A/N: One day behind...
August 10th 2023
Chapter 222
We Try To Know The Truth
"You know, maybe it's just because they won't stop about his being sent by the fairies, but his ears are a little pointy on the end, huh?" Lucas declared with a smirk as he observed Ezra. He'd brought the baby back to the bed and had him resting against his upper legs, knees bent and feet planted, the better to prop him up. Ezra looked back at him, freshly awake, giving no mind to the light prodding that his ears received. Maya smiled as she looked on, feeling like she'd just dipped ten years into the past, to when the two of them were new parents for the first time, truly new parents, and they were in complete fascination with their baby girl, their pumpkin. It was happening again now, with their surprise son, as though they just couldn't fathom knowing what to do with him sometimes.
"Just a bit, yeah," Maya had to agree, having done just as much intense staring at their boy as he'd done in the time since he'd been brought into their lives. Now all she wanted to do was get a hold of him, the better to look at him from up close, too, to trace his little ears… but then her phone vibrated against the nightstand and drew her attention. She barely had time to wonder who could have been texting her at a time like this when she saw the answer on the screen and let out a sigh.
It wasn't that she didn't like hearing from her little brother, but it was very early, and on top of that she knew exactly what this would be about. He'd been so intent on it over the last few days that she knew this would have to be about Caroline Renshaw, the cheer coach that had last held the post before the team had disappeared.
"What was it this time?" Lucas asked, later on, when Maya called to tell him that MJ had sent her another message, as she was finishing up school drop-offs. He picked up Ezra, carrying him from the changing table and on their way down the stairs.
"He found a video, I guess? Not from the old squad, but Renshaw at least, from before she coached, when she was a student at the school. Crazy thing is, far as I've been able to tell, the years line up where she would have been there about the time your mother attended, which means she would also have been there when Davenport was there."
"Yeah, that'd make sense…" Lucas thought aloud.
"It would?" Maya asked, surprised.
"I don't know, maybe," he replied. "I just kept thinking about the whole thing, and the name… It keeps making me feel like I should know… something, like I should know her. I'm not sure, but look, I'll just… I'll try and think on it some more, maybe look into it, alright?"
"Sure. Let me know if you find anything? I'll send you that video."
"That'd be great."
Every day when she'd be school bound, it wasn't that she was going out of her way not to run into the principal from the first second to the last and calling a day where she didn't see or hear Sandra Davenport her favorite kind of workday, but… Yeah… Yeah, she definitely did, and she didn't regret it, because there would also be days where she barely made it through the door before…
"Good morning, Mrs. Friar," the voice caught her like a hook at the back of her collar, and she was glad she couldn't see the look on her face. Oh, she couldn't stand her, especially the way she said her name. Knowing what she did of her history with her husband's family now, it was impossible not to feel like she resented her for her married name every time she remembered who she was connected to. Now, all she could do was collect herself and turn on her heel, presenting her most cordial of smiles.
"And good morning to you, Principal Davenport," she addressed her, and if they passed any kind of honesty check with anyone, there was no mistaking their thoughts and feelings, not between the two of them.
The entire encounter generally went no further than this, but it left Maya feeling uneasy in ways that sent her dropping off her things in her classroom, greeting the quiz teams, and heading right back out toward the music room to find Morgan. When she approached, she heard the telling sounds of chairs being moved, and that was what she found her friend, colleague, and bandmate doing. She didn't miss a beat and started to help her at once.
"You look like you just stepped in something rotten and… Oh, no, wait, scratch that," Morgan sighed. Of course, she'd put the pieces together.
"Yup," Maya confirmed.
"And how did that go?" Morgan hummed.
"Brief… ominous…"
"Oh, great, what's she up to now?"
"No idea, but I already don't like it."
"Already looking for something to send her skulking away?"
"Of course."
"And that's why I haven't left yet… Well, that and my students," she added, and Maya gave a slow nod of agreement and a sigh.
"Do you ever want to be really childish about getting back at her? Or petty…"
"The things I'd do if I didn't have to worry about getting fired… or arrested…" Morgan pondered aloud, getting her a snort from her fellow teacher. "Nothing too bad, you know, just…" she had to amend.
"No, yes, of course," Maya nodded. "Well, I'll just be out there, boarding up the windows ahead of the next Hurricane Sandra…"
"I'll be right here if you need some extra hands," Morgan called after her and Maya turned back to face her and pressed her hand to her heart with a 'gosh, thanks' smile that made her friend laugh.
The encounter with the principal and the impressions that it had left on her would stay with her throughout the day, which sometimes had her wondering if that wasn't part of Davenport's plan, like getting them all squirming and worrying was something she relished. If that was so, then she was just going to be playing into her hand, because how could she not? She wondered, several times over, what she might have had cooking up in her… cauldron…
Would it be more of what they'd gotten for the start of this year, with the new teams? Moving through this year, so far, the impression very much remained that the endeavor was successful, yes, but not nearly as much as she would have hoped it to be. Looking at the teams themselves, they were doing well, sure, but it definitely didn't come off like the win she had envisioned, not when they had barely scrounged up enough kids to fill up those teams, and especially not when attendance for any of those competitions or games was nowhere near as steady as those for their pre-existing teams. There'd been more of them in the beginning, when it had all been new, but they were losing ground.
Seeing all of this, it was to wonder what this new plan would be. Either she'd be attempting to redirect even more funding into her pet project and away from the arts, further eating away at what they had left, doubling down, or she'd try and find a workaround, burying this previous attempt as though it had never happened and thus never failed, or she'd find a way and reassign the blame… Either way, it would be highly unpleasant and likely to give her a heaping headache.
Maybe she'd go the way of her previous project and inadvertently put it into more capable hands where she could go on to act as though she'd been the architect of this success all along. Some people definitely saw it that way with the cheer squad, but Maya was happy to note that this wasn't the overwhelming opinion. No, most people thankfully saw where the credit was due. It was thanks to Maya, to Betsy, and to the cheerleaders, all working together, that they had made it to where they were today.
They might not have gotten up to levels where they would be an immediate frontrunner at any competition, but they'd be somewhere up there as contenders, that was for sure, and no one was prouder of this than Maya and Betsy and their squad. They worked hard, all of them, and the results were the proof of it. Now, when they did their thing at games and other school events, people were actually happy to see them and to cheer them on as the representatives of their school that they were. And the squad really felt like a squad, one that was genuinely happy to be there, every time.
"Hey, Max, you doing alright?" Maya asked the Farrell boy, that afternoon, when he stepped back into the gym after needing to excuse himself to use the bathroom. "Looking kind of tired today."
"I was at Max's house late last night. Her moms were out with her siblings for a school thing, so I went out to be back-up with the twins," he explained. "The nights are the worst, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," Maya chuckled. "Want to sit this one out? Take a nap in the nurse's office?"
"I'll be alright," he smiled. "Thanks though."
The one benefit, if there was one, of her being distracted by the principal thing was that she didn't spend her whole day wondering about what Lucas had said he'd look into. She had a reminder of it when her siblings ended up in her class, but overall it was allowed to slip into the back of her mind and stay away. Once she made up the road after picking up the girls from school and spotted Lucas sitting outside with Ezra and Finneas, waiting for the Big Sister Brigade to come along, it all came back to her. It took a while after that for the two of them to be on their own and able to talk, but the opportunity came at last, and she must have had giant 'tell me everything' eyes, going by the edge of laughter in his eyes while they waited for their shot.
"Did you find anything?" she finally got to ask, and Lucas wished she could see how much she looked like her Hunter siblings in that moment.
"Here," he invited for her to sit at his desk, which she did, there to be presented with a few open books. One, two, three, four of Melinda's journals… and a yearbook. Maya was familiar with all of these on their own already, which meant that, whatever he'd found, she would probably have seen it already, too, and like him have missed something very obvious. Her hands immediately took hold of the yearbook because that meant pictures.
It wasn't as though Caroline Renshaw, Sandra Davenport, and Melinda Sullivan had been best friends, or even very close friends, but they had been classmates, and knowing her late mother-in-law as she had, Maya knew that anyone she frequented as regularly as one would kids of their graduating class would automatically be near as close to a dear friend as they could get, unless they ever gave her reason to think otherwise. For that, and because they frequented some of the same teams and clubs, there was more than one picture where both Caroline and Melinda were featured, and some where the two of them and Sandra did, too, some with her and Caroline and no Melinda, too. All of it came down to show that the three of them had known each other very well, which set up a new angle on the narrative of the cheerstery already before ever looking at the journals. It also put forward this idea that, much as she had removed herself from the narrative years ago, Caroline Renshaw might be responsive to being contacted by the son or daughter-in-law of her former classmate and friend…
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
