July 23rd 2020

Chapter 205
Their Autumn For Days

"I can go sit outside," Stella stood from her stool when Maya walked back into the classroom accompanied.

"Oh, no, it's alright," Maya told her. She practically had to go over to her and physically stop her from packing up her lunch and the rest of her belongings. "This is Lily Florescu, we work together at the theater," she introduced the woman presently looking around the classroom like she'd been dying to see it. "We're going to be talking a while, are you good?" Stella nodded, sitting back down at her place and opening out her lunch again. "Great," Maya smiled, grabbing a chair from the corner and bringing it to her desk, so Lily might sit with her.

"In a few years, my kids will be coming here," her assistant stated as she took her seat.

"I know," Maya nodded. "I've been thinking about that. I've got three right now in my classes, and a bunch more of the younger ones who aren't here yet. I'm basically counting down the days until my sisters get here," she laughed. Sure, deep down, she was also glad to keep them as little girls, but they'd get here sooner or later, wouldn't they? Seven years to go, just under…

Siobhan had given her what boiled down to two weeks off, letting her get the handle of her new job without having to divide her attention too much. In that time, Lily had been holding down the fort back at the theater. Today, she'd come along to catch her up on everything she'd missed, the better for them to work out how they would go from here on out.

Maya had been so wrapped up in the school these past two weeks, but now that Lily was here, and she was starting to catch her up on goings on back at the theater, it made her realize how much she had missed the place, and the people, and just the work she did there. When she had been offered the position at the school, even if it had been her goal all along, she couldn't bear the idea of leaving the theater, and Stage Ready. But Siobhan had been right there for her, and if she wanted to find a way to do both then that was what they would do. Maya was not about to put either side in peril, and if she couldn't keep up then she would step away from the theater. She knew Stage Ready would be in safe hands without her, as much as she'd prefer those hands to remain her own.

"So, the last thing," Lily told Maya, after they'd gone through everything else from actual Stage Ready matters to the occasional deviation into 'how's so and so' or any other happenings back at the theater.

"I've been waiting on that last thing, yes," Maya grinned, sitting up straight. "The Fall Festival?" she guessed, and Lily nodded.

Once again, Lindsay would be in charge of things as she had been the year before. Maya would once again be seeing to the theater's side of it, though of course this time around she would have much easier of a time coordinating with her colleague and former teacher. It would be one of those situations where she would be giving a larger share of her time toward the theater than she might do on the day to day, though it would really not be so difficult. She had two free periods every afternoon through the week, and she would be able to drop by the theater from time to time when she needed to, or go out and run this errand or that one.

She had always looked forward to the Fall Festival, every year, for what it represented to her, going back to her first year in Texas, but this one sort of felt that much more important. It wasn't lost on her how the previous year's festival, with how she'd found herself reconnecting with Lindsay Alcott, and eventually helping her on other projects, had led her to be sitting right here, finally working at the job she'd wanted to be, all this time. Going back to it now felt like her way, her chance, to say thank you.

After finishing up with Lily and seeing her out, Maya returned to her classroom, where Stella went on sitting as though no time had passed. She'd finished her lunch and was now bent over what appeared to be her algebra homework. Maya just let her be, quietly moving around the room to set up materials for the ninth graders' class after lunch.

"Can I help?" Stella asked after a minute. Maya looked back at her, sitting back there at her station and looking at her with interest.

"Well, I wouldn't want to stop you from doing your homework," Maya pointed out with a smile.

"Oh, this isn't my homework, I finished already. This is the next chapter, I just wanted to try it," Stella shrugged.

"Okay, then, come on."

After just about two weeks done, she was really coming around to the point where she'd feel as though these people who had been strangers to her were now so far from that. These kids here, all but three of them strangers to her until so recently, were now just so much more than names on a list. She was still getting to know them, but she already had spent so much time with them, had already gotten to learn so much about them, that they had reached that level where she could not recall her life before them.

"I like the festival," Stella commented as she trailed along, setting things at each station along with her teacher.

"Yeah, me, too," Maya smiled at her. "The first year when I moved to Austin with my mother, I went there with some kids from school. We were just getting to know each other back then, but we became friends soon enough, still are… and I married one of them," she held up her hand. Stella gave a great smile at this, and Maya was really glad for this interaction, and those others she'd had with her young student. When they were in class, with everyone else, Stella was just so quiet as to be nearly invisible. But then she would be here, over lunch, and she would open up enough to feel like a whole other person. Maya wished she could get to a point where she was able to be this way with other people, with other kids in her grade and beyond, but for now she had to be contented with these small steps and to hope that in time she would allow her world to expand.

"Did you move here because your parents' job, too?" she inquired.

"Sort of," Maya nodded. "It was just me and my mother back then, and she was trying to make it as an actress, back in New York."

"She's an actress?"

"She wasn't for a while. We moved here because she ended up getting this job at the theater, not for acting. For years, that's what she did, but then a little while back she auditioned for a role in a play, and she did that, then she got another part, at a theater up in Dallas. So she's basically keeping her options open right now, to keep on acting when she gets the chance."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Stella asked after a few seconds of silence, back to their supplies. Maya turned to her. "You can't tell anyone, okay? No one here."

"I promise," Maya traced a cross over her heart.

"I was in a commercial, when I was like three years old. I don't really remember doing it, but then my parents will show people the video sometimes," Stella told her, showing without saying it how she wished they would not do that and embarrass her, even if they just thought it was cute.

"Was it national or…"

"Oh, yeah, and they played it for a few years, too. It was a yogurt commercial, around Halloween actually." She'd barely said the words that it triggered a memory and Maya gasped. "Yeah," Stella nodded, guessing she'd figured it out. "My mother says I was a natural, but then I didn't want to do it again, so she let it go."

"See, now that you told me, I can just see your face and that pout you had when there was no more yogurt cups," Maya chuckled.

"When my mom shows the video to people, they always ask me to make the face. I never mean to, but then I get annoyed and it just happens."

Maya wished she could tell her she would not pull up the commercial that night to see it again for herself. She'd probably end up showing it to Lucas, too, as he was the one she'd allow herself to trust with the secret. He was back in school, too, of course, back on his daily drives to and from the university. Now that he was on the back half of this second stretch of four years, it was really something of a routine, making the distance feel so much shorter than it used to feel. He was back to swapping driver duties with Ramona, and the way things were going with her and boyfriend Ben, he suspected it wouldn't be long the two of them would be moving in together, which would likely see a change in the itinerary.

The previous Monday, back on his bookstore day, he'd shown up at the school and surprised Maya at lunch. He'd brought her an order from Ma Maggie's, and the two of them had shared the meal in the classroom. Knowing that they would have 'a guest,' he'd brought along an extra smoothie for Stella, letting her pick from the flavors he'd gotten. She'd thanked him and gone back to her stool, drinking from her straw as she went on reading her book for English. The room had smelled like syrup for the rest of the afternoon, keeping Maya in a good mood. Now they were looking to make this a weekly date, depending on what day he was at the store in each semester.

The memory of that lunch date, mixed with the earlier conversation she'd had with Lily about the kids eventually landing at the school, in her classroom, reminded her of how Lucas would be done with his own schooling, at long last, in a little under two years. After that, thanks Marianne Sullivan looking after her grandson from beyond the grave, he had his job lined up at the stables. Unlike her with the school and the theater, it would likely mean the end of his other job, down at the bookstore. She didn't know why, but the idea almost made her a bit sad.

"Hey, so, before I put it out to the rest of the class, I might as well ask you right now," Maya looked to Stella as they'd finished the set-up. "Would you be interested in helping with the festival? You know, making decorations, and signs, and all that?"

"I could do that, yeah," Stella responded at once. There was a just barely noticeable twinge in her face after she said it, like she worried she might have gone in on something that would challenge her issues. No matter what, she had said yes, and she wasn't backing out. Maya hoped that this would all lead toward Stella finding her way. The world deserved to know this girl she was getting to know here, one lunch period at a time.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners