January 13th 2020

Chapter 13
Their Year to Hope

"I can get in an hour or two before class tomorrow, we can figure see about that project for Lynch," Lucas told Bishop and Simon as they left their last class on that first day.

"We can ride in together," Bishop turned to Simon, who agreed at once.

"See you guys tomorrow," Lucas nodded to them before heading to his car.

It would be seven or so by the time he made it back home, and he'd written to Maya, told her that she and Sam should go on and eat, not wanting them to have to wait on him. Her response had been 'yeah, okay,' but Lucas was fairly certain that the underlying message here was 'in your dreams, Huckleberry.' Sam would probably have had his dinner by the time he made it, but she was absolutely going to wait for him. So he wrote back, asking if she wanted him to pick up anything.

Maya: Take your pick!

With his quick detour, it was closer to seven thirty by the time he drove up the lane and reached the house. He could see Sam sitting on the porch chairs, using one as a foot rest, textbook open in his lap and a pack of sticky notes gripped in hand. He was deeply concentrated enough it took until Lucas was standing on the porch with him and saying hello for him to jump and turn his head up.

"Hey!" he dropped his sticky notes in the book and closed it. "Sorry, I just…"

"Did you have dinner yet?" Lucas smiled.

"I had a sandwich when I got home," Sam replied.

"Yeah, okay, come on," Lucas held up the bag, glad he'd gone for the bigger order after all, and motioned for the door. "Where's your sister?"

"Where do you think?" Sam chuckled, pushing the chairs back in their place before following Lucas inside. "I'll set the table."

"Thanks," Lucas passed him the takeout, set his school bag down, and started on his way up to the second floor, already seeing the attic trap was open. Like brother, like sister, he walked in and came to stand behind Maya before she realized he was there. The only difference was that she didn't startle; she recognized him without looking. Swivelling her chair around, her face lit up when she saw him, which made his face do much the same, especially when he saw she had paint on her cheek. "New style?" he laughed, pointing to his face and then to hers.

"You know I can rock this," she gave a humble shrug as she got up to greet him with a kiss. "Look at that, now we match," Maya chuckled, pointing to his face, where a bit of the still fresh paint had transferred on to his cheek.

"We usually do," he held up his arm, the birds and the clock on display. She held up her own arm at this, showing her own tattoos with a smile. "What are you working on?" he asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Tell you about it later, I'm starving and I want to hear about today," she grabbed his arm and led him out of the attic. She tapped the telescope on the way out.

She was in a good mood, the kind he had seen enough to know something had to have changed since this morning. He really wanted to know what that something was, but she was going to make him wait until the right time, he knew that, too.

"Woah…" Sam paused when they walked into the kitchen. "Do I want to know what that's about?" he pointed to the paint on their faces.

"I'm more curious about what you think it is right now," Maya gave her brother a curious look. Sam cleared his throat and shook his head before indicating that he'd set out dishes and containers and they were good to sit and eat, so they did, once the paint had been cleaned off from faces.

Much as he'd insisted for them to go on without them, Lucas couldn't deny he was glad they were all here now, having dinner together, that he could share this great first day of his with the woman he loved and the boy who was already a brother to him, not 'through' Maya but thanks to her, really. He hadn't been sure how Sam felt in that regard. Then, a few days back, he'd been at work, at the bookstore, when he'd heard someone nearby saying that they were looking for their brother. He'd turned around, and there was Sam, standing next to one of his co-workers, Maeve, with her hand coming down from pointing over at him. It really had meant so much to him to hear it and know it.

"So…" Maya looked at him with clear anticipation. She had been waiting to hear about his day, and in particular it felt to him like ever since… whatever it was that had changed for her today… had happened, she was even more motivated to find out how it had all gone for him.

He told them both as much as he could, without going into the actual class material, though there hadn't necessarily been too much of it on their first day. Beyond that, there were his old classmates, the ones who had carried over from one school to the other. That had been his first curiosity going in today. So far, he'd counted eight, himself included. He'd had a pretty solid relationship with all of them – a bit less as far as Josie went, naturally – so it felt wonderful to have them here, shaving off a bit of the unknown.

It hadn't been long that they'd all learned of his engagement, which had led to a mass lunch, all eight of them together. Along with him and Bishop and Simon, Josie and Zelda, they had Tay Wilkins, and Mari Diaz, and Sue Ann Taylor. Maya knew them all, to varying degrees, from the past four years, and now they were three more to add to the wedding guest list.

Before they could actually get to lunch, of course, they had classes to get through. That morning, there'd been two. Lucas hadn't been sure what it would be like. He'd imagined it, way more times than he'd care to count, to be in this place where everyone was more or less after the same thing he was. He'd had some of that back in Houston, of course, but that had all been much more of a precursor, hadn't it? From minors to majors… and now he'd just entered the majors.

He'd had four classes today but three professors, all of them women. One of them, Professor Haggerty, had taught both his first and fourth classes, with Professors Lynch and Lindgren in between. So far, he couldn't say he saw himself having any issues with any of them. They had all been the kind of teacher you'd want to be standing at the front of a class in their own ways. Josie had jokingly referred to them as 'the mother, the maiden, and the crone,' and though he wouldn't see himself repeating as much, he had to admit the reference wasn't entirely unfounded. Professor Haggerty did have something very motherly to her, fierce when she had to be, warm and attentive on the whole. And then Professor Lynch, their 'maiden,' was in fact on her second year of teaching, no more than a handful of years older than the rest of them. As for the 'crone,' well, Professor Lindgren had been with the university longer than Lynch had been alive. She had this vibe to her somewhere between a wood witch and the pigeon lady in Home Alone 2. You only had to know her the time of a lecture to want to follow her anywhere.

"I'm really happy for you, that it went well today. I can see it in your face," Maya told Lucas as they were clearing up the table later on, having released Sam off to the reading he'd been doing outside earlier.

"I could say the same for you," Lucas pointed out. "Something happened, didn't it?"

"Possibly…"

"Maya, please?" he shook his head, at once amused and anxious to hear what she had to say.

"Dishes first," she insisted.

"Isn't that what little brothers are for?" Lucas joked, making her laugh.

"He's upstairs, doing his homework, and that's good. Let him focus, get scrubbing." He looked at her, keeping her eye as he made a show of rolling up invisible sleeves and moving to the sink. Maya laughed and moved to help him.

Minutes later, they made their way upstairs and into the attic. Maya tapped the telescope before pointing to the ground under the gable window. They'd put down a good and fluffy carpet there, and they had a few camp chairs folded in the corner, for stargazing purposes. Lucas sat right on the carpet, as Maya moved to get something from her desk and coming to join him. In the weeks since they'd moved in, he'd lost count of how many times any one of them had sat here, looking up or not, Maya most of all, Sam a close second.

"I had… an idea," Maya breathed, the slightest tremor in her voice, showing excitement for the thing she was about to share. "I couldn't take looking through job listings again and again…"

"I've seen you do it, you almost growled once," Lucas commented, making her laugh.

"Anyway… Shae called." This made him smile. "By the way, I'm going to go and visit her in Houston before she starts school. The reason she called me though is that she wants to audition for her school's musical this year. She wants me to help her get ready, you know, find a song, rehearse it, all that, and then she wants a bit of help with her dancing…"

"A bit?" he asked, trying not to sound rude for being aware of what she was working with.

"However much of it she needs," Maya replied, not knowing whether to smack him or laugh and ended up somewhere in the middle. "Anyway…" she started again, "I came back up here, and I just… I needed to get something out, wasn't sure what, and then I got it."

"I could not get any readier to hear this," Lucas gave her hands a quick squeeze.

"Okay, okay," she laughed, took another breath. "I went to see Siobhan Hughes." Going by the surprise on his face, she could tell he had never expected this.

"What happened to you not wanting to get a job through connections again?"

"I know, I know, and that's not what this is, or… Let's say maybe… 5% max of connection, I can't help that she's known me almost half my life. But this wasn't me asking for a job… well, kinda… except this is more like I created my own post. I guess I made her a kind of business proposal."

"Woah, okay…" Lucas blinked.

"I want to create a sort of… workshop, or class… attached to the theater. The space is there, and there's plenty of time where there's no performances or rehearsals going on, so why not use it? I can call it… Stage Ready… Whatever they need, no age limit, voice, dance, diction... We get a few people together, maybe some guest speakers from time to time, and a showcase a couple times a year, maybe even get them in one of the theater's productions…" She breathed in before she ended up right out of air in her lungs. "I swear I spent the whole time I was talking to Siobhan just squeezing my toes into little balls in my shoes to keep myself from going all speed talker on her like I did just now, I'm just so…"

She didn't get to say what she was 'just so,' as she was cut off by Lucas leaning in to kiss her. He had his own words for what she was 'just so' though.

"… amazing," he shook his head, grasping her hands again, pulling them near his heart. "What did Siobhan say?"

"She's going to think about it, and then she'll call me back. All I gotta do is not to freak out over the next however many days it'll be before she does call."

"You'll be alright," he nodded confidently.

"Do I still have to look at the listings?" she whispered with a mock frown.

"You earned a break, take it."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners