“Seems to have worked out for you,” Maya says.
“Yeah, it did. Most days, I still can’t believe it. What about you? What are you doing?”
“I’m in school. I’m a science education major.”
“Nice,” I say. “I was a terrible student. No way could I ever handle being a teacher. Karma for all the trouble I was always in.”That’s both true and it isn’t. My grades were fine, if not great. But being one of two black kids in my school—the other being my little brother—I got pegged for being trouble a lot. And it’s not like I wasn’t always surrounded by trouble. When Shane and JT wanted to egg something or piss in water balloons and throw them in the open windows of the school, I always went along for the ride. I just got a lot more credit for it than they did.
“I don’t know,” Maya says. “I think it would be good if more kids who got in trouble went into education.Those kids need someone who understands them.”
“Is that why you’re going into teaching?To show the troublemakers of the world they can make something of themselves?”
“Ha, not so much,” Maya says. “I was a total teacher’s pet.”
“Yeah. I kinda figured.”
She gives me a look like I’ve insulted her, and I grin at her. “So why science?”
“I just love it,” Maya says. “It was always my favorite subject. And not a lot of black girls get encouraged to go into STEM fields. I like to think I’ll be able to make a difference.” She shakes her head. “It’s been a lot of years, though, and I’m just barely finishing my associate degree next semester. It’ll take me forever to get there.”
“Why? Do you have to work full time to pay for it?” I’ve never had a real full-time job besides the band, because even before we were making money, I always had to be able to take time off to head down to Denver to play, or wherever else Shane got us a gig.
“No,” Maya says. “My parents are pretty well off, so I’m lucky that I don’t have to work while I’m in school. Which is good, because I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue a couple years ago.”
She waits for a minute, like she expects me to have a reaction to this. Honestly, though, I don’t know much about it. “Like, you’re tired a lot?”
She sighs. “Yeah. But it’s not made up. It’s a real disease.They don’t have a test or a cure for it yet, so a lot of people think I’m imagining it.”
Shit.That sucks. “Your family thinks that?”
She snorts. “Not my family.They see how hard it is on me. I had to drop out for a while, because I couldn’t function. And now I’m finally finishing up, but I’m hopelessly behind. But when I have a flare-up, all I can do is sleep. It’s pretty debilitating, even if it’s not visible to other people. And it sucks to feel like I’m sleeping all the time while life passes me by.”
“Like Rip Van Winkle,” I say.
Maya wrinkles her nose at me. “Really? You went with Rip Van Winkle and not Sleeping Beauty?”
I did. I totally did. “Aw, damn.That was right there, too.”
Maya laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
“It’s pretty cool that you’re getting your associate, though,” I say. “That’s more than I’ve done.” My mom used to get on me all the time about putting all my eggs in the same basket, but I always believed that as long as Shane was carrying that basket, it was going to pay off sooner or later. And I wasn’t wrong. We can all take credit for the music, but Shane’s drive is the reason we succeeded. I owe everything to him.
“Well, I still have a long way to go,” Maya says. “And if I push myself too hard, I won’t be able to function for a month.”
“Do I need to let you get home?” I don’t want to hurt her health, especially if all she’s getting out of this is conversation.
“No,” she says. “I’ll probably sleep most of the day tomorrow, but it’s my birthday today. It’s nice to get out.”
“Seriously? It’s your birthday and you’re stuck spending it here with me?”
Maya smiles. “Who said I was stuck?”
I shake my head at her. “You don’t even like our band, and you came to our concert on your birthday?”
“My friends dragged me. But I actually like your music. It’s turned out not to be an entirely intolerable experience.”
I’m pretty sure that’s high praise coming from Maya.
“What about you?” she says. “Do you want to stay in the band forever?”
