January 27th 2023
Chapter 27
We Jump Into the Future
They'd been holding on to this since Halloween and, if anyone asked what they were up to, they'd say they were preparing the local end of their MSC musical opening. It wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.
It started in the Friars' kitchen, where Lucas had gone seeking refills for the candy bowls. He almost jumped and dropped the big bag when he turned and found a tall man in a costume standing there. It took him that extra second or two to remember who was inside that costume and relax again. Once that happened, he was able to ask if he needed anything.
"I need to talk to Maya about something… To her and you both, actually."
So, Lucas had found a way at some point to get the three of them together to talk. To say that it had taken superhuman levels of restraint for them – especially her – to keep their reactions in check, both in the moment and then as they reintegrated the activities beyond, was very accurate. They had decided right then and there that the best thing for them to do was to stash the information deep in their minds and leave it there for the next couple of days. They would get through the end of the year's Hallowannie, and their anniversary the next day, and then… then they would let the floodgates open.
Over the next few weeks, they did their best to assist where they'd been asked, all the while being the most flawlessly subtle that they had ever been. It was easy enough to do because, as they had been telling everyone in order to cover for the secret, they were also preparing for the premiere events.
It was still five months away, in March. The Big Night would happen out in New York, yes, and the Friars, and Calaharts, and Arroyos were all planning to go, but there was no way they could celebrate this night that was years in the making and not involve all of their people here; so many of them had contributed in one way or another, directly or otherwise. They had yet to decide exactly how many of them would be making the trip to New York, much as they would like to bring every single member of their families, so it was that much more important for them to have this great big event right at home.
Maya could not speak for her siblings, though she had known them long enough to know roughly where their heads and hearts would be at, but it continued to feel like someone ran up and gave her an electric shock whenever she'd think of how close they were to the moment. Years of creating, and planning, all of them going back and forth between Austin and New York, and now what had started out as little more than a chain of melodies was about to be a full fledged Broadway musical. She had gotten to a place in her life, in her career, where finding herself in the midst of celebrities and industry people didn't fill her with so much of that 'what am I doing in here?' feeling, but something about the thought of the musical being so close to opening had reignited that feeling in her.
She wasn't upset about it, not by any means. She had always appreciated it for what it was, for how it kept her grounded. Even if she didn't feel it so much on the day to day anymore, it didn't mean that she'd forgotten where she'd started or who she was. But she could only be involved in so many projects, interact with so many people, before she just had to own up to who she was and the place she had earned in the world. She still knew that the role she loved and cherished most was the one she held in her family, as Lucas' wife, as Ella, Marianne, Kacey, Remy, Lucy, Mackenzie, and Aubrey's mother, as Tori's grandmother… and a hair's breadth after that, as teacher to the multitudes of teenagers who'd come through her classroom.
Well, now, all the secret keeping was about to come to an end. Today was the day when Ben Landau would ask Eliza Hart-Lane to be his wife.
For having seen more than one pair of their friends through to this particular big moment, neither Maya nor Lucas were surprised for Ben's being nervous, the nearer they got to the chosen day. It was a constant cycle of feeling like she would surely say yes cut with the invading thought that she might say no for some reason, as much as it was him second guessing his plans and reconsidering whether one idea previously rejected might be the better way to go after all.
"Is it just me or are they trying to be a bit sneaky right now?" Lucas whispered to Maya as they reached the top of the stairs, each with laundry baskets full of freshly washed and dried things in need of folding and putting away. Just because they had something special coming up later on that day, it did not mean that they suddenly did not have more laundry than felt reasonable from week to week.
"Oh, it's not," Maya whispered back with a snort. She'd seen them, too, all their little blondes down in the living room, watching a movie together, all packed on the couch together. Even as their parents had passed, most of them had looked back at them, blue eyes like lanterns aimed at them with what felt like precision, seeking something without saying a word. Then, the moment they had moved out of sight, there had been the buzz of voices turned to one another in conference.
"Think they know about today?"
"Maybe... Either that or they just know there's something but not the what."
As sneaky as they could all think themselves to be, their parents were sure that they'd give themselves away sooner or later, and they did that shortly before the time had come for them to put The Plan in motion. The laundry had been folded in some speed round where Maya and Lucas had challenged one another to see who could get the most done, fast, and proper. Maya had won but she maintained that Lucas had purposefully fallen behind in order to let her win. He would neither confirm nor deny.
Now they were putting everything away. Lucas had the triplets' things, while Maya had the green room. She was focused enough on her task that she didn't hear the quiet approach of her funny Macaroni until, mid stretch to hang up some of Marianne's things, she felt a small hand tug at her shirt before introducing itself just underneath. She looked down and there was Mackenzie, completely unbothered and continuing her inspection.
"Hello, Miss?" Maya asked, disturbing nothing. Mackenzie looked up at this, a great look of perplexed curiosity about her.
"Where's it, Mama?" she asked.
"Where's what?" Maya asked back.
"Baby," Mackenzie insisted, continuing with her searching pats at her mother's stomach.
"What b... Ah..." she answered herself. Of course. That was what they'd decided, huh? They were sneaking around, her and Lucas, to hide a new sibling they hadn't told them about yet, and now Mackenzie had decided to come and see for herself. "Hey, you can let go now, come here," Maya lifted her up to be at eye level. "Hate to break it to you but there's no baby in there."
"Is, too," Mackenzie persisted.
"There's really not," Maya tried not to laugh but struggled with how sweet her daughter's confusion looked. "You shouldn't believe everything your sisters say," she whispered, kissing her even as the doorbell rang below. "You'll see why soon. Let's go."
Of the many ways that Ben could have come up with in order to make his proposal – and there had been several of them that could be labelled as 'I want this to be such a perfect proposal that I'm going off the rails' – he'd finally seen his way into keeping it simple and personal. He could very easily stand before Eliza and simply say the words and she'd say yes, they were just about certain, but it had to be more than that, at least, and that was where the personal part came in. As he saw it, as he and co-conspirators Maya and Lucas saw it, so long as Eliza and Ben themselves, as the couple they had been all along, were the root of the plan, then what would grow from it would be just what they needed.
Who they had been, how they had started, well, the way Maya and Lucas had gotten to see it involved a couple of early Christmas morning surprises, where Eliza was shown to have had a visitor in the night, staying on to morning. It had taken some time for the two of them to become something more than that, and it had involved another Christmas morning, another visit, but this one in the morning. Through all that, they could recognize the thing that really made them who they were as a couple, and it wasn't a couple of… holiday hook-ups. It was the friendship that had existed beforehand, that had carried on all throughout and helped them both through highs and lows. It was all any of them could ever hope for in life, wasn't it? They were each other's safe harbor. So, how were they going to pull all this together into not just a proposal but their proposal?
In the end, it came down to one word: Christmas. If they looked to the beats of their relationship, it really felt as though those were the ones that stood out. When they'd tell people about their history together, depending on who they were talking to, they might skate around a couple of details about how exactly they had… started… but even in doing that they'd be unable to keep from exchanging a knowing smile, a chuckle, so it had to go back to that time.
That demanded a small request on to the Christmas fairies. The Friar girls had worked together, penned a letter, and put it in a box, under the tree, asking for the magic to come a little early this year. For days, every morning, they'd woken up with that same jolt, opening their eyes and looking around to see if the fairies had answered the call. They'd know immediately if they had, and every time they were disappointed… until this morning, which had started with a lot of tiny girl squealing.
They'd only done half the job, only the indoor part for the time being. Otherwise, they might have blown the surprise before Eliza came through the door.
"Hey, pumpkin, I need your help with something real quick, okay?" Maya whispered as she hurried down the stairs with Mackenzie in one arm and spotted Marianne. Lucas was currently talking the triplets and Aubrey into not rushing to the door when they knew who was on the other side. It was Auntie Eliza and Ben! Marianne looked to her mother and nodded at once. They might have told her ahead of time and they knew she would have kept the secret, but this one wasn't theirs to share… not until now. All they told her for now was what needed to be said.
Eliza had to ring a second time. She had the keys, could have let herself in, but she knew how her nieces loved greeting people at the door, so who was she to deny them that? Today, she got Aubrey Juliet Friar, using all her eighteen-month-old strength, from up in her father's arms, turning the knob and pulling the door with so much intent that her legs were kicking about, and Lucas had to be careful not to get kicked himself. This may have been a very conscious choice on his part, knowing it would get Eliza's attention just the way to guarantee she'd step into the house with a full smile and all her attention on the small girl. Between that and the revelation of the fairies' visit, she would never – and she didn't – notice Marianne popping up behind her to shut the door again.
"Aren't you guys a little ea… I mean… Did the f… Uh…" Eliza was trying to find the right way to ask what was going on without breaking the magic secret for her smaller nieces.
"Where's Ben?" Maya asked with a smile.
"Right behind me, he said to go ahead, forgot something in…" Eliza turned, noticing that the door was closed again just as the doorbell rang once more. The girls had no more idea what was going on, only knew that there was someone else at the door, and that meant someone else had to get this one.
"I think this one belongs to Eliza… For old times' sake," Lucas told his daughters, doing a much better job of not grinning than his wife right then. Eliza saw none of this. She just shrugged, making a show of it for her nieces, figuring Ben was doing a bit. So, she opened the door…
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
