July 19th 2022
Chapter 200
Our Legacy of Knowledge
In the midst of this week of field trips, there was an event for the Friars to attend, one to take them out of chaperone mode entirely, if for the span of an evening. Everyone was looking forward to the party, whether or not it had to do with the fact that they got to go and wear their special dresses, or special lockets…
"I can't wait until they can talk more," Marianne smiled as she stood in the hallway, between her parents' room and her sisters'. As they were just finishing up getting ready themselves, Maya and Lucas both went to see what their daughter was looking at.
There wasn't a peep in the nursery, which wasn't unheard of but also not the norm. The triplets were just standing there, in a circle, and going through a repeated process of observing the golden heart dangling from their own necks and then observing the one on this triplet and that one. They were all identical, save for the small letters engraved in the front – L, K, and R – but there was more to it than that, at least for them. They had all seen these before, on their big sister, on their aunts, on their mother… It was tradition at this point, so they had received these for their second birthday back in August, but they hadn't really gotten to wear them until today. Now they wore them, and it was like a revelation. They had seen these, and now they had their own, and it was very exciting.
The trio became aware of its audience, and they scrambled. Kacey wanted to go and touch Marianne's locket, and Lucy wanted Lucas to pick her up. Remy, for her part, cut past her sister and her parents and went into the other room, up to the crib, to look at her baby sister. Mackenzie couldn't quite sit up on her own yet, but she was clearly working on it. Remy went up to look at her, and Mackenzie made a happy sound at the sight of her.
"Where's it, Mama?" Remy turned back and pointed to her locket before returning her attention to the baby. Whatever she did or didn't know yet, in her eyes, something was missing, and it had to be fixed.
"She's too little right now, kit," Maya told her. "She'll get hers when she's two, just like you did." That still didn't seem good enough for her and seeing that big sister energy radiating off of her was almost too much for them to take with a straight face. She looked back at her parents with a 'but' look in her eyes. "I promise, okay? When she's two," Maya told her. Promise… Remy knew that word, and even at her age she understood the golden rule of their house. A promise might not mean right now, but it still meant yes. She didn't always accept it, because she was two, but now and then, she heard it and it was enough.
Now that they were all ready, it was time to head out. Getting the five girls into their car seats was not so much of an endeavor as it could once have been, but it still took some time, so when they had a schedule to follow, it was generally wise to assume they had to be wherever they had to be earlier than they actually had to. With that in mind, they were right on time, pulling into the lot of the Silvan Hughes Theater.
Once upon a time, Maya had been a recent college graduate, degree acquired but no postings to become the art teacher she wanted to be just yet. She'd needed a job, needed face the reality that there was no telling how long it would be before she got her dream career started. What had started as a regular search had eventually turned into an idea, which could not have been surprising to anyone who knew her. She'd called that idea Stage Ready, and she had presented it to Siobhan Hughes, the woman who had played such a crucial part in bringing Katy and Maya to Austin in the first place. She'd come through once again, this time in helping Maya to get this project off the ground. And it had worked. For two years, Maya had worked directly at the theater, along with her mother, until she'd gotten her job at the high school. She'd continued being involved as much as she could for a while, though in time she had handed the keys over to others she knew could help her once small idea continue to grow.
And grow, it had. In the time before and after Maya had stopped being directly involved, Stage Ready had grown beyond their one theater to take root in other theaters across the state of Texas, then further and further across the country, then even further than that. It had become a camp in the summer, and at the holidays in December. It had also evolved to include the Backstage side, where the likes of Ava Nash had flourished. Though she'd never been the one to call it that, others had not shied away from referring to it as an institution. And now that small idea, that institution, was ten years old.
As they walked through the theater doors into the lobby, they could already see so many people gathered there, and it was impossible to know where to stop and look, because there were just so many familiar faces. Their mentors had been many over the years, but not nearly so much as those who had come and benefited from their time at the regular sessions, or at the camps… As much as they could focus on those select attendees whose time with them had translated into budding and growing careers, Maya could not look at them any differently than she did those others who either hadn't made it yet but were always trying, or those who had sought nothing else than to explore these things that they loved, singing, dancing, performing… She would see those who had been small children in the beginning, and they would have grown… Some of them, she now realized, had become students to her, and none of them faulted her for not having recognized that connection sooner.
"Do you still sing?" Maya asked with a smile as she stood with Ash Bell and their mother and stepfather. She kind of had to look a little deeper, under the makeup, and the hair, which had been dyed a deep, purple-toned red save for one bright blue strand at either side of their face, which were usually braided. She remembered the strawberry blonde, pink-cheeked Ashleigh Bell, no bigger than Marianne but with a voice on her like you wouldn't believe out of a girl so small.
"Not really," Ash shrugged, looking like they felt awkward discussing this in front of Mrs. Bell and her second husband. The Bells, whether together or apart, had always been supportive of their child, though Maya guessed that the shift into non-binary vocabulary continued to be a struggle for the pair and their new spouses. She had no idea when Ash had moved away from the musical side of their life, but Maya made another guess about how that would have gone over, thinking that the Bells struggled with this even more than with not referring to Ash as their daughter but their child. They wanted them to use this talent they had and make something of it.
"Hey, no pressure, but you know we do musicals every year, yeah?" Maya asked Ash, after she'd succeeded in pulling them aside to talk one on one. "If you wanted to audition… or not, of course." The freshman's expression was not always easy to read, but maybe on the merit that they were reconnecting here, and Ash did not look like they'd had to be dragged into coming here…
"Maybe. I don't know," they finally said. "There's basketball tryouts, and Maia wants me to go for the team, I just…" This hesitation, at least, Maya felt like she could decipher. There was the boys' team, and the girls' team, but Ash was neither and deferring to the girls' team because it would be the one that they'd be expected to join… The one thing that was really making this choice difficult for Ash was their girlfriend, and not wanting to disappoint her, even if deep down they knew that Maia would understand, maybe more than anyone.
"Think about it, okay? All of it. And if you still want to talk it over, you know where to find me," Maya told them, and Ash nodded appreciatively.
"Thanks, Mrs. Friar," they said, and Maya nodded. When they heard their mother calling, they closed their eyes.
"You okay?" Maya tried not to smile.
"She heard that they were looking for people to go up on stage later and she's been trying to get me to go," Ash explained. They definitely did not want that, but they also knew the likelihood of their mother trying to coax them anyway.
"Are you any good with babies?" Maya asked. Ash looked at her.
Mackenzie Friar was utterly fascinated with Ash's face as they held her. She couldn't get enough of it or of the teenager as a whole, enough so that when the call came for performers and Mrs. Bell looked over, even she would not dare to suggest that Ash set the baby girl down. It made the freshman smile, which in turn revealed the set of small, fake fangs they wore over their own teeth, and Mackenzie responded with further awe, attempting to reach over and touch the pointy things. Ash was remarkably adept at keeping the little hands away without making the girl cry in distress. They stayed together right to the end of the evening, by which time the baby had been snoozing peacefully in the teen's arms, when everyone went home.
Before all that, there were the people, so many of them that it felt impossible to talk to them all, and there were the performances on the stage, even if Ash Bell was not one of them. Plenty of them had been of this theater's Stage Ready, but there were also others who had travelled out for the occasion, 'graduates' of the program in other cities in Texas, in other states, and in other countries, too. The program had its own variations from one theater to the next, and Maya and Lucas both were fascinated to find out what those were. They could see some of those being implemented right here in the future.
"Can I go up there?" Marianne asked her parents at one time. They knew without her asking it outright that her primary concern would be that she had never actually attended Stage Ready, so maybe it wasn't allowed.
"Hey, you got the home edition of Stage Ready, that counts, too," Lucas told her, and it was hard to decide if it was those words or the elated grin on Marianne's face that made Maya laugh the most.
Whatever it was, it led Marianne Friar to stand on the stage of the Silvan Hughes Theater and sing a song for the gathered guests. She chose one of her mother's songs, one she knew and loved very well, that she'd gotten familiar with for having been in the Hex with Maya as she'd worked on it, sitting small and curious in the second big chair. It was one of those highlights for the evening they knew they could not have done without. She was showing more and more of an affinity for music as she grew, whether it was in listening to it, or playing, or singing… They could easily say that it was to be expected, with her growing up around her mother and everything she did, but it didn't take away from the impact it had on both her parents, to see her talents on display. They couldn't wait to see what she'd do next.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
