June 10th 2023

Chapter 161
We Could Be Artful

"You're going to take pictures of everything, right? EVERYTHING everything?" Marianne pressed in at her mother's side as she stood at the counter, placing the fruit she'd just cut in the many plates at her side, hands moving on reflex to try and make them look just a bit organized in the way the girls liked them. Would they eat it anyway? For sure, they were fruit beasties, all of them, but no reason not to make it fun, right?

"Everything, sure. Tables and pencil cups, too?" she asked as she worked.

"Only the art," Marianne replied, and Maya bit back the urge to call on the fact that she'd let her joke fly right by her. "And you know what I like, yeah? You're going to get a good one?"

"Hey, I'm not going to play favorites, but I'll do my best while YOU also do that, just on the stage. Okay, Annie Annie?" she turned to look at her with a smile. The red curls were starting to feel familiar to her now, so much so that it would be strange for a bit to have her return to her natural color... until summer, where who knew what she'd end up looking like.

Maya fully sympathized with her daughter for being sad that she couldn't go to the art auction this year. Of all the reasons why, her starring in a musical was kind of the best one. Still, as she enjoyed her break between the seniors and sophomores later that morning, she went on thinking about Marianne and the best ways she might go about letting her enjoy the exhibit of student works without actually being there to...

*Dylan: Max M sick in gym.

She had her phone in her hand, and when the notification came through, she raised it to read the screen without really thinking about it. But then she saw the words and her feet acted at once, speeding her around to hurry over. She crossed paths with a couple of kids who had been sent off to grab the janitor. When she stepped into the gym, she found roughly the scene she had expected, which was that most of the other students were standing as far as possible, some holding their shirts over their noses and mouths and looking away from the puddle of sick on the floor, others staring and - why were they like this - laughing.

Nearer to the unfortunate puddle, Max Farrell and Kinsey were huddled around their best friend, who had been found a bucket by now in the event of further spewing. They were leading her out of the gym but stopped when they saw their art teacher.

"It's alright, I've got her from here, okay?" she told the two, hoping that they understood what she was trying to tell them, and it looked as though they did.

Like it or not, people would talk, and it was better that they stick around where they could do damage control. Also, it would have been deemed unnecessary by... some people... for anyone who wasn't sick to be taken out of class.

"Is it... Is it going to be like this... for a long time?" Max asked as she followed her teacher, leaning to her.

"Longer than you'd like but not as long as you'd think," Maya assured her, which was not exactly what the young mother-to-be would have wanted to hear, but there was nothing to be done for it now except to carry on toward the nurse's office. Maya would have felt secure in telling the woman about what was really going on but, for now, she and Max agreed to skate around the truth and let her recover from the 'ordeal.'

Though this had been the plan, it took all of a couple of hours for whisperings to reach Maya's ears and let her know that it was too late. Somehow, she wasn't sure how yet, word had gotten out that Max McAllister was pregnant. She knew that this should not have been surprising, not here, and it wasn't. Words had wings, and they could travel very fast when it was the quiz teams doing their thing, but they were that much faster when they carried rumor.

Max was one of the star players on the girls' basketball team already as a freshman, so they knew who she was. And now this was happening, and it made Maya want to shout at some of them to hear that their biggest concern was what it would mean for the team and the end of the season. There was worse than that to deal with at the moment, because now it HAD reached Sandra Davenport, and Ingrid and Natalie had been called in to see her about their daughter's 'situation.'

Max herself was evidently not required for this meeting about her future, as shortly after the lunch bell she appeared in the art class. When Maya saw her, she moved to lightly embrace her for a moment, to pass on reassurance. As tightly as she held on, it was clear that she needed a lot of it. Maya felt the tremor in her, knew that she was crying, so she let her keep holding on without a word. Nothing she said would have helped more than this.

Of course, in no time, she had more people there to look after her, more people who had only needed a bell to release them to rush over and be with her: the rest of the quiz team kids and Max Farrell. He soon took over hugging duties, and his lifelong best friend welcomed this at once.

"I think it was my fault..." Kinsey quietly admitted. "That they found out. I didn't tell them, not in those words, but they were talking and I didn't mean to, I just sort of... reacted. That was all they needed. I messed up, Max, I..."

"No, it's okay," Max sniffed. "They would have found out sooner or later."

"Then it's true?" Agnes asked, eyes widening. "You're really..."

"Having a... having a baby, yes," Max spoke, sounding like she'd made herself say it out loud with some confidence, for her own sake more than anything. Now that people knew, what other choice did she have?

"Are you going to keep it?" Miley Nilsson asked.

"Who's the father?" Lydia asked almost at the same time. Even as she said it, she and most of the others looked over to the other Max.

"Why does everyone think it's me?" he straightened up at once. "She's like my sister!" he reminded them, looking as disturbed at the thought of his ever doing anything that could result in a baby with his best friend as she did.

"It's not him, I... I've been seeing this guy, he and his sister play on their school's teams, so we'll run into each other at games mostly. But the last few months we started seeing each other outside of that, doing some one on one at the park hoops, and at my house, and his house, and then we just... we started doing... stuff... and now..." She let out a breath, sharing in this wordless expression how freaked out she was at the idea of telling him. She hadn't done it yet, but she wouldn't have a choice now. As for the other question, beyond the fact that this child would be born, it was still too new for her to have any kind of confident answer.

Somehow, the day carried on and came to an end. Finishing touches had been made, and so the art auction for this year would be underway. Maya had to force herself to stop and realign her thoughts to the event instead of what was going on with Max. For that, she was very glad to have Marianne's request to think about. She would make her the best kind of virtual tour that she and her phone could assemble. She rounded out the auction careers of the likes of Maia Bennett and their resident museum guide, Angel Ríos, who had clearly benefitted from his time working out there, something that Maya had already witnessed in his class work. His auction piece was easily the best thing he'd done, and she very gladly bid to win it, thinking of a perfect spot in her classroom where it could hang and be seen by all, like the principal.

Though his piece had not been made with this specific intent in its subject matter, it was not so for everyone, and several of the other students' works had an undeniable sort of 'protect the arts' spirit to them. It was nothing that could get them in trouble, not unless someone really wanted to bend the rules, which would not fly, and it was kind of brilliant.

To no surprise, with the juniors, she saw this message in her brother's work, and the same in what both Ash and Lydia made. Those three would fight for a worthy cause wherever they found it, and Maya was as proud for them as she wondered what changes they would bring into the world once they finished out their time here with her. She couldn't believe they would already be seniors next year, even as one of them would have walked for their diploma in a few short weeks if they hadn't been forced to repeat their freshman year. They were on their way now to enter their last year at this school, maybe not at the top of their class but, for where they had begun, they might as well have been.

The sophomores had their own bit of quiet protesting going on, though there weren't nearly as many of them as with the older classes. Even if they may not have been out seeking to raise their voices by means of brushes, pencils, or markers, there was still something in a lot of their work that showed emotion, that showed what the presence of creation in their lives could do for them. Without her ever having prompted it from them, the sophomores appeared to have taken self-expression as their theme for this year. Agnes Killian had really thrown her teacher for a loop, trying to decipher the colorful burst that was her auction piece, and Maya ended up looking back at it several times throughout the evening. Austin Abbott's piece showed the joy he got from being on the cheer squad. Freddie Jacek may not have been the most skilled artist in his class, but he conveyed very well his ongoing emotions toward his upbringing and overall family situation. His near sister, Noor Kaur, had some of this as well, reflecting her own perspective, though she'd gone the way of protest, claiming that he couldn't do it, being part of the student government, so she'd do it for him.

The freshmen were always a bit of a wild card, seeing as they were submitting for the first time, didn't really know what they were getting themselves into. They'd often be the ones who submitted their things at the very last minute, who would stop and look at what they'd done and decide to start all over again, no matter how she would have told them they were doing fine. It was their vision to follow, not hers. And by the time they would have those pieces on display, they'd often be some of her favorites. Amy Dixon had decided to paint the front of her house, as seen from the mailbox out by the road, Maya would say, not unlike how Rafa Cruz had taken inspiration from his own home, on the ranch property. Jake Bennett, steeped as he was in his cultural research, had portrayed some of it here. Max Farrell had painted his favorite place back in Japan, even if he had no memories of growing up there the way his older sister could.

Max McAllister had asked to withdraw her piece at the very last minute. This had not been the plan but, with everything that had happened that day, she just felt that things would not go as she had imagined them, and she didn't want to disrupt from the evening for everyone else. Maya respected this choice and removed the painting, though not before lodging a very respectable bid for it. As she'd be unopposed, the painting was as good as hers already. Even if it had not been chosen for that specific reason, she was sure that Marianne would appreciate her selection in her absence.

Her sisters were all there to take in the exhibit, too, from smallest to eldest. Ella and Taylor were looking to buy something that they might display in their baby's room, and they would eventually come away with Agnes' color burst. They happily found her in the gym once their win had been confirmed, and thanked her for her work, recalling their own auction projects with her. She looked very glad to know that they were enjoying hers so much, especially for where it would end up.

Despite the fact that she had removed her piece from being on display, Max McAllister was there that night along with her friends, and her parents, too. Her mothers were surprised to hear that she'd chosen not to auction her work, but again after all she'd gone through earlier, they could see why this would be the valid choice. The Farrells were there with them, too, and they clearly had not known about their son's friend's secret, but once they learned of it, their response was not to suggest their Max had anything to do with it (because that would have been ridiculous) but instead to see that the McAllister girl was doing okay.

The two families would soon be seen joined by another, as the Hunters had come to see MJ's offering. And along with younger sister Haley came her best friend, Madelyn Carter. It didn't take long for the girls to hear, via MJ, about what had happened earlier with Max and her secret, and they responded by hurrying to find her. There was no telling what bringing the two future young mothers together would do, but just now it was doing exactly what they'd hoped it would. It gave them both the support of someone they could speak to, who was going through a very similar experience to their own.

"I don't know about you, but I'm really starting to wonder about what next year is going to be like," Maya breathed as she and Lucas stood together and looked on. She didn't have to say it all out loud, but he knew what she was thinking about. It was already one thing to have to deal with whatever Principal Davenport's new project would bring them and the school, but now they would also have those two girls, one a freshman and the other a sophomore, with babies due somewhere about late fall, early winter… Would that be the end of it? It usually wasn't, but the fact that they were already starting with this… Lucas turned to his wife, took her hand, and she smiled. Whatever it would all be, he'd have her back, and that was always a good thing to know.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners