Crowd Searching

It's inevitable.  Every time I'm in front of a crowd (like tonight--the bright spotlights gleaming off of my violin and gently toasting my face) my eyes are drawn to the empty space in the audience.  Right in the middle.  I look for you there, half expecting to see you filling up a seat.  Sometimes I think you're smiling at me, or browsing through your program, or chatting with an old lady nearby.  More often I blink and accept the cool emptiness of the red plush chair, its bare velvet cushion soaking in Rimsky-Korsakov's Overture, never to comprehend the rise and fall of the melody.