Paige Rewritten (28 page)

“I meant
poor
in the sense that he has to live with you for the rest of his life.”

She levels a glare at me. “Mean head.”

“Crazy one. We're going to have to be rolled out of here after dinner tonight. Probably on a stretcher.”

She shrugs. “You know how Chinese food is. You can only eat so much and then you're stuffed for an hour and then you're starving again.”

I find a few paper plates in the back of one of my kitchen drawers, and we load up our plates with food. “Thanks for dinner, Layla,” I tell her, carrying my plate over to the couch.

“Thanks for calming me down.” She joins me with her own huge plate of food.

“Cute slippers.”

She looks down at them. “Thanks. They're really comfy. And they're nice because you don't have a definite right or left slipper. They're unisex.”

I choke on a chow mein noodle. “I don't think that's the word you're going for, Layla.”

“Uniform? Uniside? I don't know, I just think they're comfy.”

I look over at my best friend slurping noodles up with a fork, set my plate on my lap, and hook an arm around her shoulders. “You're crazy, but I love you.”

She grins at me. “Right back atcha.”

The rest of the week crawls past. I walk into work on Friday and just stand there for a second at the door, taking a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare myself for the day of filing and paychecks.

Yay.

Tonight is also the night that Rick wants an answer from me on the youth worker job. And I still have no answer. I've been scouring my Bible every night for the past week during my evening devotional time, skipping time in my new least-favorite book called Galatians, and I've come up with nothing.

Last night, I didn't even turn on HGTV when I got home from meeting with Nichole at Starbucks. I just sat on the couch, opened my Bible, and looked up every reference regarding careers I could think of. The word
job
just got me a bunch of verses about Job and
work
didn't have too much either, other than letting me know that if I wanted to eat, I'd better work.

I learned that within the first three weeks of living away from Mom and Dad.

I open the agency door and walk inside, set my stuff on my desk, pull the call logbook over, and mash the blinking red light on the answering machine as I pick up the phone.

“Hi, yes, I was just calling to get some information on adoption. My name is Cindy and my number is 972-555-1276. Thanks!”

There are three more messages just like that, which means I'll most likely be spending the morning talking on the phone and working through my lunch break to get paychecks out by three when Candace has to leave.

I write down everyone's messages and then I make a pot of coffee so the clients coming in this morning have something for me to offer them to drink beyond water. Fridays are typically big counseling days for Peggy and Candace.

Peggy's office door is open so I take her messages down to her. She's checking her e-mail when I walk in.

“Morning, Peggy.” I set a small stack of paper slips on her desk.

“Happy Friday, Paige.” Peggy grins at me over her bi-focals that she has to wear to read anything on the computer. “Busy weekend ahead?”

If I do take Rick up on the job, I will miss working with Peggy the most. She's like my second mother.

“Not really,” I tell her. Tyler texted me yesterday about maybe getting lunch tomorrow, and part of me is bracing for Luke to show up with some kind of breakfast and another tearful rendition of “Return to Me.”

Sadly, Luke, while he does have a decent voice, does not sound like Dean Martin.

That could have tipped the scales in his direction, though.

I am so shallow.

I look at Peggy and the next thing I know, I'm plopped down in one of the chairs by her desk, pouring my heart out.

“So I have another job offer. And on top of that, Luke Prestwick has been asking me to be his girlfriend again, Tyler hasn't made anything official, Preslee is back in town but we're actually getting along now, Layla's getting married, and did I mention the job offer?”

Peggy just looks at me and then slowly takes her bifocals off. “Okay,” she says, drawing the word out. She pulls out a big three-ring binder and starts making some notes. Apparently I am officially on the clock. “Let's start with this job offer.”

I sigh and cover my face with my hands, probably messing up my eye shadow, but I really don't care at the moment. “I don't know what to do,” I say quietly. “It would be working as a youth intern at my church.”

Peggy nods, writing. “Sounds like something you'd enjoy.”

“I think it would be.” I pull my hands away from my face. It's the first time I've ever really thought about whether or not I'd even
like
the job. “I'd get to meet with girls. I'd get to take them out to coffee, dinners, whatever, and talk to them. I'd get to use my major. And as annoying as Rick can be, I honestly think it would be fun working with him.”

Peggy keeps nodding. “I'm not seeing any downsides here, Paige.”

My voice is quiet. “I hate quitting.”

“Jobs?”

“Everything. I don't quit. If I start something, I finish it.” It used to make my mom nuts when we were trying to leave for somewhere and I would beg to stay so I could finish whatever book or puzzle or imaginary plaything I was doing. I never leave the theater until all the credits are done rolling, and milk never expires in my house because if I open a jug, I finish it.

“So, you were planning on just being here until you die?” Peggy asks, hands folded together, eyes on mine.

“I don't know.” When I'd taken the job, there were several references to me someday becoming a counselor with the agency and working alongside Peggy and Candace in that capacity. Which is why I originally took the job.

“And then there's the clients,” I say.

I do love the people who come in and out of here. I love seeing the prospective parents coming in for the first time, looking for all the world like lost little puppies and leaving a few months later, joy spilling from every pore in their bodies as they carry out their new baby. I love the birth mothers, each of them with their different stories, different heartaches, different reasons to change their destinies.

If only those things were a bigger part of my job.

Peggy is looking at me, letting me think. She's a good counselor.

“I don't know what to do.”

She just studies me for what feels like six weeks but is probably more like a whole minute, silent, eyes thoughtful. “I think you do,” she says slowly. “But let's move on. Tell me about Luke.”

“Luke.” I don't mean for his name to come out in a growl, but it does.

Peggy grins. “That might be enough of an answer right there.”

I rake my hands through my hair. “He's just so … so … so
annoying.
” I shake my head. “He's been coming by the last two Saturday mornings, bringing me coffee and telling me that he wants me back. I've told him it's not going to work, but then he just tells me to pray about it.”

“So have you?”

I shrug. “I don't really need to. Luke seems like he's changed a lot and I'm happy for him. But I'm not interested anymore.” I mean, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't the occasional spark between us, but Luke is just a very attractive man. He's like a taller, older, more broad-shouldered Zac Efron.

I don't care who you are or what your current romantic settings are in, that's hard not to notice.

Especially when all that is combined with a good deal of charm and it's all focused right on you.

I sigh.

“And on to Tyler,” Peggy says, scribbling in her book. “What about him?”

“I like him. A lot. He's very sweet.”

“Sweet,” Peggy echoes. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

“He just …” I shrug. “He's just nice to me. We have a good time together.”

She nods slowly. “But Luke isn't nice to you?”

“Have you met Luke? He's like the most charming person you've ever talked to.”

She shakes her head. “Never met either of them.”

“Well, I'll make it really easy for you when you do meet them. Luke is the good-looking, annoying one. Tyler is the sweet, attractive one.”

“There's that word again.” Peggy points her pen at me. “I've never heard it used so often in a conversation that doesn't involve a golden retriever.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The word
sweet
. You've used it like four times now in reference to Tyler.” She smiles, though, so I guess it's okay. She walks around her desk and sits in the chair beside mine, then reaches for my hands. “Paige, I've been married for twenty-three years. So I like to think I know a little about this kind of stuff. You seem happy with Tyler, but I don't want to see you become complacent with him. Does that make sense?”

Not really, but I nod like it does. Peggy has clients coming in here in five minutes.

“As far as Preslee goes, I'm glad you got things sorted out with her. And give Layla time. Things will go back to normal as soon as she's married and settled in.”

Married
.

It sounds old.

I nod and stand. “Thanks for talking with me, Peggy.”

“I'm praying for you, sweet girl. God has big things for you, if you'll let Him lead.”

I nod again and walk back to my desk. Peggy's first clients are already in the waiting room and I send them on back.

“If you'll let Him lead.”

What does that even mean?

Five thirty and I am standing outside the church, looking up at the white crosses that are positioned on the steeple. They look pretty, which is just weird to me when you consider what they are supposed to be depicting.

But maybe it doesn't draw a lot of people to church to see a real, rough cross hanging from a building.

I walk inside, still totally clueless about what I'm going to tell Rick. I could barely concentrate on any of the phone calls I returned today because I was so consumed by this conversation.

And by thinking about Tyler.

And complacency.

I don't even know what complacent means, really.

Rick is sitting at his desk reading from the biggest book I have ever seen in my whole life. “Hey, Paige.” He looks up when I knock briefly on the doorjamb. “Come on in.”

“Hey.” I walk into his trashed office and push papers, books, Frisbees, and what looks like a to-go container from Olive Garden over so I can sit on the couch. I wrinkle my nose at the container and look at Rick. “Seriously?”

“It's empty. I need to clean.”

“You think?”

He raises his hands. “Hey, I'm a very busy guy. With no help. Which brings us to the question of why you are here.” He folds his hands on the huge book and looks at me.

I look at him, look at his disaster of an office, look at the book he's studying, and look at my hands.

“Still undecided?” Rick asks after a long minute of me furiously praying.

I shake my head. “No.”

“No what? No to the job?”

“No, I've decided.” I just have to make sure I know what I'm doing.

He just looks at me, waiting.

I take a deep breath and then nod. “I want the job, Rick.”

His face splits into a grin so fast, I think he might have strained his neck. “That is the best news I've heard all day!” He is ecstatic. He comes around the desk and gives me a big hug. “This is going to be great, Paige. Natalie will be thrilled.”

I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but for some reason, this seems right. I think it's always seemed right, I just didn't want to admit it.

I smile back at him.

Change is in the air. I can't tell if it's the change I'm smelling or the remnants of whatever was in that Olive Garden container. For hopeful purposes, I'm hoping it's the container because if the change is smelling this bad, I think I need to recant my earlier declaration.