November 13th 2020

Chapter 318
Their Growth in Presence

After the tour had been announced, and the album had come out, and everything had just sort of gone a bit all over the place, Maya had figured that, in time, things would calm down again. And on the whole, they had. The album was still doing very well for itself, which continued to be a source of amusement and surprise from time to time. The tour dates were selling out all over the place, guaranteeing that Ree and Maya would be playing to some unimaginably large crowds of people. Whether it had been the intent or not – and Maya suspected that part of Ree's reasoning in bringing her on to this album the way she'd done had something to do with giving her the boost the singer felt she deserved – a lot of eyes were now turned on to her. She still had her life, out here in Austin, with her husband, with her family, with her job, but people in the business were really getting to pay more attention to this young songwriter out of Texas.

And then there were the fans. Already, the TXNY followers had taken hold of Ree's album as something to discover, but in return, there were suddenly a lot more people who were getting to know this little band of over a decade. And with more people looking to them, the attention turned even more eyes on to them, from sources the band had known for some time. The years had seen them coming together in Austin, before shifting to Houston during their college years, and now they'd been back in Austin again for going on four years. They had done shows, loads of them, in both cities, as they had also appeared on morning shows on television and done interviews and performances there and on the radio, too.

With the upswing of demand for TXNY, Maya had been left to field a number of requests, for shows and appearances in both cities. It had all dropped in her lap at about the same time, in late January, and so she'd had to come up with a plan, promising she'd get back to them all once she'd discussed it all with the band. Before she could even do that though, she'd turned to Lucas, who was easily the best equipped to help her sort out the mess of ideas in her head before she offered any of it to the band.

"So it's goodbye Bearded Huckleberry, huh?" she'd asked, finding him in the bathroom, half his face covered in shaving cream.

"Figured it was time," he'd nodded. "Until November."

"I'll miss you," she'd whispered, making him laugh.

As he'd worked the razor over his face, clearing away what remained of his beard, she'd explained the whole thing, with all the requests the band had received to appear and perform. The whole time, he would keep on nodding along, showing that he was listening, and was happy for her, without moving so much that he'd risk cutting himself.

"Why does it feel like you think this is a problem?" he finally asked as he rinsed his razor.

"I don't… It's not… I just… I don't know," she sighed. "It feels like a lot, and I have school, with my kids, and the quiz team, and then Nadine has Mia, and Riley has her patients, and Rosa has classes, and Kayla has her work… Does it really feel like the best time to take off like that? We're talking at least four gigs at night, and then the interviews, that's a solid week where we'll have to be doing mostly just that, and then what if…" She paused, and even as he was still shaving, she could practically hear him urge her on. What if what? "It's going to sound so self-centered, and it's not, but if I look at the big picture, and how we even ended up in this position, I…"

"You think the others might get ignored?" Lucas guessed, turning to her. She looked up to him again, frowning and taking the razor from him to get at the spot he usually tended to miss.

"I don't want everything that's been coming with me and Ree to make it look all of a sudden like I'm the lead and they're my back-up. That's not us, that's never been us. And if I'm going to ask them all to rearrange a week of their lives for it, then it has to be as a band, all of us together. Stop smiling, now, before I cut you," she smiled herself, while he relaxed his face again and let her finish. "There, all done." Lucas cleaned up the rest of the way, picking up after himself before turning to Maya again and soon finding her hands over his cheeks. "I have missed you, too," she whispered. He held her hands over his face.

"You get to stack the deck as you want it," Lucas reminded her. "People are looking at you guys now, then fine. Show them who you are." She considered this, and after a moment she stretched up on her toes to kiss him.

"Right on the money as always, thanks," she moved to leave and just as quickly returned as she was, kissing him again, enough that he eventually had to get his arms around her, compensating for her stretching up to meet him. "That was… very necessary…" she breathed.

Now with something of a plan, she'd gone on her way into the Hex, refining that plan even as she sent out a message to the rest of the band, asking if/when they might be able to come over for a brief meeting. By some chance, they'd been able to come together that very night, and so the plan had become that much sturdier already. She had been sitting on a few as yet unrecorded songs she'd earmarked for the band, and a lot of those had felt perfectly suited to one bandmate or another's voice, even as some might be for her own. She guessed that after writing for other people for a while now it got easier to mold her creations to other people where it used to happen almost more by chance. Lucas was right, now was the perfect time to bring along something new, to go along with these new people coming to discover the band. They could premiere some of these at their shows, or at any of their appearances.

First though, she needed to let the band in on this, and see if they were both willing and able.

"Oh, hey…" Maya quietly spoke as she stepped out to the porch to welcome Nadine, coming along with baby Mia in her arms. "I saw you from the window, I didn't know you were bringing her but I approve of the decision, hello…" she happily reached out for the girl as she was offered over to her.

"I was actually driving around with her to try and get her down when you wrote," Nadine revealed, smiling to see the two of them together.

"Please, feel free to let those drives bring you in this direction any time you want," Maya told her, keeping this information in mind as she lent herself to getting the baby to go back to sleep.

"Zay and I have been swapping nights with her, trying to diminish the exhaustion between the two of us," Nadine explained.

"How's that been working out?"

"Not that great," Nadine chuckled. "If it's our night off, we still wake up when she cries, so…"

"Right," Maya nodded, looking to the baby girl with thoughts of future nights like these for herself and Lucas. Maybe it was that they hadn't had those nights yet, but she still managed to look forward to it.

"I'd ask you what the meeting's about, but I'm guessing you won't say until the others get here?"

"Yeah… Want to take a nap while we wait?" Maya smiled. "Mia and I will be right here."

"Tempting as that is, I'll be fine. Long nights and I became good friends at the hospital."

So, they waited for the rest of the band. It didn't take long before the baby's presence became known to others in the house, and soon she was put into the care of Uncle Lucas, her godfather, who broke out a go-to lullaby, making it very hard for both his wife and his friend not to look at him and imagine a hat on his head and a guitar in his hands instead of a baby. Mia certainly seemed to enjoy it, as she soon dozed off, staying that way well until she was returned to her mother and on her way home.

The rest of the band had come along, equally distracted by the sleeping babe's presence before they were able to sit around the living room and hear what Maya had to tell them.

"Right, so, I know that all of us are busy these days, for a lot of reasons, work, family, school," she started. "So, really, this only works if we can all find a way to make it work, yeah?" The others nodded, still needing to be told more.

Maya ran through the first part, much as she'd done it with Lucas, telling them about this surge of attention TXNY had been getting – this part they knew – and about the calls she'd been getting, the requests to appear, on stage, at television studios and radio stations. She offered them a potential schedule, where the whole thing could be set out over the course of a week, in Austin and Houston and back again. She also let them know of the new songs she had been looking to, the better to alternate the features when they set down their song lists for the shows, which was always something they loved doing together. Again, there was the technicality that all of this depended on everyone's being on board, and available…

They got around to a yes, and a plan, a lot faster than she would have anticipated. None of them had gotten to anything close to band fatigue, instead they always wished to do more than what they did get to do these days. This only helped to motivate them into looking at their schedules, comparing notes, checking in with significant others, and all of a sudden they had dates. All they had to do now was let Maya get in touch with everyone involved, to see if this would work. There were several players in this, which could add that many more chances that they'd end up forced back to the drawing board. Instead, within days, they had an official schedule.

The message went out on their site, and various social pages. Meanwhile, the new songs were added to the roster, as set lists came together. It was going to be tricky, but if anyone could make this work, it would be them. They had grown with this band, with each other, always aware of resources within their reach. They would be staying over with either Sophie and Chiara or Asher and Ray on their Houston days, and rather than being on his own with the baby, Zay would be joined by Lucas as his backup while Nadine was away. Maya would miss being with her students in that week, but she trusted that they would get along while she was gone. And now that it was all coming together, it could not be denied… Oh, she was excited for this. She missed being on stage with her bandmates when it went too long between shows, and by now she was practically aching for it. She'd been caught up in Ree Forster world for a while, but now it was back to TXNY, the band that started it all.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners