He went over what he and Noah had talked about, and then said, "How many candles do you think that will take?"
"I was just trying to figure that out. It would really depend on what we do. If we're going to try to fill up the entireparking lot with candles, I'm not sure that will work. But if we had the musicians on a platform and had candles to finish filling the platform up, that might be a little bit more doable." She glanced at Noah. "How soon were you planning on putting this on?"
Mark realized he hadn't mentioned that when he was explaining exactly what they were doing.
"I was hoping between Christmas and New Year's."
Olivia's eyes got huge. Mark could almost see her thinking to herself that she needed the work, but that she didn't know whether she could pull that off or not.
"If you guys don't mind, I just realized that people might not have brought their instruments to the church. Let me go see if we have enough people to even practice something like this," Noah said, and his wife nodded.
"I hadn't even thought about that. Although we do have some extra instruments..." And they walked off, discussing the logistics of the music.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. I can tell from the expression on your face that you probably are thinking that you're not going to be able to pull it off."
"I wish I could. This would be huge. And beautiful. I've always wanted to do something like this. And I have just the design that I've been working on."
"Do you have any extra candles sitting around?"
"I guess we did talk about that. They would not match, though. They'd be an eclectic mix, and I'm not sure how that would look." Her voice seemed to trail off as she thought about it.
"Well, I'm no expert on candles, but we could use a specific design around the instrumentalists to try to keep the fire hazard down, but in the open areas, we could have a different kind of candle. Or something like that?" Mark was thinking as he spoke, and he probably shouldn't have even made suggestions. What did he know about candles and the artistic arrangement of them?
"That's a great idea! And if we did it like that, I might actually not have to make nearly as many candles as what I was just thinking."
"I think anything would be beautiful. And... I can help."
She blinked, and her eyes widened as she looked at him.
"You would?"
"Yeah. Noah left before we said anything, but he had asked if I would give a presentation of the gospel for the people who are there, and I’m invested in it now. So helping you would be part of my job, actually."
She laughed a little, as he had intended. There was something about her laugh that just made him feel good the whole way down to his toes and back.
"Well, that sounds logical to me. Are you sure you don't mind?" she asked, and he appreciated the fact that she wanted to be sure that she wasn't taking advantage of him. A lot of people assumed that since he was a pastor, they could get away with a lot more than they could with a regular person, because after all, he was commanded to be kind and not mean. And they expected him to live by that. Interestingly, the commands for him were no greater than the commands for regular Christians, but it was Christians who expected him to be held to a higher standard.
"Are you sure we'll be able to get it done? I'm not sure how long we'll be sidelined by the storm."
"That is a concern. But yeah, as long as I have a week, I think I'll be fine. It'll be a hectic week, and I probably won't sleep much, but as long as I have some time off to spend Christmas with my boys, it’ll be good."
He nodded. "They come first. And they're good kids too."
"They seem to be able to finagle their way into a lot of situations that I could not. I should blame Aiden, because Ethan usually just goes along."
"I think most relationships have people like that. They're hardly ever equal. One is a go-getter, and one is more content to stay behindand be the support." Their eyes met, and he wished he knew what she was thinking.
Was it about the kind of couple that she and her husband had been?
"We've got enough musicians to practice," Noah said, before Mark could change the subject in any way. Not that he wanted to. This was not the place to talk about stuff like that. Even if he did want his relationship with Olivia to be a little bit more than what it was.
Was that what he wanted?
He needed to find out what she wanted before he got so emotionally attached that he wasn't able to make logical decisions. He'd seen that happen over and over again—people who were not compatible at all forming relationships and getting married just because they were doing what their emotions dictated. When anyone who looked at them knew that it probably wasn't going to last.
Not that he ever wanted to have such negative views of anything. After all, he was a firm believer that God could take anything and make something out of it.
"That's great. I was just trying to figure out how many candles you would need and whether or not I would be able to get it done, but Pastor said he would help me, and I actually think that it's doable."
