August 28th 2022

Chapter 240
Our Exploration of Music

Dear Maya,
(I thought of starting this Dear Mrs. Friar, felt like the thing to do, but then it was weird. I don't know. Anyway…)

Seeing as we were literally talking to each other on the phone like three or four minutes ago, it might be weird that I'm suddenly writing you a letter. Is it? It's just that we were talking, and then I got to thinking about you and your letters, and I thought maybe it was time that I write you one, too, so I did… or I am, right now. My first thought so far is that maybe I need to type this. I always hated my handwriting growing up. All I ever wanted was to have some pretty, flowing hand, you know? The kind you see in movies or on TV shows. But I could never pull it off, no matter how hard I tried. One of my teachers in school used to say that my brain was going faster than my hand could keep up with, so that was how I ended up with handwriting like that. I used to try and slow down, to see if he was right, but that only ever made things worse, so I went back to the old way.

Well, so far, this letter writing thing is not coming out the way I thought it would. Guess that's me and my imagination expectations again, huh? I'll think that I'm coming up with something all clever and dramatic, and there'll be a voice-over, maybe a bit of music to back me up. Maybe me writing a letter is going to just be this, just letting my brain go where it wants to go, with no one there but me to lead the way. There's plenty of things we'll just talk about when we see each other or call each other, but then there's other things and maybe we wouldn't say those out loud, so… we write them down, like the tale of bad handwriting and fantasies fed by romantic comedies and period dramas. What else?

Speaking in confidence, you'll be happy to hear that Ella is just walking around like her feet have been freed of their tethers to solid ground since she went to Indiana a few weeks back. I'm sure you've seen it, too, of course, but you're not here, sharing a room with her. You're not here for the whispered late night calls, her laughing like a swooning teenager over there. I didn't know it would be like this but I'm kind of super happy for her? Oh, I'm really happy for Taylor, too, of course, but I think even he would get what I mean, and so will you. It's not easy, them being so far from each other, but even with that, she's never had this before. She's never gotten to be happy in a relationship like this.

I never really had that myself before, the few boyfriends I'd had… I didn't realize it, not until Theo and I got together. Since Ella flew out to Indiana, suddenly that two hour drive really doesn't seem that bad anymore, does it? Even then, I still wish it didn't have to be there, between us. He could have his place and I'd be out here, but at least seeing each other wouldn't depend on whether we have time to be on the road two hours there and back again. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. It's a lot easier for either of us to surprise each other than it would be for Ella and Taylor. Now I'm imagining the four of us on a double date someday, and won't that be weird?

More than anything, I keep thinking about Ella's thing because I keep wondering about the future, my future, but then also mine and Theo's. It's not that I want to stop seeing him, it's the opposite, really, but what happens if I ever actually make it on Broadway? I still want it, I'm still going for it as soon as the moment's there, but all I keep thinking is 'then what?' Say he goes out there with me, then that means he has to be away from his daughter, too, unless she goes with him, but that would never happen, would it? And I know it happens all the time that families are split that far apart, I know yours has been, but it is so important to Theo that he be there for Tori, as well he should be, and I would never stand in the middle of that, but I also can't help but worry about what that will do to us.

See, now, I'm just spiraling into some weird letter headspace. I think I should stop this one right here. Pardon the rambling, feel free not to respond or just call me.

Give my cousin a hug for me? And give all those little girls at least ten kisses each?
Hugging from Houston,
Lea

.

Dear Lea,

Thank you for the update about Ella's belated teenage romance phase. I am very happy to imagine it. Also, your handwriting is really not that bad. Believe me, I've seen a lot of them over the years and I could run a comparative study.

The distance is really its own special kind of pain, believe me, I know. You were probably too young to remember about what happened after Lucas and I got in an accident together and my parents forbade us from seeing each other for nearly a year. It all came down to a summer where they took me to Philadelphia, and we didn't see each other for weeks. That was the longest time we spent apart from each other from the moment we met. It's not as though you and Theo or Ella and Taylor are being kept apart in that way, but it left me with a very deeply felt need never to be separated from him like that ever again. Would we still have done it and gotten through it somehow if we had to? Yes, always. In the end, so long as I knew that getting back to each other was that important to both of us, then I could deal with the rest. And so will you if you have to. One of these days, Broadway is going to come calling, you bet it will. When that day comes, that's when you'll have to figure it out, not before.

Hug has been delivered, all those kisses as well, and I've been tasked by Marianne to give you back a hundred, so here you go. Please write to me whenever you'd like. I really don't mind the rambling, especially if it comes from you.

Call you later!
Maya

x

"I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?"

"You? Never. I was just finishing up a letter. Had to hurry up and get the stamp on before Marianne could yank the envelope out of my hand to go and put it in the mailbox," Maya chuckled. She stood just in the open doorway, watching as her daughter jogged out there. "What about you? How's New York today?"

"Rainy," Cara reported.

"Ah, well, I know someone will be happy about that," Maya smiled, thinking of her nephew. Little Felix always got ridiculously happy whenever he saw that it was raining outside, the harder the better. He wasn't scared of thunder or lightning either, he just loved it. Cara and Mateo had more than once – or ten times – sent pictures or videos of Felix on 'Storm Watch' and it was always a delight.

He was a year old already… A whole year and some dust had gone by since he'd come splashing into the world, and time continued to feel relentless in its march forward. Instead of them surprising him and his parents that day, it had gone the other way around. They had surprised the family back in Austin with a visit. The only ones who had known were the Hart-Lanes back in Tucson, so they could travel down there, too, and see the little guy demolish his first birthday cake. His head was a mass of thick brown hair that always appropriately came off as just a bit electrified, and that day he'd ended up with a surprising amount of cake in that hair. It had been hilarious to see, and they were all just glad to know that they had been there to witness it.

"If he doesn't lick the window, that'll be something," Cara told her sister, a smile clear in her voice.

This was not a business call. When it came to the progress on the musical, they would always be the three of them, with Maya and Sam on one end of the call and Cara on the other. The sisters called one another every other day at least, more likely every single day. If she was able, on weekdays, Cara would call when she knew that her sister was on an off period, between classes. They would catch each other up on their day to day, especially on how their kids were doing. Maya always had more ground to cover with all the girls – and Cara would never let any of her nieces be short changed – but the tales of Felix in New York were an epic all on their own, too. It was a whole other rhythm of life for all of them to be out there instead of back in Austin, but there was no feeling between either Cara or Mateo that they would wish to settle down permanently in New York. They had come here for a purpose, and when they were done, they were coming back to Austin… maybe getting a dog… maybe trying for another baby…

"How about you? How's the baby doing?" Cara asked.

"Oh, she is doing her routine right now, like she thinks she's doing synchronized swimming by herself in there or something," Maya reported, running her hand over the curve of her belly. It might have been their intention to keep both the name and the sex of the baby a surprise, but it would have been hard, after they'd brought the girls to the appointment, to hide the fact that that they were having one more daughter. At least her name remained a secret for now.

"Well, that's good, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, for the most part," Maya smirked. "We haven't hit 'oh, please, stop' levels just yet, so I'm just enjoying the show."

"You know, when you start your leave, we can still have our movie days like we did last year, just from a distance," Cara suggested.

"Yeah…" Maya hummed at the thought. She was definitely not going to say no to spending some quality long-distance time with her sister, even if it spun her brain to think that their movie days had been a year ago, when she'd been even further along pregnant than she was now, with another baby. Then she thought about Lea's letter again, and she chuckled to herself.

"What is it?" Cara asked when she heard her.

"Oh, I was just thinking about Lea. She's the one I was responding to; she wrote to me."

"I should do that sometime," Cara pondered aloud. "Should I? Or is it just your students?" she was grinning, and Maya laughed.

"I would love a letter from you. Nice long one, five pages, tiny print, both sides…"

"I don't know if I have that much to write," Cara laughed with her. "Unless I write about…"

"Felix," Maya nodded, smiling because Cara had said his name at the same time. "Can you give him the phone so I can say hi?"

"Yeah, hold on," Cara replied at once, and Maya could hear her calling to her son as she approached him, telling him that his Aunt Maya was on the phone, asking him if he wanted to say hello. It was his claim to fame after all, his very first word and most often used.

"Hello!" his little voice traveled from New York to Texas, and Maya beamed. The baby continued her pool routine, like she might have been saying hello back to her cousin without ever hearing him the way her mother did.

"Hello, Felix. I hear it's raining…"

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners