July 21st 2022
Chapter 202
Our Legacy of Inclusion
In what felt like a lucky omen, at least to Maya and Lucas, it rained the next day. The downpour was heavy, sending the buses of juniors into a frenzy as everyone tried to get from the cover of the large vehicle to the cover of the museum without getting drenched. Most of them were only making it worse in their rush, so by the time they made it inside, they had a good portion of their group walking around with wet clothes, wet hair, and some running makeup and squeaking shoes.
Rather than be caught up through the whole tour with complaining kids and disapproving museum staff, they took a much needed delay in starting their trip through the exhibit by sending everyone to the bathrooms, using the facilities in what ways they could to remedy the situation. Maya and Lindsay Alcott followed the girls one way while Lucas and Cory followed the boys the other.
"Come on, you'll be fine," Maya heard from somewhere behind her, and as she recognized Nika's voice, she looked over to see what this was about. She'd been talking to Jenny, who definitely needed a meeting with the hand drier and to either remove her makeup altogether or fix it up again. But the girl was almost resisting the advance.
"I'm okay, really, it's not a big deal," Jenny replied, barely audible. Maya could see she was looking somewhere past her, and she turned around in time to see one of the other junior girls standing by the door. She'd been one of the lucky few who had been mostly spared, but she was still there, and something in her stance made it look like she was on guard. She was looking back at Jenny, too. Ah…
"It's Miss Benson, isn't it?" Maya approached her, and the girl blinked when she realized she was being spoken to, more so when she saw it was a teacher.
"Yeah… Yes," she adjusted her tone.
"Do we have a problem, Miss Benson?" Maya asked. Oh, her voice came sweet, but it left no doubt: she was not soft. The junior weighed her options.
"He shouldn't be in there," she finally whispered. She would not be moved from her convictions.
"She has as much right as any of the other girls to make herself feel better after being out in the rain. And you will not find a single person in this group or this building for that matter who will disagree. Believe me, we're very close. Now, do we understand each other?"
"Yes, ma'am," Miss Benson looked away.
"Thank you. Go back to the lobby and wait with the others, please? No wandering off."
"Yes, ma'am."
The line kept moving, slowly but surely, and in time all the girls, including Jenny, were able to get their turn before making their way back to the lobby. As the group became smaller and smaller on the bathroom side, getting about half and half, Cory and Lindsay took off with the first half to start the tour. Maya and Lucas would accompany the rest once they were through the drying process. This made it so that Maya could not do what she'd done yesterday and keep her students all together, but that didn't bother her too much. She had a good portion of them, and better yet, she had Jenny and her friends, while Miss Benson and her crew were off elsewhere.
"Did I miss something funny?" Maya asked when she and Lucas rejoined, the last of their groups returning from the bathrooms. He had that look on his face she knew as his way of hiding that he'd been laughing when he found himself somewhere it felt almost inappropriate to let it show.
"Have you ever seen a bunch of sixteen, seventeen-year-old boys losing their mind over one of them finding a live bug on their shoe?" he quietly asked her, and Maya quickly raised her hand to cover her mouth and muffle her laughter. Looking at the late returning boys, she could now discern a hint of leftover shakiness doubled with something like 'play it cool, we're manly men' bravado. "I may have promised not to tell anyone, so let's keep that between us, yeah?"
"Marriage exemption," she promised back, showing her ring hand. Did this keep her from having residual giggles threatening to come out now and then as they carried on into the exhibit? Absolutely not. But it became something for her and Lucas to amuse themselves over on this fourth museum day in a week.
As they had challenged themselves, Maya and Lucas held up their bargain and stayed out of the gift shop, going so far as to ask their fellow chaperones to handle that part of the trip while they saw to getting everyone on to the busses. The rain had stopped, so it was a lot easier than their arrival. It was also the end of the day, so once they reached the school lot, everyone dispersed to get their things and head home or wherever else they might have gone. As usual, still, this meant Jenny, Nika, Maggie, and Lara getting a ride home from their art teacher. They first dropped off Lucas at the ranch, as it was a blue group day. Dylan had happily offered to get Marianne and her friends from school.
"Maya, we were wondering about something," Lara asked, as they headed toward her house. This time around, the four friends were all headed to the same place, to work on a class project, so that made things easier.
"Yes?" Maya asked. It was after hours, and they weren't at school, so her cousin-in-law was free to call her whatever she'd like.
"We were talking, the four of us, about doing a project, for next year, so we could go on a trip, like Lea and Ella did when they graduated," the girl went on, looking over to Nika as she brought up her niece's mother.
"Sounds good so far," Maya nodded and smiled. "We can talk it over some more at lunch tomorrow, if you're ready for it by then?" The girls agreed, and seeing how excited they were at the prospect, Maya felt some of that along with them.
They'd had a good time, the four friends together. Between their trip into the bathroom to freshen up and then their time in the exhibit, Maya guessed the idea for the senior trip had started to come together. They had each other, and as easy as it could be for Jenny's presence in this group to suggest that she was the one who needed the others the most, which was true at the moment, it did not diminish how much they all leaned on one another. Every event big or small where they had needed support and received it from one another had only bonded them tighter together. Maya had no doubt that they would be able to put together a wonderful trip together next year.
When they arrived at the Sullivan-Reyes house, it was impossible for her not to follow the girls inside and say hello to the rest of the family as it currently stood. Lea was in Houston, of course, and Michael Sullivan was still at work, but Keith Reyes had his own business and, for that, was able to work from home for the most part, especially when the afternoon came, and his younger children would come home. There was Lydia, fourteen years old and less than a year now from entering high school even as her older sister would enter her senior year. And ten years her junior, at four, there was Leyton…
"Auntie!" the boy sprinted and skirted right around the girls to where he could throw his arms around Maya's legs. That little guy was so much stronger than his size suggested, and at this speed, he very nearly bowled her over.
"I think you're happy to see me, is that what you're saying?" she laughed.
"Yeah!" Leyton told her. Obviously, it said, even as he turned to his sister and her friends. "Come see what I did! Come on!" he grabbed hold of Jenny's hand, the nearest one to him, and pulled her along like he assumed the others would follow, which they did. Of the many reactions the Marshall girl had experienced for her transition, one of the bright spots had always been the children. They were never confused, never hurtful. They just saw her, heard how she was not a boy but a girl, and they went along with it, no questions asked.
"Hi," a voice greeted her and, as she hadn't seen her coming, Maya was startled. Long ago, they had nicknamed the youngest Sullivan-Reyes girl 'hypnoteyes' for how she'd look at people and seem to command them to her will. That power may have gone with the supreme cuteness of childhood, but even now, Lydia had a sort of calm quality about her that would feel as close to hypnotic as could be. Maya had always had a soft spot toward her for it, which made her that much more eager to have her in her class next year. When she put her arm around her shoulders, the girl leaned to her and put her arm around her waist.
"How was your day?" Maya asked.
"I wish I could have gone to the museum with all of you," Lydia shrugged.
"You know what, I wish that, too," Maya decided, kissing the top of her head. "We're going back this weekend, with the girls. Wanna come with us?"
She very much did, so she ran off to go ask her father. Maya followed after her, so she could chat with Keith for a while. Finally on her way out, she went to say goodbye to the girls up in Lara's room until the next morning. As she turned again to head back to the stairs, Jenny followed after her, wanted to talk.
"I don't know what to do about tomorrow," she quickly confessed, and Maya let out a breath. Tryouts… All this time, it had been easy not to think about it because they weren't there yet, but now…
"You don't know if you're going to do it," she guessed, and Jenny bowed her head.
"I want to, but I know what it's going to be like. It already took so much for me to get out there and do… this…" she gestured at herself. "I want to believe that I have it in me to push through… whatever's going to happen, that I should do it, because it's not right that I and others like me would get held back, but also… I just want to get to go to school and do… whatever… without having to worry that something really bad is going to happen to me."
All she had to do was absently touch her chin, where the thin scar was usually hidden with makeup but today, after the rain, was there on full display, and… She was thinking of how she'd gotten it, that afternoon down in the school basement. She was scared, and she had the absolute right to be, but it didn't change the fact that she wanted to play, and there was this thing, standing in her way. It made Maya think of Ash Bell, who she knew was weighing this same question, from a nearby angle. They were represented by neither team, while Jenny was by one but would be deemed to belong to the other. As a former player herself, Maya felt how much they wanted to play, how they should get to, and if he'd followed her here today, she knew Lucas would…
Lucas…
"Jenny…" she spoke, and her student looked back up to her. "All you want to do is play," she stated. Jenny nodded, not sure where this was going. "Doesn't have to be with the school," she went on, stepping up to her. "You and I both know how great it can be out there. Back when I was in school, we had no team for a while, but that didn't stop us. We kept playing. And you… you could keep playing. You could make your own team." Maybe it was a crazy idea, maybe it wouldn't work, but right now she saw potential, and so did Jenny, and if Stage Ready was any indication of where her crazy ideas could go, well… Maybe they needed to look into it.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
