June 15th 2023

Chapter 166
We Must Dance and Dance

Lucas: Come down for a minute?

Maya was finally about to get her things together and head into the shower, but when she saw the message, curiosity won over and she went to see what was so important. When she got down the stairs, Lucas was waiting for her, and he discreetly nodded to the couch. As she got closer, she took in the entire scene and grinned immediately.

There sat all their girls, seven daughters and one granddaughter all in a row, watching a movie. There were two large pillows set across their laps, four to each, with all their hands laid out palm down and flat on top. They'd all gotten their nails done - by Ella - and this was their solution to make sure nothing would get damaged while they dried. It was mostly a concern for the smaller and more overactive of the bunch, but they were all doing it, and it was the funniest/sweetest thing to see.

Today was a big day in the Friar house and arguably many houses in the area, as prom would be taking place that evening. Maya and Lucas would as usual be chaperones at the high school, but before all that, they would be taking part in a now tried and true tradition of their household: the home prom. The nails were only the beginning, as everyone would soon be getting their dresses on, getting their hair done... It would change, year to year, as the girls got bigger, on their own, collectively, and it made their parents wonder what this tradition would turn into as they kept getting older. Would they still want to have this 'event' as teenagers? What about beyond that? Oh, it was way too early to even think about that, but at the same time...

"I like the poster," Ella smiled as she stood before the thing, planted at the bottom of the stairs, all done up for the home prom. "Performance by a special musical guest," she read aloud with a grin turned to her mother. "You are pretty special," she told her, and Maya returned her grin, coming along to lightly touch at her daughter's belly. It never stopped to catch at her heart, how happy it made her to stop and think of her second grandchild, only weeks from being born.

"Glad that you think so, but I'm not performing tonight," she informed her. Ella blinked, not following. "Shouldn't be long now, from the text I got. I was just coming down because... It would have been so good if the bell rang right..." The bell rang. "Ha!" she bolted to the door, giving a great impression of her younger daughters in the process.

It had been an easy leap, brought on by planning both the home prom and the school prom, inviting parallels, and the knowledge that Lea Sullivan-Reyes was due for a trip back home from New York, for Maya to bring the two best friends and former roommates together on a 'magical day of home prom.' The bonus was that they could all keep the party going with the girls once she and Lucas had to head out. For now, the best thing was seeing the looks on both Lea and Ella's faces as they spotted one another, one with the surprise of not knowing the other would be there, and the other being instantly overwhelmed at the sight of her friend's ever expanding belly. They held on to one another for a couple of minutes, easy, and might have gone and held on longer still if not for the arrival of several young girls, all giddy and dressed for prom. In the lead position, there could only be Tori. She sprinted past her aunts and her mother and her father's girlfriend barely had time to split apart that she'd dashed to hug the latter. To see the way Lea held to her, pulling her up into her arms and squeezing her close, she had missed her as much as she'd been missed. They all knew that, as far as Tori was concerned, Lea was as much her mother as Taylor was her father, even if there were no rings to make it official, and the feeling was mutual. They had all been very focused on making sure that Lea's time away was handled in the right way, where Tori was concerned, and that started with regular communication between the pair.

By the time Maya and Lucas would reach the school and officially enter into school prom mode, they would already have had a solid few hours of the home version in them and, frankly, they would find it difficult to suggest that anything could surpass the wild silliness of hosting this event with their daughters and their granddaughter. It would be enough that, when the time would come for them to get changed and refreshed, a part of them would wish they didn't have to go. They would look at their girls, dancing around with Lea, and Theo, and Taylor, who easily danced for himself and his wife at the same time, while she kept to her seat and laughed, and… nothing felt like it would top it.

Alright, so there were some perks to going to the senior prom. For one – and always something for which they both had a weakness – the clothes were a bit different. They had followed the dress code as inspired by the girls for the home version, but the school version was all up to them, and they were pros when it came to cleaning up good. That very nearly became reason number two for them not to leave the house, but they pushed on, knowing they had more than one goal for this evening beyond 'keep an eye on proceedings.'

At the school, they would be only two of a few more chaperones, which included Cory and Topanga Matthews. Along for the ride would also be Vice-Principal Alistair Song and his wife… and Principal Sandra Davenport, unaccompanied. She had previously claimed that her husband was not the chaperoning type, but frankly neither was she, and there she was, so…

More and more, Maya would come to notice something, and as she'd mentioned it to Lucas, he soon picked up on it until he couldn't unsee it. She had told him about how she was sure that, whenever it was just him and the other teachers, he was much more relaxed, but whenever the principal would be there, too, he would close up, like he knew better than to appear too open around them when she was around, for all of their sakes. And it was just as they saw it here.

"I don't know about you, but I have this feeling like, if anything goes wrong tonight, it'll somehow end up being my fault?" Maya whispered to Lucas, unnecessarily, as the volume of the music around them effectively muffled their voices from being overheard by anyone who wasn't standing as close to either of them as they were to one another.

"How wrong are we talking here?" Lucas wondered, right as a couple of laughing seniors ran by, hand in hand, forcing them to quickly step back to get out of the way.

"Oh, you know, standard prom fare," Maya sighed.

"Right, that," he tried not to laugh. He could see how she was constantly – consciously or not, who could say – remaining aware of exactly where the principal was at all times, and he knew that she was doing it for a good reason, but he also wanted her to have a good night, as much as any of the teens attending would. So, they kept on doing their best, looking after the prom.

They saw Luke Bailey-Ryan, who was attending prom alongside a girlfriend he'd apparently had for nearly two years without their knowing. It wasn't as though they were trying or even supposed to have an in on every little detail of Maya's students' lives, but they were close enough to them in the day to day that this was the sort of thing they expected to have found out about, one way or another. Well, they hadn't known, and it didn't really matter in the end, not as they could see that Luke and the girl were having a great time.

The same went for his stepsister, Meadow. In her case, they were well aware that she had started seeing a fellow senior recently, a crew member on their musical. They had the look of having decided to attend prom together with no strings attached, which was to say that they both knew that this night came heavily charged, with the formal attire, and the decorations, the music, all the dancing… but that wasn't going to be something to make them into anything they weren't. Whether they'd look back on this night fondly, years from now, or they'd forget each other's names in the space of a year, tonight they were having a wonderful time.

Angel Ríos easily had the best reason that night to try and ignore the presence of Sandra Davenport, and it was as much for her connection to his mother losing her job as it did his attending prom with his budding best friend and fellow museum guide, Mari. As Maya had already been told, he was returning the favor by also attending her prom, which was taking place a week later than his. They had this entire plan about goofing their way through both nights, emulating some prom staples as they'd seen them in movies, television, books… They were being entirely too silly, and if there was a prize for the couple having the best time at prom, they'd be hard to beat. He was so unlike the boy who had first walked into Maya's art class, nearly four years ago, but also, he was exactly like him. His heart was unchanged; he only had it in him to share it with others a lot more.

As happy as it made Maya and Lucas to see those two throughout the night, the top prize had to go to another couple. These two might have been graduating together that year, might have been seniors together, as they had first been set to be, but then things had not gone as they would have liked, and so one of them had repeated freshman year, leaving them with another year to go before they'd have their senior prom. It wasn't so bad, as their girlfriend, the 'true' senior indicated. That just meant that they both got to have two senior proms, one after another, two years running.

The Friars could only imagine what they would look like, the two of them, on their second run at the prom, because this first run… They were attending it in style. Maia Bennett had come along in a most sparkly dress, the effect carrying into her hair and making her look like a fairy on Earth. By her side, if Ash Bell could be said to look like a fairy, it was one of the dark kind, but no less magical and good. If they had undergone a transformation over the past four years, it was one of restoration, allowing them to be not nearly as constrained away from who they were and wanted to be. They would be the first to say that a lot of that would not have happened without the light fairy by their side.

Nothing was going to get in the way of those two having a great night, and Maya and Lucas would make it both of their personal mission to keep it that way. They could not have it all go exactly as it could have gone if Ash was a senior this year, too, but they'd get it pretty close. Their success would be measured in smiles, and laughter, and maybe, maybe, in powerless glares from their ice queen as she looked on and did not have anyone present or looking to lead her on to the dance floor.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners