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Author's Chapter Notes:
The concert.

The frantic rush to get to the opera house in time for their ticketed time of 2pm was probably a good thing, Jim decided, because it meant he was far too excited when they did get there to fall asleep at the concert. He had been surprised when they came in and there was a whole orchestra “on stage”—only a quick glance at the ticket which told him it was a music-only event saved him from embarrassing himself by asking why—and he knew that he always fell asleep when he listened to classical music.

 

His parents had once, at great expense and effort, gotten tickets to the New York Philharmonic and driven up with teenage Jim and tween Larissa for a concert. This was the sort of thing they’d started doing once Tom and Pete were out of the house; six tickets were prohibitively expensive, and anyway everyone knew neither Tom nor Pete was interested in “cultural activities.” Jim was interested. He really was. He just turned out to be completely, constitutionally incapable of staying awake if there was any chance he could fall asleep. So he’d slept through a Tchaikovsky, a Gershwin, and a Ravel, even though if he listened to any of them on CD or tape he’d have enjoyed them, and he had to endure Larissa’s razzing all the way home.

 

Panic, it turned out, kept him awake. And that was good, because the Beethoven was solid. He wasn’t a real Beethoven fan—if he could stay awake through it, he preferred twentieth-century jazz-adjacent classical, the kind Larissa was always playing when she studied—but he could appreciate good playing when he heard it. Maybe he wasn’t meant for the finer things in life, but he wasn’t a Philistine. And this was the best-played classical he’d heard in years.

 

Well, it probably helped if you stayed awake, so that wasn’t really fair. Even if he had been to a lot of classical concerts, first at Larissa’s high school (where she played a mean violin, he was told by those capable of staying awake) and then at the University of Scranton, he hadn’t really given them a chance, had he? But the Sydney Opera House had gorgeous acoustics, and the orchestra was top-notch, and oh yes, he was actually listening.

 

He’d have to thank Pam for that some day, when he could figure out a way to do it without saying “I literally have fallen asleep at every concert I’ve been to before this.”

 

Maybe that was it, though. He loved his sister of course. But he loved Pam. Part of what was keeping him awake once the initial panic of getting there literally at the time printed on the tickets faded was the sheer pleasure of watching her react. Larissa was a student of music (not literally—she’d opted for architecture—but when she listened to music she listened for the closely for technical details, eyes focused and body still). Pam was an enthusiast. She listened with her face and her shoulders and her hands. She clearly wanted to listen with her feet too, but equally clearly someone had taught her along the way that toe-tapping and dancing were inappropriate in these kinds of spaces, because every little jerk was ruthlessly stilled.

 

It was absolutely adorable, and definitely worth staying awake for, even if the Beethoven hadn’t been.

 

Although, he thought once again, it was.

 

Was all live classical music this good if you could actually listen to it?

 

**

 

Pam was in heaven. She had no real interest in opera qua opera—arias and foreign lyrics and repetitive singing—but she loved music, and she loved classical in particular, and she was in the freaking Sydney Opera House listening to it. She didn’t have synesthesia, not really, but something in music, especially classical music, spoke to her love of fine art in a deep way. She didn’t see pictures as she listened, but her soul sang with the notes and she could imagine the art she might make in response if she ever had the time or the materials at the right moment. There was a crashing cord that might inspire a strong line scratched across the page; there was a moment of delay, of almost infinitesimal restraint (it was Beethoven, so this was rare) that spoke to her of the shading of a gentle curve; there was the resolution of a theme repeated a dozen times that reminded her of the final strokes of a finished painting. To hear it all here was in man ways the culmination of a lifelong dream.

 

The only way she could have been happier was if…no, actually, there was no way she could have been happier. This was it. The acme, the apex, the zenith. She was in the Sydney Opera House, listening to gorgeous classical music, and the man she was there with was actually following along. She’d dragged Roy to a few of these kinds of events—well, not this kind, not in Sydney, not with absolute top-notch musicians, but good classical nonetheless—and he was always fidgeting and trying to find an excuse or a way to get out of it. Jim was actually listening, god bless him, and it made the experience so much better.

 

God, he was amazing.

 

At the interval she practically hopped in her seat as she turned to him and started asking how he’d enjoyed it. He grinned at her, the smile slowly spreading across his face like a prelude morphing into the main movement of the music.

 

“I, uh… I enjoyed it more than any performance I’ve ever seen.” He rubbed the back of his neck and she kept quiet, wondering what was bothering him.

 

“Aw, hell, Pam, I should probably…” she was beginning to get worried as he mustered his thoughts. “Look, you’ll meet my sister Larissa someday, right? And you should know, she’s really into this kind of stuff.” He swung his other arm around him. “Classical music. She’s a violinist, you know.” He was going to rub the hair off the back of his neck at that rate. “And, uh, I’ve literally never managed to sit through a full one of her concerts without falling asleep.” He looked down at the ground. “I, uh, wasn’t planning to tell you, because you seemed so excited, but then,” he looked up. “I actually stayed awake this time! And it was so good.” He grinned again. “Is it always like this?”

 

“Honestly? No.” She smiled. It wasn’t ideal that he had a problem staying awake at concerts, of course, but at least he told her. And he seemed genuinely contrite about his earlier difficulties—and happy about having been at this one. “So you chose a good concert to stay awake for. This is amazing.” She beamed and he beamed and she could see him relax behind his eyes.

 

“Thank God. I’d hate to have been missing out on this.” He shrugged. “But I should warn you, Beesly—if you want to go to a lot more of these with me, you’ve got the wrong Halpert. Oh, I’ll go, but you really want Larissa.” He smiled. “She’ll be delighted she has someone else to commiserate with about my ‘musicological narcolepsy,’ as she calls it.”

 

He expected her to get to know his sister? That was a good sign, right? Pam thought as she smiled back. “Oh, don’t think I won’t enjoy that, Jim. But from my experience, you seem pretty engaged—maybe you just had the wrong company before.”

 

“I think I just might.” The lights flashed, and they sat down again, and she spent the second half of the wonderful concert checking in on Jim whenever the music left her enough out of its grip to care.

 

He was awake every time.

Chapter End Notes:
One tourist activity down! Thank you to all who are sticking with me on this story. I really appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

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