November 26th 2022
Chapter 330
Our Pride For Classmates
As they entered the month of March, Maya sincerely hoped that things might have come back about as close to normal as they were bound to get. It had been two months now since the cheating scandal had broken out. Everyone who had been suspended, whether for a week or a month, was now back in class… If only it were that simple. People had sort of started to forget about it, the further into January they had gotten, and things had started to feel a bit normal again, like those empty seats had always been that way. The day that Lamar and Lydia returned to school, everyone remembered. They had their friends there to surround them and back them up, so no matter what happened they never felt alone, but it didn't change the way some people looked at them. A lot of those were students, but then there were some of the teachers, too, and on their side, well… It wasn't that they were mistrustful, generally speaking, but they also couldn't ignore what those two had done. They wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it was hard. It wasn't so for all of them though, was it? Some of the teachers would not apologize for treating either of the freshmen in question as suspect by default. They watched them like hawks.
And from that day, they had started their daily detentions with Maya, so she could hardly cut them too much slack either, but she didn't pile on their misery like 'the hawks.' They just sat in her classroom, in silence, over the first few days. Eventually, she offered them a choice between sitting in silence or helping her clean some of the supplies and the stations, which they accepted. At least they got to keep their hands busy. The hawks thought Maya was giving them an out in doing this, but she did not see it that way, and she would stand by how she chose to discipline her students. Mademoiselle Rousseau accused her of being soft because she taught a soft subject, hardly useful. Maya just smiled and responded to her in a flawless French that she was going to miss her former teacher very much. She was retiring at the end of this year. Maya didn't tell her, in any language, that her replacement was already waiting in the wings and likely to be much more admired by her students and colleagues.
Detention with Lydia and Lamar had been going for a few weeks already, and Maya knew that neither one of them was happy to be there. They were enduring it because they had no choice, but there was no mistaking that they knew why they were there and only wished to be anywhere else. The experience had changed them, for good or not. Lamar was not so easygoing as he used to be. He had been kicked off the basketball team and very likely would not get to go back for as long as he went to this school, and there was some resentment in him, even if he tried not to feel it, at the fact that Lydia was still on the quiz team. He understood why that was, he did. But he still hated that he couldn't play, and it soured certain things for him. It had erupted into a few arguments between him and MJ, enough so that there had been a couple of times where the two of them looked to have broken up. They had eventually made up, each time, but it felt to Maya like maybe her little brother's first proper relationship was not built to last. Hopefully, he would realize it in time that he might still hold on to his friend.
Lydia still struggled very much with what she'd done and what it had cost her. Maya understood now more than ever that the youngest Sullivan-Reyes girl dealt with a load of self-image troubles. She felt that much more pressure to follow in her older sisters' footsteps than her teacher and cousin had realized, which had been all the more reason for Maya to do everything she could not to take the quiz team away from her. That would not have helped her at all. If anything, it would have only made matters worse. When she'd recruited her at the start of the year, she'd done so in the understanding that Lydia needed to have this way of setting herself apart. And yes, she wasn't the first of her sisters to be part of the team, but that didn't mean that she couldn't forge her own path as a member. She'd been doing that, but now… Now the cheating had complicated things, that, and the suspension, and now her return. Already, they'd had some pushback from some other teams, either refusing to play against them or trying to prevent them from participating in bigger competitions.
"Please, just let me quit," Lydia would tell her every time something like this happened, but Maya continued to hold her ground.
"They don't care that you cheated. They care that they think they have a way of knocking our team out of the way because they know how strong you four are together," Maya told her, told the whole team, and they were with her on that. Maia Bennett, Rolly McNeil, and Captain Nika Petrelis, they all wanted Lydia to stay, and so she would. Anyone who had a problem with that could challenge them and see what happened.
Oh, it could be exhausting, truly, and Maya hoped again that things would start and settle down, but, so far, they were still having to inch their way toward that peace, and they were nowhere near it. They would get there. She was not giving up on them.
At least her entire world did not revolve around putting out those fires everywhere. There was plenty more going on at the school, good things for the most part. A lot of the rest of her life lately, in and out of school seemed to revolve around three different musicals. The first one of these was at the school, featuring students from across the grades, and it was progressing week by week as they would like it to. The second of those was the one up at the Silvan Hughes Theater, and featuring a load of local talent, among them the one she had lovingly nicknamed 'their rising star,' her own baby girl, her Marianne. They were premiering at the end of the month, and it was not exaggerating to say that she could hardly wait.
The last of these, naturally, was her musical, coming together piece by piece back in New York. After that first round of auditions, the process had carried on. Sam had been their man on the scene, keeping his sisters updated the whole way, seeking their input where it was sought out… They were all very optimistic over some of the new talent they had come upon throughout the auditions, the call-backs, all of it winding down to actual selections. Their cast was coming together! Along with this great new talent they were collecting, there had still been that hope aimed toward some more established names they knew might have been interested in their production, those who had been keeping their ears to the ground, waiting… As much as they all tried not to put too much stock in this, uncertain as they would be whether or not it would actually work, it was about the most surreal part of this years-long process so far when they actually locked down three of those bigger names… including Porter McNeeley.
When Maya had told Lucas about that one, before she'd gotten to tell him actually, she must have looked like she'd felt. Thinking that this man who'd played such an important role in her young life, whether he knew it or not, this man she had looked to like some ghost version of the father she didn't have… would stand on stage, singing songs that she had composed, playing out a story that she had helped create… She knew this wasn't make believe, she knew it was real life, she did, but it still felt like it had to be a joke. It wasn't a joke. It was very real, and this along with their other big castings had brought even further curiosity toward this musical. It was so far from being this private project between herself and her siblings anymore.
The funniest reactions had come from Abigail and Miranda. The first of those, as she'd hoped, she got to see with her own eyes. They'd had Abigail and James on a video call with all the Hart-Lanes in Tucson, Austin, and New York, and there Sam had told his mother about who they'd nabbed for one of main roles. Porter McNeeley. With the stories they had heard of her decades-long love for the man, they had been curious to see whether it continued to run just as deeply today, and it did. When Cara pointed out that, being the mother and stepmother to the three creators, she would not only get to attend the show at some time or another but meet the cast, too, Abigail had looked like she was two minutes away from hopping in the shower to get ready, even though it would still be who knew how long before that night happened. When asked if the story of Sam's… creation… was true, Abigail wouldn't say, but her silence spoke all on its own.
As for Miranda, well, back when she had her name up there, her greatest renown had come in a show where she and McNeeley were both leading the ensemble. She had nothing but good things to say about him, establishing what Maya had already known, that he was just the man she'd always seen him to be, in performances, in interviews… There was not a fake bone in his body. She had actually forgotten about when he and Miranda had played opposite one another until she brought it up, or else she might have mentioned that they worked together at the school when she'd met the man back in New York. She would remember the next time. And yes, the fact that she knew that there would be a next time still got the beastie in her hopping around.
It wasn't all musicals and post-cheating aftermath these days. Riley was getting closer and closer to giving birth to baby number four, the Bed & Breakfast was moving along in its preparations, Liberty and Yankee were settling well into their new lives in Texas… And then there was Ash and their family situation.
Maya had not taken their letter lightly, nor had she been careless in how she responded to it. She'd already spoken to Topanga before writing back to Ash, and she had done so by mailing the response to Ash's girlfriend instead of to their house, in case their mother saw it and opened it. Maya frankly wouldn't have put it past her. She didn't want to get Ash into any more trouble than she had to.
She knew when the letter made its way to Ash, saw gratitude, and hope in their gaze when their eyes met. And she knew, through Ash and Topanga, that after a few conversations, it had been decided for them to move forward with the plan to get Ash emancipated. The moment this had started, Ash had already packed up everything they couldn't bear to part with and removed themself from the house. To say that Mrs. Bell had not taken this well would have been a great understatement. If anything, though, it only further proved Ash's need, and Topanga was certain that they would get what they were after.
In the meantime, the best outcome out of all of this, even more than getting away from their mother, was that Ash had been taken in by the Bennetts. They slept on the couch, for now, but there were already plans to make them a more permanent room. Now, they may not have been in class with their girlfriend, but they were living at her house, living away from the environment that had been bringing them down. They now looked as happy as they had been before the end of last year, as happy and absolutely more, too. Maya was eager to see what this would mean for them and for their future.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
