A/N: Still one day behind...

July 23rd 2023

Chapter 204
We Open in Song

She had told her students that she needed to take off as soon as the last bell rang, and in the final minute the entire class had just stalled. Everything had been cleaned up and put away, so all that they still needed to do was leave. They sat, they waited, looking at clocks, phones, watches... When the bell rang, the silence was broken with all her juniors inciting her to run. Several of them, her brother, cousin, and Ash all in the lead, followed her all the way to the faculty lot, wishing her good luck. If anything held her back at all, she would need it.

A few times over the last few months she'd had to go off for a day or two for 'music things' as the girls called it, and always the thought was that it would be simpler for her to go alone, for so many reasons. After the last one though, there had been a tiny revolt, eventually resolved with the promise that, on the next trip, unless it was really impossible, they would all get to come along.

Well, fortune smiled on them this time, because this brief trip would have her leave on Friday after school and bring her home by Sunday night. And for what it would involve... No, there was really no way that she could reasonably leave them behind. If anything, the girls would think that she was simply keeping her word while, in reality, she would have brought them out, promise or none.

Lucas had gone home to grab all their bags earlier, and he went to pick up Mackenzie and Aubrey from preschool while Maya collected Marianne, Lucy, Remy, and Kacey from the elementary school. They would all converge on the airport and speed off to catch their flight. They could relax and breathe on the plane.

They didn't actually get to do a lot of that, not when they hit turbulence early on and spent the rest of the flight playing damage control with their younger and more frantic daughters, but landing in New York and driving out into the city finally managed to leave them where they wanted to be. Their weekend could begin now. They'd arrived late, though not as late as it could feel to them, and they had the city lights to see them onward. The girls were given the freedom of a few minutes to take in the hotel room, but finally they all had to get changed and head off to bed. Left alone for what felt like the first time since waking up in Austin that morning, they plopped down on the comfy couch together, turning on the television low though they paid little attention to it.

"You know, hotels are nice and all... Really nice," Maya stated, looking around. "But I'm really starting to think we need to get a place out here, for when we have to travel out. Does it seem like too much? I know we're not here THAT much, but we could come more... and it would be home, too."

"We've talked about it before," he nodded, recalling.

"Yeah," she smiled. He was on board, and if it wasn't that they had SO much to do the next day, they could have lost themselves in listings for the next several hours. For now, the knowledge that they could be doing this great, exciting thing was enough to see them off to bed for the night, thinking about the possibilities that were available to them and their whole family.

The following morning, refreshed from their trip into the city, the Friars set out for their one full day in New York. They had specified to the girls again and again that it would be a short trip and that they wouldn't get to see or do a lot, but they simply took it as a challenge. They would figure out how to best use their time, and it started with breakfast at 'Nana Katy's Diner,' as they called it. They had their special table and everything.

When they arrived, they found that, not unlike Katy's hometown back in Arkansas, the diner where she'd worked before moving to Texas with Maya had banked on its connection to her, and maybe just as much if not more on its connection to one of the creators of the MSC musical. The production continued to be as much of a success as it had been from the start, and the more time went on, the more the interest and the hype followed. At least with the diner, as with Katy's hometown, they knew that the décor and the homage to the musical was done with heart, much more than for a cash grab.

"Hi, guys!"

It hadn't been a surprise that their big sister had flown out, too, her and Taylor and the girls and Theo with them, to join Lea in New York, but to look at home the Friar girls just sailed off toward their big sister, one would think that Ella had not said a single word about it, that her taking her infant daughter on a plane would not have been something she would have been overly concerned about ahead of time.

There were many reasons for Ella and the others to be there this weekend, and one big one had to do with Lea. The moment was coming, much faster than she might have felt it would for her to say goodbye to her Broadway role. Soon, she would have her final performance on this breakthrough role of hers, and even if they believed enough to know that this was indeed only the first, and that it would be followed by others in the future, it was a big moment for her.

She wasn't actually all that torn up about it. Obviously, it would be emotional for her to say goodbye to this moment in her life, but as she'd told her cousin and his wife when she'd told them about the end of her run, she was okay with it, with this first experience ending. She was really looking forward to going back to Austin, to being near to her fathers and her siblings, to be with Theo, with Tori, with all her friends and her extended family. She could only be away from all of them for so long before the distance would start and weigh on her too much, and this was what she needed to feel lighter.

As they all sat together to breakfast, the table loud with conversation, with children, the big topic of conversation was the major reason for the trip up to New York this time around, the great event that was likely the reason why they were getting so many looks from other patrons eating in the diner that morning. That evening, and just that evening, there was to be a concert given by the award-winning songwriter and singer Maya Hart, as she performed live the songs she had recorded, as composed by young Portia Keller.

Neither half of the partnership could be said to be feeling particularly calm about the entire thing. Sure, the songwriter had had time to adjust to her songs being out in the world, to people knowing them, and singing them beyond Maya herself, but it was still a lot. And then Maya, oh… Sure, she performed with her band regularly, but this was not the same, not by a long shot. She hadn't done something like this since the tour with Ree, and she was still having trouble believing that that had been a decade ago already. She would get through it, she knew… hoped… But until then, all she had was fear and stress and the thought that she would unceremoniously crash and burn.

Whether that would be the result of this evening or not, before any of it could happen, they had to get dressed up for it, which they would do, after a bit more 'New Yorking.' To look at them all as they set themselves to look as they would while they attended the concert, there was just a bit of dissonance, like not everyone was setting off to attend the same kind of show, some fancy, others casual.

When the time came for her to stand backstage, to get called up to the stage, Maya was very quickly taken with the memory of standing much as she did that day, only with a belly full of Marianne, and that was easily the thing that settled her nerves the best. She'd be out there that night, her and her sisters, everyone… all of them so excited for what was to come, and if that didn't motivate her to want to get right out there and sing, she didn't know what would.

When she finally stepped out, she didn't think that many people would have known how long it had been since she'd done anything of the sort, or that she'd been so taken with stage fright. She definitely didn't feel it either, didn't feel anything except sheer exhilaration. It was a feeling she had not realized would be this intense, but she was glad for it, truly. It made her understand herself in ways she had not expected she would. She was so ready for this, for more than this, and they may not have been able to read her mind and hear it this way, but they sure would feel something grand.

Whether it would be true of every single person in attendance that evening, it certainly was very true of the pack of young girls looking on, with their father, as their mother sang the way she did. All six of the young blondes had their eyes riveted to her, with smiles, with awe… She was so wonderful to them in their day to day life, and her voice was simply their favorite, but this, right here, to see her, and hear her… It was like they got to hear her for the very first time again.

And their father, now… Oh, Lucas was staring out at her, too, his gorgeously magical wife. He had seen her do this before, of course. He'd seen her do this heavily pregnant with their firstborn, and while nothing could top that for power, this was something kind of grand, too. It was a reminder, to any and all, that while she was on the day to day a teacher, a wife, and a mother – and proudly so – she was also capable of this, all the time. If anyone had forgotten it, well, now they had no choice but to remember, didn't they?

Most of the girls were swaying on their feet or legitimately sleeping by the time the concert was over and they returned to the hotel, so not unlike the previous night, after they'd landed in New York, they were quickly put to bed, leaving their parents to have some time to themselves on the couch, with the television, but mostly with his laptop, so they could look at listings. Maya still had some of the post show energy coursing through her, and it wanted out. Just now, where they were, some avenues were already closed and impossible to reach, but this one would do just fine, wouldn't it?

"I feel like if I say this out loud it will make it real, but more than that, it's just like… I'm sure that you already know, don't you?"

"I have a few ideas, yes," Lucas hummed, and Maya looked at him like she needed him to say it, so she'd know she wasn't crazy for thinking it. "You want to get out there some more, don't you?"

"I really do," she confessed. "But then there's school, and her… and there's you, and the girls, and we're still trying to…"

"Whatever happens, I know it'll be right for all of us, and I really just want it to be right for you, okay?" he told her, and she couldn't keep a straight face, not with him and all his Huckleberry on max.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Friar."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners