October 29th 2020

Chapter 303
Their Hope to Grow

"If we had a name, we could get t-shirts made or something," Ariel Su stated, passing a confident look around the table. It was a valid statement, though hardly one that felt new. They had been stuck, unsatisfied with any and all ideas they had so far put forth, over the past few weeks of being a team, and while they could be satisfied to hold on to the Basket Cases name between them, for the time being, now they had cause to seek out a new and official name: they had a match coming up.

True, it wasn't really official, more of a friendly thing, which they'd been called to participate in and had accepted as a way to test the waters, to see how the four of them fared when put under any kind of pressure. But whether it involved anything more than bragging rights, they still needed to come up with their name, or else they would have to accept to remain the Basket Cases going forward. They didn't dislike the name, but they also liked the idea of their being their own thing, since they were bringing the team back from the dead.

As the conversation started up again, with name ideas being tossed around, debated, and ultimately either rejected or pushed into a 'maybe' list, Maya would find herself not so much paying attention to the talk itself and more to the girls themselves, sitting around the table. It was just as she'd first slated it, the first names that popped in her head, thinking they would be good fits for the team. The day after her meeting with Rochelle, she had pulled each of her picks aside at the start or end of their respective periods in her classroom and made them the pitch.

She had one member out of each of the four classes, which had some potential for being an easy rotation, as one senior would go and a new freshman could be slotted into the team. Maybe it wouldn't work out that way, but for now… Along with current freshman Rochelle, she had called to sophomore Stella. Maya had been prepared to meet some resistance from her shy bird, but in the end there really wasn't so much of it. Stella had been making so many strides in the year and some months since she'd joined their school, and yes, Maya was ridiculously proud of her for all of it. Sometimes she would see her, having lunch in the cafeteria with Phoebe and the other students, and it was so different from the girl who would eat in her classroom every day the year before, too uncomfortable to be around that many people and that much noise. And much as she couldn't gauge exactly how well most of her students did in a non-art setting, she had a good feeling that Stella could be a valued secret weapon among the team.

On that first meeting, the first Monday of November, it had been right there, how the other girls looked at her, standing so much quieter than the rest of them, like they were wondering if she would cut it. But as soon as Maya and Cory had given them all their first sort of trial run, Stella Buckley had bolted out from the dark, and she'd caught them all by surprise. That little smile on her face… It had been as delicious to Maya as it had been to Stella herself.

From the juniors, of course, she had Ariel Su. As soon as Maya had mentioned the quiz team to her, the girl's eyes had lit up and she'd said yes. Maya had laughed, trying to give her more details, but all the while Ariel would just nod, and nod, showing she was on board with every part of it, and the only thing she really needed to know was when they would start. Maya had a feeling, and come Monday she'd been proven correct, that Ariel and Rochelle would hit it off right away. That was the thing she'd been hoping for, secretly. All she really needed was the means to socialize, and then she would lift her head, she would find more in the world than her studies. Without a doubt, studying would be involved, both girls were dutiful students, but somewhere in between, there would be other discussions, there just had to be.

Rounding up the team, she'd called on her senior, Helena Zimmerman. For her, Maya could think how, after having been out of class, out of school, for over a year, the idea of getting involved in something like this might be just what Helena needed. She had wanted to try out for the basketball team, to get back to the sport she'd once loved, but her parents had refused her, saying they had agreed to let her go back to school, but they would draw the line at her exerting herself in that way. She'd been heartbroken over it, about how her parents continued to coddle her even though she was completely well again and would not suddenly take a turn again from playing a sport. Maya had actually offered herself to speak to Helena's parents about it, but Helena had said it would not matter, that it would only make things worse. She would just have to let it go.

So now, here was a counteroffer of sorts. The quiz team was sure to please the Zimmermans, but would it please Helena?

She'd hesitated at first, maybe still pining over her lost team, but after thinking it over, she'd come to find her art teacher on Friday morning and said she would do it. Just like that, they were set for Monday. When she had come around over lunch that day, there had been a definite sense that the other girls had seen Helena around the school, hard to miss as she was, tall and slender and with that short short hair. They also seemed aware that she was the girl who'd been out of school for a while because she was sick. Maya had worried briefly that this would make things awkward between them, that the girls would make Helena reconsider. But then leave it to her shy bird to step up and make the first introduction, and soon the others had followed, and the awkwardness had faded away as though it had never existed.

In the last few weeks, they'd had many more of these meetings. After Monday, they'd been able to come up with a schedule, and so they would meet, three times a week. Two of these were after school, handled by Cory, while the third, on Fridays, happened over lunch in the art room. Every time they had come together so far, it felt to Maya as though her little team was growing tighter and tighter, gelling as they should, which would be a good and necessary thing, as they settled in for this friendly match over the weekend.

"We could keep the initials," Rochelle suggested, and for a moment the conversation paused, everyone looking at her like she'd finally brought them on to one path after they'd been going aimlessly. "B-something C-something, Basket Cases Junior," she went on, making them laugh.

They had to leave it there for now in the end, as lunch was ending and all but Rochelle had to get to classes which weren't this one. Maya was almost certain that at some point before the end of the day one of those girls would come and find her with a name idea, and she could only wonder which of them would be the one.

One thing was for certain, and it was that the addition of the quiz team had been a most welcome distraction, not for anything bad, just for… well, anticipation.

With the anniversary well behind them and the efforts for getting pregnant moving along, it became the weirdest sort of waiting game. Oh, it had not gotten anywhere that made Lucas or her feel detached from the process, but then it did add a different layer on to it all and that was weird. It wasn't just about them anymore, it was about making something happen, and much as they tried to put all their chances on their side, there was nothing they could do that would take them directly from point a to point b. So they carried on, and they waited, and they hoped, oh, how they hoped.

As the other girls had gone away, Maya turned back to find Rochelle had wandered over to the bookcase, where she inspected the various book spines. More than one of them had come from a museum she had been to over the years, or from a trip to the bookstore. The others had been gifts, some from Patty Robinson, and others from Lucas, who had been known to come home from work at the bookstore with a volume he would happily present to her, saying he'd been looking at the new arrivals and it just jumped out at him. She liked having them all here, in her classroom, where she could either read them herself, when she had a free break, or she could share them with her students, either with the whole group or one on one… It always sort of felt different when they could look at some work or another on a page instead of a screen.

"See anything you like?" Maya asked, and Rochelle turned to look at her, halfway startled as though she wasn't supposed to touch the books. Maya smiled and moved to join her. "If I can make a suggestion? This one here," she pulled one of her more recent acquisition, another husband gift. "From what you wrote in that first paper, I think you'll find something else to interest you here."

"Okay," Rochelle took the book and stared at the cover a moment before flipping it over and reading over the blurb.

These last few weeks, Maya had seen so much more of the girl's smiles, of intrigue, of curiosity and genuine motivation that now she couldn't get enough of it. She was so far from the grumpy beast she'd been at the start of the school year, and though Maya suspected a part of her still felt that her time might have been put to better use in a strictly academic setting, she could also say that she no longer dragged herself through the period. Even when they would be put to some hands-on task or another, she would give effort, with a critical eye but also an audacious one. She just might have made it through this imposed class yet.

"Mrs. Friar!" Both Maya and Rochelle heard the call and looked back to the door, even as the speaker actually reached the room and came to stand in the doorway, breathless from running.

"Phoebe? What are you…" Maya started to ask, just as Stella caught up with her best friend and bumped into her in an effort to come to a stop. She raised a hand in greeting, as though she hadn't been there minutes ago. "You two are going to be late to…"

"But she found us a name," Stella cut in, pointing to Phoebe who now nodded.

"You did?" Maya looked to the sophomore, while Rochelle joined them, book still in hand.

"Yeah, well, she told me about you all looking for something, and the initials – which was great, by the way," Phoebe cut in, mid-rattle. "And then it came to me."

"What is it?" Rochelle asked. Phoebe and Stella shared a look, as though deciding which of them would say it, the one who'd come up with it or the one who would be one of its members. Maya cleared her throat. They really needed to get to class, and now the freshmen were arriving.

"I told her," Phoebe finally made the call and spoke, "You all would kick butt at that match, because you were all… Born Curious."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners