Chapter 17
"Thanks for fixing us up with a room, Kate," Noah said.
"Of course. It's for the community. And the school is paid for with taxes from the folks who live here. It's really everyone's building."
Kate smiled and then waved as she hurried away to the meeting she needed to attend after school, leaving Noah in the room by himself.
Grace would be there any moment. They'd been texting back and forth, and Noah had let her know that he had secured a room with Kate Henderson for them to practice in, since the lesson room behind the shop wasn't nearly big enough.
They still had sign-up sheets out all over town for the groups they were putting together, but the elementary and high school music groups had already been practicing with the teacher who left. It was just a matter of them taking over where the music teacher had left off.
"I'm sorry I'm a little late. You know Aunt Vivian is watching your store while you're gone and she had asked me to switch the laundry and check the crockpot, and I was almost here before I remembered that I had forgotten to do that."
Grace arrived, breathless, unwrapping a scarf from around her neck, her cheeks a becoming shade of pink and her eyes sparkling. That crazy purple hat brought out the blue in them, and he was tempted to take it off, to touch her hair.
He shook that feeling off and smiled instead.
"You're plenty early. The kids shouldn't be arriving for another fifteen minutes or so."
"I know. But I wanted to be here to help you set up. This is supposed to be both of us working together, not just you."
"You bring more to the table than I do, so it's only right that I do more behind the scenes."
She waved a hand in the air, like her name recognition really didn't matter, when they both knew it did. They would not have been able to do this without it. Of course, she probably wouldn't have had the courage to volunteer without him beside her.
So maybe they just needed each other. He liked that. The two of them facing the world together.
They spent the next fifteen minutes arranging chairs in a circle, talking about the best ways to place them, how they would lead off, and what they hoped to convey and accomplish.
He felt like they were ready when the first student arrived.
Grace was excellent at putting them at ease and chatting with them naturally. He wanted to stand back and just admire her. Because she did it all so well.
Soon all the students were there and had their instruments out and had been seated.
He went to the front and directed everyone's attention to himself.
"I know you've already practiced the music, and I've looked over it. It looks like some really fun stuff. Does anyone have any favorites?"
They couldn't play all the pieces, but he didn't want to cut any pieces that any of the children had their hearts set on performing. That's what he tried to weed out in the next few minutes, with Grace helping him keep track of who liked what songs.
By the end of his questions, Grace was able to come up to him and show him a list of the songs they could take out.
"All right. We're going to be performing on December 23rd, outside in the town square. It's going to be cold, so we don't want to play too long, because we don't want our fingers to fall off."
There was laughter from all of the children, and Grace's eyes twinkled.
He would make corny jokes all day if it would get her to smile.
"So, I have a list of four songs that it seems like no one's going to be super upset if we cut.
I'm gonna read them out loud, and you guys can let me know if it's going to bother you if we don't end up doing all of them. "
He named the titles of the songs while Grace carefully watched to see if there was any reaction from the children. When they learned that one of the songs was going to be dropped, some of them actually cheered.
Sometimes, as a musician, you had to play music that you didn't like.
In fact, there were multiple times that he had to play music that he didn't care for.
But most of the time he loved what he did, but he knew he did a better job when he enjoyed the music he had.
Since these children were not professionals, and not adults, and since they had to pare down the amount of songs they could perform, it only made sense to keep the ones they enjoyed.
Learning to do things one didn't like was a process that happened over years and years, and if the children continued to take lessons, they would have to learn that lesson along with everything else. But it wasn't one they had to learn this Christmas.