Page 80 of Full Contact

“I’ve been outnumbered since he learned how to walk.”

Mark put his head back down. I filled in the seat preferences and checked the dates again.

“The eleventh is still on,” Mark said. “Messiah.”

“It’s a Thursday exception.” I’d put it on my calendar the afternoon we picked our Thursdays. “Is that the one with the enormous chorus? Or am I thinking of something else?”

“No, that’s it.” He sat up a little, one hand on my chest. “About a hundred and fifty singers, all up the back of the stage behind the orchestra. It opens quietly. There’s an overture, and then the tenor has two numbers by himself, and you’ve almost forgotten the chorus is coming. Then they all stand at once. You hear the chairs. And they come in, and from my seats you feel it in your chest. It’s like the floor moves.”

“Is that the ‘Hallelujah’ part?”

“No, that comes much later. Everyone stands for that. People have been doing it for almost three hundred years, and nobody’s entirely sure why.” He rubbed my chest with his hand while he talked. “That’s great, but my favorite is near the end. There’s a bass aria with a trumpet. The trumpet player stands up for it. He has to play this long, high line, and you can see everybody in the hall waiting to find out whether he’ll make it.”

“Does he?”

“He always does.”

“Who’s in your other seat?” I asked.

“Gwen. She’s had my second seat for Messiah for six years. She brings cough drops for everyone in the row.”

“Even strangers?”

“Especially strangers. It’s December.”

“Is that the week of Felix’s party?”

“The Saturday after.”

“We’re in Dallas that weekend.”

“I know.” Mark rubbed his thumb across my chest. “I checked.”

I waited, but he didn’t add anything. If he was disappointed I couldn’t be there, he’d have said so. Mark was direct. It was one of the things I liked about him.

“How many people?” I asked.

“About thirty. It depends who Dana lets in. She’s making a list.”

“Does she have a distribution list?”

“She’s planning on it,” he said. “Felix told her about yours for Peaches.”

I went back to the airline app and pressed purchase. The confirmation came up with both flights. I handed him the phone.

“Seven-ten in the morning,” he said.

“Josh will consider it late.”

He gave the phone back. I sent the confirmation to Russ and Kelsey and put the phone on the coffee table.

Mark sat up. “I’m going to make tea. Do you want some?”

“Yes.”

“Chamomile or the other one?”

“The other one.”