March 23rd 2023

Chapter 82
We Shine In The Meantime

Every summer since she'd started teaching had gotten to feel to Maya like it had three periods. There was the one right after the year that had just ended, where everything was put to rest, files updated, boxes closed, supplies cleaned… There would in contrast be the one before the start of the new year, starting anew, preparing for everything and everyone… Then there would be the one in the middle, and that was where she was now. This was the period of summer that felt completely removed from any school year, leaving her in teacher limbo or whatever they might have called it. She'd be curious to know how her students were doing, the ones that had graduated and were preparing to move into whatever would come next and the ones who had been there last year and would still be there next year, as she wondered what their summers were shaping up to look like.

She wasn't completely cut off from finding out, not when she could easily run into some of them without even trying whenever she left the house. And if it wasn't the students themselves, it would be their families, too.

She'd of course 'run into' Jenny Marshall's father very regularly, as he continued to be their mailman. She'd run into her mother, too, out and about, and with both of them the reaction would always be the same. They looked to her as one of those they could thank for shepherding their daughter through the difficulties that had come with starting her transition from male to female. The way they would speak to her a lot of the times, even without saying the words, she knew that they looked at her as one of the reasons why they still had a child in their home rather than in the ground, and that fact was as precious to them as it was to Maya. The Marshalls would see her and they would be so happy to tell her about what Jenny was up to, as though she didn't see her regularly at band practices and performances, and she would never point that out to them. They wanted to share their pride for their daughter, and she would gladly listen to every last word.

The Friars were, as ever, regulars at their favorite museums, and because he worked there now, they would see Angel Ríos, who had quickly become the girls' favorite tour guide. They liked how kind and attentive he sounded, how he would meet their questions with as much or as little information as they might want or need… Maya knew how some patrons of the museum would look at him, see a quiet kid, and dismiss him immediately, seeking instead someone older as their guide, and that was really their mistake. Any visitor to the museum who bothered to take the time and talk to him would see that he actually knew his stuff very well. They didn't know how dedicated he was to it, too, constantly reading more, taking in new information that might be useful to him in his work. Maya had more than once considered the idea of having him do presentations to the class, in his grade as well as the others, a guest lecturer of sorts. He would be a senior this year, and to watch him go, she wouldn't be surprised if he followed this line of learning he'd tapped into and found his future in it.

When she thought about it, even if it was only her own personal narrative, it made her smile to think of him, Angel Ríos, the son of ousted vice-principal Lita Ríos, ousted by Sandra Davenport, detractor of the arts, devoting himself to the depths and the beauty of what the woman fought to crush underfoot. Was this the thing that had motivated his choice of a job? Probably not, but did that matter anymore when he was there now, walking through school with this new confidence in him and a well of knowledge he could gladly share with the world at any time?

She'd spoken with Lita in the past year, lunched with her more than once. She tried not to talk too much if at all about Davenport whenever they'd come in contact, even if she was sure that Lita heard about her through other avenues. She could see it in her eyes, how upset and powerless she felt, knowing that the woman was out there, messing with her school. She'd taken a sabbatical, to give herself time to figure out her next step, and now she had found it… more or less. She'd been hired on by the production team for both series coming through Sullivan Stables as an on-set tutor to the child actors. It so happened that they'd lost the previous one, and she had been a teacher before rising up to become the vice-principal at their school. Through Angel, she knew how much his mother was looking forward to beginning. The past year had been difficult for her, but she was ready now to start a new chapter.

The two most direct connections she'd have in this limbo period of summer would be the bands and, maybe most of all, the quiz teams. For years now, as long as she'd helped advise Born Curious, the team members had been welcome in her house. They would come over every so often to practice with her and had been there to watch her girls grow as they'd sooner or later end up sitting in on their meetings, listening in sometimes directly in the lap of one student or another. She had so many wonderful memories of a tiny Marianne spouting random facts she'd picked up from one of them and looking so proud at the surprised looks she'd get.

Even in the summer, sometimes almost especially, they would be welcome to stop in, and they would. This would be when they'd be one member short, having lost their previous captain to graduation. Lucas would sometimes joke that they all only ever came in hopes of finding her new student lists so they might track down the freshmen and lock down their new fourth member. She'd always tell him that they'd never do that, but that didn't stop her from turning that same joke on them. Oh, how they loved to play coy about it.

This year, they had their new second team, all of them under the advisement of Stella Buckley, and Maya knew that the French teacher had started doing as she'd done since back in her day. She'd welcomed the students into her home, leading sessions with them, too. Every once in a while, they'd pooled the two teams at one's home or the other, especially when the kids were itching for a friendly face off.

Even as they'd kept up the practice, it had been hard not to feel the nagging thought of what their new principal might have to say about it. She hadn't said anything, not yet, but they never wanted to play into her hand and this… this sometimes felt like something she'd try to use against them in time. They weren't going to let that thought keep them down. They'd had their first year with the new team, and even if it had taken them that long to come up with a name that would stick – which made putting them in matches complicated – they had been showing their opponents that, like Born Curious, the Critically Bookish were on their way to becoming a force in their quiz world.

With Rolly McNeil and Sandy Abbott off to college, it was now up to Maia Bennett and Miley Nilsson to lead the teams, and the two new seniors were already following in the 'tradition' of all former captains: they wanted to head into their leading year and make sure to do well… which was a better sounding goal than 'make sure not to screw it up.' As they met over the summer now, the closer they got to September, they had one very big goal in mind, both of them, and that was to get one or both of their teams up to a national competition, international even, if that was possible. It would mean a lot to their teams, to their school… If it happened to be petty for them to want it to annoy the principal, well…

Maya didn't know that the quiz teams would be too much of a bother to Sandra Davenport beyond the fact that she was involved with them. She'd probably put more stakes on the side of it being something to do with the bands. She was well aware of TXNY and how two of her teachers were part of it, and neither Maya nor Morgan would be shocked if she came to them one day, suggesting that their side thing didn't feel like something a couple of high school teachers should do, especially teachers at her high school. There was nothing preventing them from carrying on, nothing real – they'd actually gone and checked – but the same might not have been so for their junior band, the Hexes, especially now that they had an active student in their ranks and not just former, graduated students. They had Ash Bell, all set to be a junior this year even though they should have been a senior. Maya knew that they had the benefit of Ash being an emancipated minor, bolstered now for their having turned eighteen, but they were still a student at the school, and Maya wouldn't put it past the principal to find a way and twist it around.

That wasn't going to stop the bands any more than it would the quiz teams. For all of them, the policy remained the same. None of them were doing anything wrong, none of them were doing anything different than what they had always done, something of which the old administration had both been well aware and fully supportive. The best thing they could do then was to carry on in this conviction, and so they would.

Nowadays, they were making the most of the summer months. TXNY was continuing to do shows, as were the Hexes. And while Maya was still busy with anything from ongoing musical business, to contracted songs, to the album with Portia Keller, the junior band was busy with a grand project of its own: they wanted to record and release an album, the first under their new name, with their new lineup. Ava had been hard at work writing and perfecting new tracks, always with girlfriend Kelsey as her sounding board, her muse, and her partner, and at least once or twice a week they'd all be in the studio that had inspired their new name, to record and re-record… Maya hadn't gotten to hear any of it yet and she wouldn't, not until the band was ready to put it before her, but she only had to see them heading in and out of the small building outside her home to know some things. She knew that they were excited by the work they did. She'd watch them march up there, talking animatedly and sometimes humming to themselves, causing one of their bandmates to motion for them to be quiet in case they could be heard. And when they'd come back out again after a session, the smiles would still be there, and the bounce in their steps would be the best part, every time.

It wouldn't be long that they'd be moving into the third and final summer period, wouldn't be long that she'd become all about lists and new diaries, lesson plans, project ideas, and as much as she was itching to get there, every day that brought her closer, right now she was very happy to continue in this period, the merry in-between.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners