A lot of people from Mistletoe Meadows went to Mark's church, just because Mark was such a great pastor and had amazing sermons directly from scripture. Pastor Johnson was excellent, but he was getting older, and some people preferred a younger, more energetic man.
Noah loved Mark, but Pastor Johnson was an excellent pastor, and he didn't go to or leave churches lightly. He had zero plans to leave, as much as he would love to support his friend.
"Okay, that's great. I coordinated getting a new roof for Mrs. James' house and replacing the shutters and painting the front porch on the Jackson property."
"Awesome. Here are some things I found out on Sunday."
They leaned over the list as Mark went over it. Noah had some ideas, and he also had some contacts he could get ahold of to help donate. After they’d looked it over and talked about it for a while, they figured out how to take care of the entire list.
"And, I heard that the music teacher at Mistletoe Meadows High School quit."
"She did."
"I know this isn't something we usually take care of, but those kids would really like to have a concert."
"Normally they practice for months beforehand."
"They would have the music that they've been practicing. We just need someone to direct it."
"I suppose so."
"What about you?"
Noah blinked. He hadn't thought about that at all. He... wasn't really qualified.
"I don't have any formal training. I don't really know how to read music scores, and that might involve transposing and that type of thing. Nothing that I know anything about."
"You write music on the side."
There weren't a whole lot of people who knew that. Mark was one of the very, very few.
All of a sudden, Grace's face came into his mind. The surprise on it when she'd seen him, the knowledge that lurked in her eyes, that he could see even in the dim light from the street lights. She knew. She knew he was creating his own music as well.
"I'm just not qualified."
"I figured you would say that. But I actually happen to know that you have someone in your town who is qualified."
Noah paused and then nodded. "We do." He didn't think she would do it though. She'd shut him down immediately when he had asked about playing the piano in church. Something was going on with her, and while he hadn't found out what, he was sure that she would reject Mark's suggestion.
Plus, he had the Mistletoe Meadows festival to think about. He was directing the adult music for that, and it was totally missing their headlining act.
"I heard about the festival," Mark said, as though he were reading his mind. Good friends often were like that.
"Yeah. We decided that we would go home and think about it for a little bit after we threw some ideas out that just didn't seem quite right. I don't know what we're going to do."
"Are you gonna get your deposit back? When I was talking to Blanche, she wasn't sure."
Mark referenced one of the older ladies who lived in Mistletoe Meadows but went to Mark's church.
"I don't know. Jones called his lawyer yesterday, and of course, you know how that goes. The lawyer is gonna get back to him eventually, but probably not fast. So I'm pretty confident that we are not going to have the deposit in time to use it for this year's festival." That was a real downer, and he didn't want to end on that, so he said, "But I'm pretty sure that everything else in the festival is going really, really well. I'm so glad that Ben and Dr. Hannah got together. They are doing a phenomenal job with their committee, and it's notcosting us one red cent. They've managed to get donations to cover everything. I wish all the other committee heads were that inspired to save money."
"Well, you know, music happens to be your thing. And, an original composition might be just the ticket."
"Nobody wants to hear my stuff," Noah said. He'd submitted it often to different publishing houses and professional orchestras and other groups. But no one was interested in playing it. And he'd never had the money to hire someone to play it and record it for him. Not that he'd ever had any compositions that he thought were good enough to warrant such an investment. He knew that a person had a tendency to be unable to judge the quality of their own work.
"Just do me a favor and think about it. You know it wouldn't hurt you to put yourself out there a little bit. Your siblings are gone, and taking a little bit of a risk isn't going to hurt anyone."
"Except for me."
