Grace didn't say anything. Aunt Vivian was probably right. They wouldn't be the usual festival crowd, but they would be there just to see her, and the town would make money from it, but... She wasn't exactly the kind of person who played at festivals. Beyond that—it wasn't that she was too snotty to do so. The problem was, she hadn't played since that disastrous concert that she had to cancel, and she didn't know for sure that she could do it.
"I don't want the entire town depending on me to pull this off when I don't even know for sure that I’ll be able to play. I don't want everyone to be disappointed. I don't want to let them all down. They're too important to me."
Her aunt didn't say anything, just nodded and continued to walk.
Grace held her tongue and didn't argue anymore. Her aunt knew she was right, but she also knew that her aunt was right. All she had to do was say that she would give a concert, and they would have more people there than they ever had before for anything. She might even outdraw the big-name band that they had hired that canceled.
But she couldn't do it. She couldn't take the pressure, couldn't stand the idea that if she failed, everything failed.
"Maybe Noah came up with an idea," she said hopefully. But Noah hadn't mentioned anything last night when they'd talked, and she kind of thought that if he had come up with something he thought would work, he probably would've run it by her. Not that they were great friends or anything, but they had talked about more intimate things last night than she had in a long time. Than she had with almost anyone else she knew. And she had a feeling that Noah had bared a little of his heart to her too.
They walked in and found seats towards the front. Noah was already on the platform, deep in conversation with one of the McBride brothers, maybe Roland, but she wasn't sure.
She did see Pastor Johnson chatting with Marjorie McBride, who was already settled in a chair with a blanket over her lap. Thewoman looked thin and frail, and Aunt Vivian tsked when she saw her.
Grace didn't know her any other way, and she didn't look any worse than she did the last time Grace had seen her just a few days ago, so she didn't say anything.
"If everyone could find a seat and stop talking, we'll get this started," Noah said, leaning into the microphone and looking over the crowd.
She didn't think it was her imagination that his eyes stopped when they met hers, and the look on his face went from serious and businesslike to a bit of a smile.
Which she returned.
Her heart did some weird twirly thing, and her stomach twisted, but not in a bad way. In a very good, "I see someone I like and maybe I'm a little attracted to" kind of way.
Was she attracted to him? She'd have to think about that. She was just getting used to the idea of thinking of him as her friend. She definitely wasn't used to thinking of him as someone she was attracted to.
"All right everyone, if you can be quiet, we'll get this started. I'm just gonna say up front that I haven't come up with anything. I've called every other band I can think of who could possibly draw as big a crowd as the one that canceled on us. And they're all booked. That's not even to say I have any idea where we would get any money to pay them. I guess I was just going to ask them to do it out of the kindness of their hearts. But I didn't even get that far. Does anyone else have any suggestions?"
"I thought you told me you had an idea," someone shouted from the other side of the room. Grace couldn't see who, and she didn't recognize the voice.
"All right. Wilson is right. I do have an idea, but I can’t guarantee it's going to work." He paused. "First, does anyone else have any ideas?"
Jones, the veterinarian who'd offered his lawyer at the last meeting, stood up and looked around.
No one said anything for a full three minutes.
Finally, Jones looked back at Noah.
"Sounds to me like you can go on right ahead with your idea, because I don't hear anyone else coming up with anything."
"Yeah, what are you thinking?" someone else shouted.
"Better than anything I've come up with, which is nothing," someone else said.
"All right. Just hold on. Don't get excited, because this isn't that good." Noah shifted on the platform, and then his eyes searched the crowd again until they found her. It was almost as though he were drawing strength by looking at her. It made her smile, and she nodded at him in a "go ahead, I'm listening" kind of way.
Once she did that, he broke eye contact and looked out over the rest of the crowd.
"All right. Here goes. My thought is that I, along with someone who might possibly be willing to help me, who I'm not going to name because I haven't gotten a full yes from them, might take as many people from the community as we can and create different groups of musicians. I’m already working with an adult group.”
Grace remembered the ad she’d seen in the candy cane shop door. She’d forgotten about it.
“Maybe a group of elementary school kids, a group of high school, a group of special needs perhaps, a group of college-age kids. A group of women, a group of men, a group of seniors. We could do handbells, percussion, singing, playing, even dancing. You get the idea. As many as we can. The idea being that the more people we have in the concert actually playing, the more people who will come to see them—see their aunt or their uncle or their grandfather or their little sister come play. It wouldn't be people from all over the country or even the region, but we might be able to get almost every single person in our county out to see someone they know perform. It would be more inclusive, and it woulddefinitely be a community-created concert with everyone involved. It would be less about perfect performance and more about participation and having fun. And I'm sorry, even as I'm saying that it sounds lame, but that's the only thing I could come up with."
"That's a pretty good idea."
"I’d go along with that."
