March 22nd 2020

Chapter 82
Their Music to Soar

"Sorry, my friends are waiting for me nearby, I just had to let them know I'd be running late," Maya came and sat with the woman who'd gone to wait for her by taking a seat in the auditorium. It looked to be the same one she'd been in when Maya had spotted her earlier.

"Not a problem if it means that you and I can talk this out some more," Audra smiled. Looking at her, Maya couldn't say how much or how little her look matched what she had envisioned from speaking to her. She was younger than she'd thought, definitely, thirty tops. The warmth, that at least she'd nailed. When this woman smiled at you, there was no doubt she was telling you the truth. The smile went all the way up into her eyes.

"How did you know I'd be here?" Maya had to ask. "Malcolm again?"

"No, well, to be honest, I have been keeping tabs on you and your band since last summer. Some might call it a fault or quality, but when I really feel something it's very hard for me to let go of it. And you, Miss Hart, you are setting off a lot of bells in my head. Now this, right here," she gestured around the auditorium, to the stage, too. "This is setting off even more of them. Sharing your own talents already and now nurturing others'… I am impressed."

Maya was momentarily speechless. She didn't know why, it wasn't like she hadn't received a whole lot of praise for all she'd done already, but coming from Audra, who represented this higher echelon… It was like the woman stood up there and reached down, offering a hand to pull her up there, too. She'd said no the last time, and if that was what she was after again… When she finally said something, all that came out was…

"You… you can call me Maya, Miss Hart is just…" For students, my students… I am a teacher.

"Maya," Audra bowed her head with a smile. "Would I be wasting my time in asking for you and the rest of the band to reconsider?" Her question felt in no way forceful. All it was, Maya could tell, was Audra taking a chance, in case circumstances might have changed. That concept in itself was just making Maya's heart drum faster.

Already that the woman would have sought TXNY out once, made them an offer, that… that was a one in a million chance. They had said no in the end, and they all had their reasons for it, but it really all boiled down to their choosing to pass. None of them had regretted it, not to her knowledge. As far as Maya herself was concerned, well… There had been that brief moment, when she'd been having trouble on her job search, before she'd come up with the idea for Stage Ready, where she had gotten that 'oh, why did I say no?' feeling. But it had been no more than a moment, really, and even under the stress of that moment, she'd recognized that she'd made the right call.

As tempting as the idea of going even further with the band had been enticing, it was no more than a curiosity resolved in dreams. The reality was that she knew what she saw for her life, and it didn't involve fame and fortune. It involved living in that house, with her Huckleberry husband and their Huckleberry kids, making music, making art, and teaching… That was where she belonged, and it was a truth earned from years of self-discovery.

Still, for all that, if getting someone like Audra to notice TXNY had been one in a million, having someone like Audra return to make that same offer a second time, after she'd been told no, after a year had gone by… What was that, one in a billion? Maya knew that wasn't a reason to change anyone's mind, no, but still it felt like it was the least she could do to at least hear her out, yeah?

"I can only speak for myself," she started to say, and Audra nodded, understanding. "Although I haven't heard anything that could indicate any of the others changed their mind."

She took a moment, searching for the best way to explain herself. She hated to let the woman down, especially for how much she clearly seemed to support the band and its advancement in the music world, but even as she looked at her, she didn't feel anything like 'thank goodness, I have a second chance.'

"You won't know this, but not long after we last spoke, last year, I got engaged," Maya told Audra, whose less than surprised look suggested she'd already spotted the ring on her finger.

"Congratulations," Audra told her, with genuine gladness. "When's the big day?"

"July of next year," Maya answered with a small smile. She could have gotten into the fact that she had originally been supposed to walk down the aisle… just a month and a half from now, more or less, but it would have taken them off course and she really felt like she needed to keep steady, so she kept going. "My fiancé, he's been my best friend since… pretty much the whole time I've lived in Texas, almost eleven years now. Loved him… all that time," she nodded to herself. "I'm sure there are people out there who would look at us and not understand what it feels like, to meet someone back then, in the seventh grade, and know before you were even out of high school that you were going to spend the rest of your lives together, but we did, me and Lucas both.

"For a while I really didn't know what the future was going to be like for me, or what I even wanted. My family back then was… so different from what it is now, it was… me and my mom. And if I ever thought about myself in the future, I knew one thing. I knew that if I found someone and I had a family of my own, I was… I was going to do better." It was so much more complicated than that, especially once Kermit had come back into her life, and they'd mended, and he'd… She took a breath. "And I found someone, I found… my home, the kind that's a person, you know? I could look at him and I knew what our life together would be."

A home that was also an actual home, one for them to flourish in, for years and decades, as husband and wife to one another, and father and mother to whoever would come along and join them. And through all that? Lucas would get to do what he'd always wanted to do, and he'd be a veterinarian. And she would get to do the same, get to follow her own dreams.

"I came to Texas feeling like my whole world was spinning, and I couldn't find the ground. But that was who I'd been for a while, and I figured… that's who I would be. Instead, I came here and… I found people who showed me how to get my feet back on land, yes, but also how to just… fly. I found myself in Austin, I found the things that made me feel most alive. A lot of people would tell you I'm way too ambitious for my own good, and it's never enough for me to have one thing, I need like four or five."

Audra finally made a noise here, chuckling, after having quietly listened the whole time. Her laugh said 'I hear that.'

"But no matter what I do, I know that there will always be things in my life that will take precedent… over anything else, because they're the things and the people that live right here," Maya pressed a hand to her heart. "And that's my family, and Lucas and our family in the future. And it's doing the work that's felt like my place in the world ever since I pieced it together. Teaching art, whether it's here, with Stage Ready, or in a school, with paints, pencils, clay… anything… I still get to make music, we all do. In another life, maybe I could have said yes, maybe it would have been the future I needed."

"This is not that life," Audra finally spoke.

"I'm so sorry," Maya shook her head.

"Don't be. I more or less knew I was fighting a losing battle when I walked in here today, and I saw you with your students. But that's why I came up with a back-up plan." Maya's hesitation was on her face. "Not about the deal, not like last year, something else."

"Okay…" Maya slowly sat up.

"I can appreciate you wanting to have this life you told me about. The whole time you were speaking, all I could think was 'that sounds nice.' Might not be for me, but if it's for you then I want you to have it."

"So what's the back-up plan?"

"You are a phenomenal singer and performer, you are," Audra stated, as though to say 'let's make that clear right off the bat.' Maya smiled. "Peel back that layer, and you might be an even better songwriter. So let's focus on that, you and me. You get to be here, living the life you want, but also… you get to share your words, your music, with other artists, and the world gets to hear it. Does that sound like something you'd be on board with?"

Maya didn't know what to say. For a few seconds she just sat there, looking to the woman with her bright smile and her back-up plan. Could she see herself doing this? She already did it, didn't she? For the most part she'd done it for Weaver Kings, but she'd loved it very much. And she was always finding new melodies, new bits of lyrics, more than the band could put together… Sometimes she wrote songs that weren't even theirs from the start, like what she'd done for Shae.

"How… How would that work exactly? Hypothetically…"

"I will put something together for you to look at," Audra told her, rising from her seat with an intent like she just might go right back to her office to do it now. "You can have a lawyer look at it before giving me an answer… You don't have one of those, do you?" she asked.

"Uh… I know one, she's my best friend's mother, she's… been almost a mother to me, too," Maya confided.

"Good, then have her look at everything with you when you receive it."

Maya gave Audra her e-mail, and soon the woman was wishing her a good evening and going on her way. Left standing in the theater lobby, Maya could only take a deep breath, and another, letting the feeling of her lungs taking in and expelling air be her proof that this wasn't a dream. It was real… Oh, it was real, it was…

Her phone chirped, making her jump before reaching into her pocket to pull it out.

Lucas: Made it to Chubbie's, where are you?

If there was one person who could help her sort through this, it was him, always.

Maya: Still at the theater, leaving now.

In her minivan, she could get to Chubbie's in three minutes, tops, but she decided to walk instead, to let the breeze touch her face, wake her up. As she went, before she'd even made it to the corner to cross the street, she could feel it, in the back of her mind… a melody. Some events were like a perfect storm to get her creative juices flowing, and this was one of those moments. Maybe it was her brain's way of giving her an answer. Maya smiled as she sped up her pace.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners