March 13th 2023

Chapter 72
We Elevate For The Arts

Some of their most valued memories from high school were tied to their time on the basketball team. It didn't matter that they only actually played for two of those years: they had been on that team for four years, and it had meant the world to them enough so that they had fought until they got it back. Anyone who was aware enough of their school's history hadn't forgotten it. The crowning event for them each year might have been the end of the season and whether they'd end up at the top or not, but it wasn't, not for them. No, their highlight was that, at the end of each year, they would gather at the Shelby house and have a party, the boys and girls' teams together. It was a culmination of everything that had come before, a whole season together - teams or none - and, well... it was just so much fun.

It had been a long time since Lucas and Maya and their teammates had all graduated out, but they were happy to know that the parties had gone on. There had still been Shelby kids in the school and on the teams for a while, and now the house had passed into ownership for one of the elder siblings and his wife, both former team captains and perfectly motivated to keep the tradition going for current players.

In recent years though, what had started out as a joke had come to take rise as something very real and very exciting for the Friars and their former teammates. While the present teams were upstairs, outside, doing their thing, inside the house, down in the basement, there would be a second party, for the former players to reunite, to catch up... And because it had always been part of how these nights went, it would end in a shoot off at the hoops, the old versus the new.

There had been those times when this one or that one couldn't attend one year, and the Friars had had to bow out in the past, but generally anyone who could make it would very happily show up. It felt like a yearly class reunion and they loved every part of it.

This year, the Friars fully expected a heightened curiosity out of their former schoolmates that had nothing to do with basketball. It had already been a whirlwind since they had returned from New York after the Tony Awards, wherever they went that people were going to recognize them, whether they were Maya, Sam, and Cara, who were actually the ones concerned, or Lucas, Dora and Mateo, or even some of their children. They understood that curiosity, they did. How often would they have gotten to talk to anyone who had not only been there, among those people, but actually came away with some awards?

It all still felt like a dream, it did. As much as they could have told themselves that they had been working at this project for years and years, that it was so, so personal for all of them, they had gone into that night with zero expectations and that was not mere modesty. They were new to all this, their show just as new as them, and it didn't matter that Maya had been in this business for as long as she had. The six of them who had attended had gone in there with the thought that they had taken a short vacation up to New York, to half of their group's hometown, and gotten to dress up and attend this big event together. That could have been all it ever turned out to be, and they would have been glad for it.

They had not swept their categories, and that was perfectly fine. Any time anyone from their production was called as one of the nominees, they had felt so proud already, and if they weren't the winners in the end, they'd be happy for them anyhow. But then four times... four times, they had been called up. Porter McNeeley was one of those, as was one of their leads, Annika Healy. They did not win best musical, and that was one of the first things that people would bring up when they would approach any of them afterward, always with some insistence that they had been robbed, as much for their own feelings for the show as for the fact that they had also walked away with best book and best score.

They wished they could have gotten that big one, wished they could have gotten all of their nominations, if only for the people who had worked as they'd done and earned those awards, but they would be lying if they said that receiving those two awards that they specifically had gotten didn't mean the world to them. It would not have taken anything from the memories they had built together over the years they had created their tale, not at all, so this was really a bonus... But it did mean so very much for them to realize that others had looked on to the product of that work and those years and recognized it in this way. People could forget all about it in time, but they would never.

Maya still smiled to herself whenever she remembered those moments. A lot of it went to her getting to stand up there with her brother and sister, but then there was Lucas, too, down in that audience. She would tease him - lovingly so - about how he was a great hype husband, whenever she'd win anything, whenever she'd be nominated for anything, and he would take this as the highest honor, like the Huckleberry that he was. She could very precisely picture his smile as he'd watch her from where he sat, so much that she could sketch it days and weeks later, which she would.

Then there would be those who weren't in New York with them at the time, highest among those being their daughters. Ella had come over to spend the night in Austin with them for the broadcast, as had Lea, and they'd been so happy with the outcome - except for the 'snub' - but they were to be outdone in sound and energy by the younger Friars, five of them bouncing along all the while. Marianne, to no one's surprise, was the most actively emotional about the whole thing, enough that while she'd clearly been so, so happy, she'd still had tears streaked down her cheeks when they'd called home and seen her on the screen.

She'd looked almost the same when they'd landed back in Texas and been reunited. She was almost comically calling out the fact that they should have won best musical and would continue to, especially whenever she'd hear anyone voice a similar opinion. To hear her go on about it, she might have done research and, frankly, her parents would not have been surprised. Actually, they could imagine her having a few motivated co-searchers, and their names would be Shawn Hunter and Thomas Friar.

It was one thing for them to return home to their city, to their people. Going back to their jobs... Everyone was so very proud up at the ranch, being so close to the production as they were, while the school, oh... Thanks to Vice-Principal Song, they had been able to orchestrate a live watch in the school auditorium, and the place had been packed with students and faculty and staff. Maya had had no idea that this would be happening until afterward, and she was not sorry to say that one of the things she most wanted to know was how Sandra Davenport had reacted to the whole thing.

Returning to work always felt like a bit of a relief, honestly, though to return after something like this also meant having a lot of people wanting to talk to her any chance they got. Her first classes back would be a bit of a wash as far as trying to get her students to focus and do anything. No one was giddier this time around than their school musical kids, and her fellow muses... Marianne would have found a soul sister in Miranda for her upset at the 'lost' award.

Her absence had coincided with the run up to the year's art auction, and while she'd mostly put that out of her head while they'd been gone, upon their return... The event was to take place two nights later, the eve of the Shelby party, and Maya had briefly considered not going. It had nothing to do with being tired from her trip or not being up to it, far from that. No, the problem, as silly as it might have sounded to some, was just what it had already been for them in the aftermath of the awards. The constant curiosity all around them, the local interviews set in the coming week... She didn't want to bring that energy into the auction, which belonged in every way to the students and the pieces they had created.

She did go, with Lucas and the girls, as usual, and on the whole it went better than she'd figured at first, which was a relief. All she could think after that initial doubt was the Sandra Davenport of it all. If she had her sights on cutting down the arts at their school, which they had no doubt she was, then Maya had to wonder how she would respond to this night. The auction had been a staple for several years now, enough that people just knew about it, and they would come around, supporting the students' work, yes, but in doing so supporting their school, supporting the arts thriving at their school. That was just what they did when they came and sold out their yearly musicals, too. It stood as one of many strong pillars for the department in their school. If she was going to come after them, then she'd have a challenge standing in her way. They wouldn't fall quietly; they wouldn't fall at all if they had anything to say about it.

The night, as ever, had been a great success. They continued to have more than enough to fund the diaries and then some, which translated in much appreciated donations on behalf of the school's art students...

"I know it might be a bit... petty... but whenever we 'win' a round with her, she goes and disappears for a while, and it's a nice reprieve," Maya told her former teammates in the Shelby basement, making them laugh.

"You just be careful around her, yeah?" Nadine told her. "She sounds like she won't give up so easy, you know?"

"Oh, she knows," Lucas chimed in. "Not sure Principal Davenport knows about New York Maya yet," he turned a look to his wife that was so lovingly proud that she had to chuckle as she leaned to kiss his cheek.

"And anyway, she's not alone," Dylan added, extending a fist for bumping to his fellow coach. When she'd been put in charge of the cheerleaders, he'd very jokingly gifted her with her own cap. She very non-jokingly loved it.

"If you need more backup, you know who to call," Riya Shelby confidently raised her chin, and Maya knew that her former captain would for sure have her back, as would the rest of the people gathered in that basement.

"Well, let's just hope it doesn't come to that, yeah?" she smiled, just before they heard the basement door open, and several feet came climbing down the steps.

"Hey, you guys ready to get crushed up there?" Nellie asked, her defiant grin echoed on her twin's face as much as their best friend Desi's face.

"You were a lot nicer when you were in my class," Zay pointed up at the girls, making them laugh.

"We were ten," Desi pointed out. Zay sighed as everyone was already moving to follow.

"Yeah, that doesn't feel like that long ago."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners