not to go around pretending like they weren't doing exactly what they were doing. They knew Nellie would not have appreciated it if they randomly said, 'let's go do such and such thing' and pretended like there was no purpose to it. She would know what they were really doing, and it would frustrate her. All the same though, they needed to ensure that she would actually want this and not just dismiss it out of hand in favor of moping around in her room. According to Gracie, that was what she'd been doing for the last few days, even though she pretended to be in the midst of cleaning and reorganizing her side of their room.

"I keep thinking I'll go back in there one day and she'll have moved everything around… or decided to repaint the walls," Gracie had told her older sister in desperation. She and her twin were usually so in sync about things, but this was just something where they couldn't be, and it made her feel helpless. It reminded her, to some extent, of how they'd been pulled apart after she'd had her accident and been in the hospital and then recovering at home. The pain here may not have been entirely physical, but at the same time… wasn't it? And all the same, Gracie could only do so much for Nellie while she worked through it all.

So, now they had a rough idea of what they needed to do. First thing they had to establish were the participants. Nellie, Gracie, Maya, naturally. Haley, yes. Desi, definitely. Marianne? Yes, this might just be a job for the sheriff. Could Ella be there? Well, she'd already been the one to come up with the name, so there was no way she'd stay out of it, though she would leave Tori with her father. That felt like a good group, not too big, not too small. Shawn called them the 'Magnificent Seven' when they all came together on the day.

Gracie had taken up the task of letting her twin in on the plan, the night before the intended day. She felt that it would be the perfect time and she would be the best suited for it, and she was right. When the rest of them showed up the next morning, she was ready to go with them. There was still an air to her of just wishing to stay home, but she didn't dig her heels or change her mind. She just followed, uncharacteristically quiet and turned in on herself.

"Where would you like to go first?" Maya asked her little sister, smiling at the way Marianne held on to her aunt's hand as they walked to the minivan. Nellie could have tried to pull her hand away, with how she was feeling, but she never did.

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"Mall, maybe?" Ella suggested, and Nellie, Gracie, and Desi all had a face like 'no, bad idea' at once, though the latter two did look at each other like they wanted to salvage it somehow.

Taking these cues, and the fact that she'd run into him out there more than once, Maya figured it out. Anton was working today, which meant there was a chance of their running into him out there, and she didn't want that. They were keeping their distances until school started, that was what they'd decided the day they'd broken up, Nellie had told her sister that much. She wasn't crossing off the mall like she could never go, no, but he was working today, so in her book that made it off limits this time around. Gracie and Desi seemed to be trying to point out how the mall was huge, and they could stay away from the store where he worked and be fine, but she shook her head. No mall.

"Movie?" Desi asked. Nellie shrugged.

"Want to go see Hopper at the ranch?" Haley suggested. Nellie considered it, but again, a shrug. Maya sighed.

"Okay, everyone in the minivan."

She had a plan… sort of… She couldn't say whether it would get them anywhere, but if she knew one sure fire way of getting moods shifting upward and maybe getting everyone – especially the girl of the day – to find something they wanted to do, it was this one. With no real destination in mind except to keep them in the general area of where they might want to go, once they did know where they were going, she drove off from the Hunter Hart house. When they hit their first stop, she got the radio on with the playlist she knew would get this crowd going and cranked up the volume.

To no surprise, the first voices to join the speakers were Marianne and Haley's, and once they had started, Ella joined them, and Desi, and Gracie… Maya waited, watched Nellie in the rear-view mirror as best she could. She wasn't immune to what was going on around her. Everyone was getting into the spirit with growing abandon, and it definitely pulled a smile out of her before long. One more song and she looked looser in her seat, shoulders less turned in. Another, and she was laughing at the way some of them were getting into their 'performance.' One more, and they had seven voices singing at the top of their lungs as they rolled through Austin. Once they hit that level, Maya kept them going for a good while, really let that mood develop and envelop them, Nellie especially.

"Oh! Wait, right there!" she spoke over the music suddenly, so out of the blue that it was a small miracle that Maya didn't hit the brakes too fast. She did see where her little sister was pointing though, so she directed the minivan over to where she could get them parked.

The next couple of hours, leading up to when they stopped for lunch over at Nando's diner, were a hop from this place to that one, the cluster of seven moving around, mostly browsing, not picking up anything to buy. When they got to the diner and sat down, it wasn't a minute too soon. The morning had really picked up, but now they were hungry and needed a break. What Maya felt was bound to happen here didn't take long to begin. The whirlwind had stopped, things had settled, and Nellie's earlier feelings, which had been dislodged and sent flying from her, had now stopped spinning, and so they came back down, no longer weightless. Right when Nando came over, jolly as ever, to take their order, Nellie started to cry.

"Can you give us a minute?" Maya whispered to her old boss while Gracie and Desi closed in on their sister and best friend in the middle.

"Sure, sure, uh… take your time. Drinks, I'll get you your drinks, you… yes, I know," he waved off the notion. They were all regulars; he knew what they'd want.

Ella and Haley were both trying to be as supportive as the other two were, reaching out to press their hands at Nellie's arms where they could. Marianne was stuck. She could see and feel how her aunt was in pain, but she was also five years old, and this was just beyond her understanding. She looked to her mother like she didn't know what they were supposed to do, and Maya cupped the side of her face, leaned to kiss her forehead. When she sat up again, she reached down and tapped her necklace with her index. Marianne looked at it, the locket, the guitar pick. Maya nodded at her and now she looked down at her necklace, her star. Oh.

Was it going to be that easy, just Marianne going full on Sheriff Annie and suddenly Nellie would feel better? Probably not. But it couldn't hurt, right?

Whatever they tried to say in that moment would just fly right over her head, so they didn't try it. They were there, they had her. They let her get it out… She needed that as much as the singing and the company. The cups were quietly brought over, and Ella got up to distribute them as unobtrusively as possible. Marianne took hers up, both hands on, brows locked into thinking mode. Maya smiled to herself, leaving her to come up with whatever she could. In the meantime, the other cups remained untouched.

"I'm sorry," Nellie quietly told the rest of the table. "We were having a good time, and…"

"Don't worry about it, Nell," Gracie touched her forehead to the side of her twin's head, hugged around her waist. They were almost sixteen, but then they'd do something like this and remind Maya of when they'd been babies, asleep together in this way.

"Yeah, you need this," Ella told her. "Trust me, you'll feel better after."

"We'd sit over there, when we came here," Nellie gestured toward the end of the counter, the last two stools. "Nando would keep telling us not to sit sideways like we'd do, said we'd fall off one of these days. Anton almost did, once, but I caught him, brought him back…" she recalled, eyes far off like she was seeing it all happen again in her head. She smiled, just a little, before present time reclaimed her and deflated the happy memory bubble in her chest.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come here," Haley frowned.

"If we start thinking like that, there's a whole lot of places she couldn't go anymore," Maya told her little sister.

"I'm okay," Nellie turned to Haley, thanking her with a nod. "She's right. I'll get used to it… hopefully."

"Better?" Desi asked her. Nellie sat quietly considering the question for a moment before deciding…

"Yeah… kinda…" she told her, looking to Ella; she'd been right, too. "I'm hungry."

Those were the magic words and they appeared to summon Nando with their lunch. The conversation varied, going from the morning's wanderings to the new school year coming up, with the twins' sweet sixteen in the middle. This had the potential to draw Nellie back into thoughts of Anton, who surely would have been a part of that celebration. They'd made this deal for distance, but would they make an exception? They still wanted to be friends, didn't they? It was too soon to tell.

With lunch behind them, the Wakester crew had a decision to make. What would they do this afternoon? Everyone turned to Nellie. The diner had helped her get some things out of her, but it didn't suddenly make everything a hundred percent back to normal. What did she want to do?

"You know, I think since we are going to be sixteen soon, it could be time that we gave our room a makeover," Gracie declared, turning a smile to her twin. It was soon returned, and Nellie caught her up in a good, strong hug.

"Sounds like a plan. Assuming Mom and Dad will be on board, we're going to need supplies," Maya nodded to the two of them and they nodded. "We're going to need an actual plan, as in ideas, so we know where to go."

"Yeah…" Nellie agreed, realizing this might take a while. "I don't have any paper or…"

"Please, look who you're talking to," Maya snickered. "Come on, back to the minivan, I've got you covered."

With the back hatch opened and the twins sitting side by side, Haley and Marianne standing behind them to peer over their shoulders, Nellie and Gracie took the sketchpad and pencils their older sister had provided them and got to work. This was not going to be just about moving furniture around. They were going to go all out and make this a new beginning, for both the almost birthday girls. With their course set ahead of them, they got back in their seats and took off for their first stop. The minivan rang with seven voices in song all the way.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners