Chapter 10
Tuesday morning, Noah sat behind the counter, his laptop open, inventory up, when the bell over the door rang, and a man he did not recognize walked in.
As a music store in Mistletoe Meadows, he occasionally got people from the surrounding countryside who were looking for a music store but didn't want to make the two-hour drive to a larger city, and would stop in here first.
Whatever he didn't have, he could order, but usually what they wanted was advice and his thoughts. After all, whatever they wanted, they could also order now. It didn't used to be that way, and while it was better for the consumer, most likely, it had certainly hit his pocketbook hard.
Still, he dispensed his advice as liberally as he could, hoping that he was giving the best advice possible.
But this man... There was something about him that made Noah think that he wasn't here to purchase anything or to ask for advice.
"Noah Parker, I presume?" the man said, holding out his hand.
Noah stood up, since he'd always been taught that one did not shake hands sitting down. "I am. And you are?" he asked, still a little put off by the man's demeanor somehow. He tried to shake that. He would be polite and friendly to anyone.
"Name's Rick Hastings. This is a cute little shop you have."
"Thanks," Noah said, somehow thinking that the man didn't mean it as a compliment.
"Business good?"
"It's okay," he said, more defensive than he meant to be. He wasn't going to talk about his business with a complete stranger.
"Well good, good. This is a quaint little town. Did you grow up here?"
"Yes I did. I raised my siblings here as well."
He tried to find neutral ground, and appreciated the man doing the same. He could talk about Mistletoe Meadows. He was not going to talk about his business. Not when he didn't know anything about this fellow.
"Well, I'll just level with you. I represent Moondoes Coffee."
Noah kept his face passive. It was a chain coffee store, every store like every other store, and it was a knockoff of several other more popular, more personal chains.
The idea that the man was here announcing that made Noah want to scratch his head, but the man wasn't finished, so he kept his mouth closed.
"We're interested in putting in a store here in Mistletoe Meadows.
I wanted to come in person and offer you a cool six figures to purchase your shop and the building, since we're going to tear it down and put a store right here on Main Street.
Because of the industrial park going in outside of town, we see it expanding by at least fifty percent in the next two years, and that's a conservative growth estimate.
The festival here in the winter and the Christmas in July festival you do as well are both huge draws, and we figured out that we can make a lot of money here. "
"I'm sure you probably could," Noah said.
"Great. I brought a contract with me today," Rick said, setting his briefcase down on the counter and beginning to open it.
"You don't need to do that. The shop was my parents'. It's all I have left of them. I'm not selling."
"Are you telling me you're making enough money to be able to turn down a very good six-figure offer?" Rick asked as he pulled a stack of papers half an inch thick out of his briefcase and set them on the counter. "This is the contract."
Noah stared. He had signed contracts that were less than a page long. They probably wouldn't hold up in a court of law, but those were the kind of contracts that he liked, although he liked even more to just shake someone's hand and know that their word was as good as his.
He understood that wasn't the way business was done anymore, but he liked the idea. The contract was off-putting. But, the man was right. Six figures was nothing to sneeze at, and he would never have an offer that good again.
"If you'd like to sign now, you certainly can, or, I can leave it here. I have the authority to give you twenty-one days to look at it."
"Twenty-one days?" Noah said. That wasn’t even a month.
"Yes. That puts us..." Rick pulled out his phone and pulled up the calendar app.
"Right at Christmas Eve. You can let me know then, or anytime in the meantime.
Once the offer expires, we're going down to Whisker Hollow at the base of the mountain, and we already know we can buy a building there.
" He looked around, and Noah thought he read disgust on the man's face.
"But we prefer this location. Not necessarily this building. It looks to me like we’d be doing the town a favor to tear it down. "
"Passes inspection every year," Noah said, trying not to sound defensive.
"All right, well let me know. Offer expires December 24th." Rick tapped the top of the paper, gave Noah another look, and then walked off, the cheerful bell ringing behind him at odds with the sick, curling feeling in Noah's chest.
He should sell. He should. That would be the wise decision.
He swallowed, checked to make sure Rick was gone from sight, and then gathered the contract up and put it on the shelf behind the counter to look at later.
He'd probably read through it, although it looked like a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo that would make sure that every "i" was dotted and every "t" was crossed for the good of Moondoes Coffee.
If Noah decided to sign, he probably should hire a lawyer of his own.
Jones had said he had a good one on Sunday at the meeting. Maybe he would have to talk to Jones.
He still had the contract and the offer and the idea that he wanted to reject it on his mind when Mark Stevens, his best friend in the world, walked in the store.
"Hey there," he said, smiling for real for the first time since Rick had darkened the doorway.
"You look terrible," Mark said, coming over and shaking his hand before going to the coffee machine to pour himself a cup.
It was something that Noah had started keeping in the shop as his siblings got older and could drink it.
They all enjoyed it, and none of them liked going back upstairs to make it in the morning.
In fact, for a while, when everyone was in high school, they had cooked their breakfast on a hot plate in the store as well.
"I've had better days." He lifted his shoulder.
He and Mark had a lot of other things to talk about.
Mark was a pastor in the next town, although Noah was hopeful that Pastor Johnson would retire and Mark would take his place.
Of course, Mark would say that he wasn't going to do anything without feeling like God wanted him to do it, particularly take on a different church, but Noah still held out hope.
Mark was a perfect pastor for their town, other than the fact that he wasn't married.
Noah had a feeling that a lot of the women would prefer that he have a wife, because typically the pastor's wife ran a lot of the ladies' programs at the church.
She could be a real asset, but not if he didn't have one.
Mark was also his partner in the Secret Saint venture that they had taken on.
"I was out last night delivering the groceries like we talked about. And I heard some more things after church on Sunday that I wanted to go over with you."
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 not costing 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."
"God has you. Pray about it. Because I'm pretty sure that God did not say, 'Okay, you're done raising your kids, now you can rest on your laurels and do nothing with the rest of your life.' You’re done with that portion of your life. See what God has for you next, and shine."
Noah rolled his eyes at Mark's cheesy words, but he understood exactly what Mark was saying, and Mark was right.