May 12th 2023

Chapter 132
We Remember Notes & Melodies

Dear Mrs. Friar,

I don't know if you're aware (probably not), but you are a very popular topic of conversation in my home. I might get called out for sharing this, but I trust that it will be received in confidence. Every evening, it is a very important part of our lives together for Tisha, Kinsey, and I to sit together for dinner and talk about our days. We all have plenty of reasons for finding it as essential as we do, and I will not speak for theirs, but I'm sure that you are well aware of mine.

All this to say that, when her turn comes, Kinsey will have a very set way of going about her own storytelling. It will begin with the report of her journey to school, any interesting events witnessed on the bus... Then she will talk about her classes and anything that might have happened there. It's all very sequential, you could say, except that there will clearly be parts she's skipping over, not because she doesn't want to talk about them, but because she wants to keep them for last. She talks about the pre-class time in your class with the quiz teams, and then lunch in your class, too, and on days where there will be cheer practice... You get the idea.

It's not as though she is sitting there, jumping around the entire time, saying 'Mrs. Friar is so great,' or 'Mrs. Friar is my favorite,' but the way she'll talk about you in all this, she might as well be. You've really made an impression on her in such a short time, and you've definitely made her enjoy high school more than she thought she would. Tisha says that her sister is starting to let people see how smart she is again, and she's so relieved. I tell her that I knew she'd be in good hands as soon as she met you, even if you're not her teacher specifically, and I stand by that.

So, this was one thing I wanted to write to you about, and the other one is this: I'm sure that by now you've heard all about Henry and Stevie getting engaged, either from his parents, or her father, or social media, and you'll be attending with your family when the day comes. Well, I wanted to tell you that, when the time comes, you might be having a busy weekend. I asked Tisha to marry me, and she said yes. And when we told Henry and Stevie, they were both so excited, and we all came out of that conversation with the idea that we could all get married on back to back days, to have consecutive anniversaries. We don't know if that will actually happen but, whenever my wedding comes, I want you to know that you'll be invited to that one as well. (Kinsey is a pretty good secret keeper, so I don't think any beans will have been spilled, but she is very excited, too. She says she wishes she could stay with us instead of living with her stepdad. We're only three floors apart, half the time she falls asleep on our couch anyway.)

I'll keep you updated about the wedding, either in a letter or through Kinsey. She'll probably bring it up anyway.

Hope all is well with Mr. Friar and your family,
Cade Foster

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Dear Cade,

You might not be surprised to learn that I have been known to be deeply, deeply touched by some of the letters I have received from students in the past. It's almost become a joke between all of us now, all in good fun. None of them saw me read this one of yours that I'm answering, so we can probably keep it between us, can't we? I will do what I can not to let it show that I read what you wrote about Kinsey the next time I see her. Obviously, I can't speak for her side of things, but for my part, I feel a great affection for her, too. I count myself very lucky that, even though she's not one of my students as far as art class, I am connected to her in so many other ways, that I have gotten to know her over the past several months. It warms my heart to know that I can hold this place in her life, and I hope I can continue to do so over the next few years.

I can confirm that Kinsey didn't tell me a thing about your engagement, consciously or otherwise. If you can imagine, I was sitting with two dogs at my feet and one in my lap when I read your news, and my surprise was enough to get all three of them startled, barking... It didn't last long, not when they could see that I was happy and not in any distress.

With that out of the way, as you can guess, I was beyond happy to hear the big news. Congratulations! Whichever way you and Tisha and Henry and Stevie figure things out, I will be there for both couples, count on that. The three of you coming together the way you did, back in freshman year, I always thought about how lucky it was that you all ended up in that same year, that you all came together. Sure, I played some role in that, but it could just as easily have not worked. You three might never have ended up being friends the way you did, through all these years. I am so happy, for all of you, that you have made it to this turn, this chapter in all of your lives together, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

With love,
Mrs. Maya Friar

X

When the opportunity had first come about, they'd left it up to Marianne to decide what she wanted to do. It might have been her first instinct to say yes, of course, with or without much thought given beyond the fact that she'd had so much fun the last time and she wanted to do it again. But that wasn't what had happened at all. Marianne Friar could be as much a mature child as she could just be… well, a child… but in this instance, she had shown great maturity, exploring pros and cons before deciding that yes, she would audition for the new musical being cast over at the Silvan Hughes theater. She would make her return after the great success that had been her run as Young Cosette in Les Misérables, and this one, oh… This one might have been tailor made for her. It was right there in the name.

"What if I don't get her, Mom?" she'd asked, one day, shortly before the audition. "What if I don't get Annie?"

"Well, you might get one of the other girls," Maya had pointed out, but this wasn't the answer Marianne wanted to hear. It made Maya smile, most of all because she knew full well that it wasn't the spotlight, the lead role, that her daughter was concerned to get, not entirely. Oh, she wanted it as much as every other young girl who would give it a shot, but her parents felt very confident that the thing that would bum out their firstborn the most would not be that she could miss out on the lead role and a lot more that she of all people wouldn't get to be Annie when that was her name… sort of…

Neither Maya nor Lucas had wanted to give her false hope about how this would all end, which was easier said than done. It might have come from a place of parental bias but, once she'd gone up and had her audition, they had both believed that she'd been the best of the bunch and fully deserved the lead. As before, they'd been treated to a whole lot of practicing in the house, in the days leading up to the audition. This one was without a doubt a completely different experience from when their daughter had gone and sung through the entire soundtrack of Les Mis, the innocent and the less so. It was joyful, and lively, bittersweet, and heartwarming. She was, truly, so very good. She made them cry too many times to count, and they weren't ashamed to admit it.

"Mom, if I get to be Annie, do you think I should color my hair like hers? Should I get it cut shorter, too, get curls?" Marianne asked one morning. Each one that had come and been replaced by another without news had been a complete and utter frustration, and it only got worse. Now with this question, Maya was taken aback. Her baby girl's blond hair was so very long, and beautiful in how it fell around her shoulders… The idea of putting it through such a transformation as this…

"You can put a wig on over your real hair," Maya reminded her. "It can look very real, from first row to all the way in the back when it's done right," she went on. She didn't want to sound like she was trying to sway her choice, but she could also imagine how she'd come to regret it later on.

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure," Maya told her. "They're very good at those. You just wait and see, okay?"

"Okay," Marianne replied with a dramatic sigh that made her mother chuckle before reaching over to embrace her.

She was still feeling the excess in her heart from receiving her belated birthday present. She hadn't known that it was late or that it was coming at all, but when it did… When it did, oh, she cried and laughed in equal measures, watching, and listening to her daughter, joined by her bandmates and the junior band, the way her daughter embodied her in all these scenarios, performances staged… She was certain that she would watch them again as often as she…

When the phone rang, Maya watched Marianne's anticipation rising. She couldn't stand or sit still, didn't know what to do with herself… especially when she saw the caller ID. In the next second, she was calling very loudly for her father, her sisters, her aunts, and her uncle, so all of them could come along and be there for… whatever. Maybe she wouldn't get Annie or any of the other girls. Maybe she wouldn't get to play anyone at all. That was the very worst scenario, and she wasn't about to go and think about that, was she?

She was so speechless, her nerves bunched at her throat as they were, that Maya had to be the one to speak with the casting director and enable the answer to come, heard by all in the room over the speaker. Meanwhile, Marianne was standing before her father, who had his arms around her to keep her from vibrating right out of the room as she waited to know what would happen. This measure soon became essential in other ways, specifically so that she wouldn't slide right down to the floor, in complete awe as she learned that she had been cast in the musical and that she would get to play the part she'd felt herself destined for. She would be Annie, ginger curls, and all, even if they were part of a wig. Lucas hugged her as he held her, and Maya was there with them in no time. This wasn't exactly some belated birthday present, but to her it would always be impossible not to associate one event to the other, and they would be a promise to herself that this year would be the kind they had hoped for, as the seconds had taken them from the one that had come before.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners