June 8th 2023

Chapter 159
We Could Surround One Another

It had not dawned on Maya that she was trying to do this, not until she had essentially achieved it, but she'd deeply wanted to make it so that the cheer squad would be as tightly knit as her basketball teams had been back in the day. She wanted them to be able to stand by one another, for no further reason than that the thing that brought them together allowed them to see that they were something great when they were together. Beyond that, there was really no way to explain why it all worked the way it did, except that there was not a shred of attitude, or anyone thinking they were above or below. They were a team, equals, supporting one another. And that made them friends in a way apart from any other definition.

She saw it on this day, at the girls' game. They were doing great, well in the lead and on track to win. And while the squad was on the sidelines, sat in a row for a bit, they went on cheering for their players, and they did so in a lively song. They'd started, just a few of them, swaying side to side and laughing, and it hadn't taken Maya long to stop and look at them, smiling as she recognized one of her own songs, a TXNY song, where they had changed the lyrics just enough to make it fit for the purposes of the cheer. The song was recognizable enough locally that, soon, the entire squad had picked up on it and joined in, raising their voices until others caught on, and they showed their approval by singing along, too. It was amazing, and it gave their players a boost, whether or not they actually needed one.

It was wonderful to experience from down where Maya and the cheerleaders were, and up in the stands where Lucas was, oh... He knew she would wish she could have been there, too, to see how much their daughters and the others got into it. Marianne would be the clear front-runner, to absolutely no one's surprise, but then the other five around her would follow right along, struggling in places to use the new lyrics instead of the ones they all knew by heart, but having enough fun in the process that it barely mattered. When the song ended, they were kind of disappointed that they couldn't sing anymore, but on the upside they did have basketball to watch.

"Dad, do you see her? Is she here?" Marianne quietly asked Lucas.

"She who?" he asked, holding the very jolly Finneas in his lap while Wyatt had gone to the bathroom. Marianne leaned in closer to whisper.

"The... you-know-who..." she gave him a pointed look very like her mother, and he had a thought now of who she might mean.

"Princi..." he started to ask before being hurriedly shushed. They couldn't say that word, her eyes told him. What if SHE was able to hear them? "Pretty sure she isn't, not today," Lucas assured his daughter, who did not look convinced. "Why do you want to know?"

"I just..." Marianne innocently started before her smile could no longer be contained and told on her. "I wanted to see what she'd think of the song," she admitted, which made him laugh and got Finneas to look back at him, too.

"I'm sure she will hear about it, one way or the other," Lucas told her, leaving out the part where she would probably not care for it very much. There was nothing wrong with it, really the opposite where school spirit was concerned, but there was definitely a thought of any moment where the school's students and families showed any excess of affection toward Maya ending up getting the principal frustrated, and they had no idea how that would pile up over time and maybe cause a reaction.

"I bet we could have done a lot worse back in the day," a man's voice declared, from one row above them, and maybe it was that they were in the gym, that Maya had always claimed that this place, not just a gym but their gym, would always be unique to them… but hearing that voice here allowed him to know exactly who was there, even if he hadn't been hearing it regularly for a very long time. The girls were a lot faster about turning around, though they could be forgiven for not understanding what was happening. They knew some of their parents' former teammates but not all of them, and even Marianne, who almost made it her business to know about her parents and their days as players, looked perplexed.

He was not perplexed. No, he saw these faces, not just the one who'd spoken but three, and his broke into an immediate grin. Having known them all since they were students here, players on their teams, which brought him in contact with their families, too, It was always such a wild ride to look at any of them and realize how they were starting to look like their mother, or their father, or a grandparent, an aunt or uncle… These three, Tommy, Étienne, and Lizzy, he could see exactly how they would have ended up here at the same time, found each other, and found themselves up here, to surprise him.

They were there because their twentieth reunion was happening that night. And even though it could not be said that their attendees – who would most of them by in their late thirties to mid forties – needed any chaperoning, Lucas and Maya would both be there, if for no other purpose than to facilitate, as representatives to the school. With the way they were connected to a lot of the people coming in that night, it was far from feeling like a task to either one of them.

"You know, it's not lost on me that we both somehow ended up in jobs where a… kind of regular thing we get to do involves getting dressed up… and dancing slowly together…" Maya pointed out as they did just that, off in their own private dance corner.

"We didn't do that on purpose, did we?" Lucas asked in a similar tone and tilt of the head.

"Hold on, let me lean on you while I think about that…" Maya hummed. "Hey, you sure smell nice."

"Thank you. Father's Day gift…"

"That does sound familiar, yeah… What about me?" she asked after a moment, and he made a show of giving her a look over.

"If I tell you what I'm thinking right now, I don't care that we weren't even students with them or that we're grown now, we would get sent to the principal's office," he informed her, which made her laugh and bury a snort in his shoulder.

"That's the last thing we need. It would probably make her night… or her year…"

"Yeah, so let's not," he agreed. The way they looked at each other, it was a tough call to say who would break and laugh first and who would outlast… Then again, she played dirty when she wanted to, and she got him. "Come on, we're on duty here," he told her, still laughing.

"Sorry, sorry, silly me trying to sway a Huckleberry," she sighed, leaning to him again as they went on dancing, looking to the graduates, their dates for the night, spouses…

It was the strangest thing to see them all here like this, but a good kind of strange, every time. They saw Peter, their comic book 'uncle,' as Marianne had decided to call him, there with his wife, and as weird as it was to see him in the school instead of the store, now that they did see him here, alongside others of his graduating class, it was all of a sudden very easy to wind back the clock and remember exactly that kid he'd been, in some ways unchanged but in others, in things like confidence and outspokenness… It was like night and day. Then to see Ingrid McAllister, there with her wife but knowing that both of them, in mind at least, were not nearly as present as they would have wanted to be… They weren't going around telling their former classmates that their eldest was about to have a baby herself, so all they could do was tiptoe.

This was all going to be a whirlwind of a weekend for Maya and Lucas, they had known it, but it didn't make it any easier as, with one reunion good and under their belts, they had to go home, get some rest, and turn right back around the next morning to do it all over again. That first meant pulling down everything that had been set up for the class of 2019 and replace it with all they had prepared for the class of 2029.

Some of them they saw semi-regularly, too, though in their case the odds were entirely in their favor that their former teacher would recognize them, and the same could usually be said for her husband, too. One of those, for example, was Leon Morales. He'd once stood out, so imposing in his stature, and he still did today, but it could be said to be more… discreet, when he was an adult and so were the rest of them. They saw him most often when they went to the market with the girls, as he now managed the produce section. He took such pride in how he knew his customers, and the feeling was reciprocated.

As happy as Maya had been, participating in the previous night's event, seeing people she remembered from her student days, this was so different, this were… her kids… some of the first. She had the distinction, with how devoted she had been to keeping channels open between them and her to this day, in great part through the letters she received and responded to. This had given her ongoing news of kids like Derek Boggs, who was here tonight with his husband, eager to show photos of their baby boy, and of his long time friend, one of the founding members of Born Curious…

They had attended her wedding, not the first or the last they were likely to happily accept to attend, so it was not the first time that Helena Zimmerman got to introduce her wife to some of her former classmates, or her teachers, but to get to bring Mariah here, in this setting… Oh, it meant so much to both the women. They only wished they could have brought their girl along. Dani had made the trip stateside with her mothers. She was spending the night at her grandparents', which was a treat for all involved.

For Maya, who had followed this girl… this woman's tale over the decade that they were here to celebrate, first as a college student, then someone trying to figure out where she belonged, what she was meant to do, and then someone choosing to follow her heart, allowing it to expand and hold the people that made it feel the fullest. She didn't know what was ahead for the three of them, but she sincerely hoped that she would get to continue and be a part of it, for as long as Helena would continue to write to her. Going by the way she was so happy to have her at the wedding, and now again to see her at the reunion, she had a feeling that she had nothing to worry about. Lucas knew this, saw it in all those people, grown adults now, and how elated they would be to see Mrs. Friar the art teacher again. They would all turn into teenagers all over again, and it would be as funny to them as it was to her.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners