Paige Rewritten (6 page)

Tyler looks up at Luke and smiles a polite smile. “Luke, right?”

“That's right. And you're … uh …”

“Tyler.”

“Right,” Luke says, looking back at me.

I, meanwhile, am praying like crazy.

Please, Lord, don't let Luke say something that will ruin this whole breakfast with Tyler.

He must see something because Luke smiles once at me, lays a hand on the back of my chair, and nods to both of us. “Well. Y'all have a great time. I'll see you later, Paige.”

I manage one of those “mm-hmm” faces at him and he leaves, picking up a to-go cup off of a table on the other side of the restaurant and waving at a few guys. I recognize their faces but can't remember their names.

“Luke is Layla's brother, right?”

“Right. Listen, Tyler …” I say, starting again.

“Paige.”

I swear the insides of my cheek are going to be just a mass of overworked flesh in the very near future.

I look at him, at his sweet expression, at his bright blue eyes, and chicken out.

“Never mind,” I say quietly, then shovel another bite of peach pancake into my mouth.

He looks at me for a second and then shrugs it off. “Okay then. So I've been meaning to ask you, I heard a rumor you like that awful Chinese place with the three-dollar General Tso's chicken. That can't really be true, right?”

“Oh, of course, no,” I say, pulling my best impression of Zorro.

He keeps talking about how he went there one time with some coworkers and three of them got food poisoning. I'm trying really hard to pay attention, I honestly am, but my brain keeps wandering away from the table.

Luke is moving here. Permanently. The running into him at restaurants is going to end up becoming a common thing, I think. We both like the same ones. It always made date night easy because we both liked the same four restaurants.

Preslee was in my apartment today. In my
apartment
. Mom must've given her the address. I talked very briefly with Mom yesterday when she called to sing happy birthday, but she called last night after the Cheesecake Factory fiasco and I was just too emotionally exhausted to hear Mom's new constant conversation killer.

“Have you talked to your sister yet? She really wants to talk with you, Paige.”

Tyler is still talking, and I am sad to realize I didn't hear a word of the last thing he said. He's grinning and talking and obviously enjoying his burrito while my peach pancakes suddenly taste gritty.

I believe that's because they are mixing with a good dose of Frustration and Annoyance.

Not the best of spices.

I swallow a bite, mentally corralling my thoughts.
Focus on Tyler, head. Focus!
Tyler is here. Tyler is sweet. It seems like there could potentially be some sparks with him.

“Anyway, what did you end up doing for your birthday?” Tyler asks. Ah, the segue into the I-got-kidnapped-for-dinner conversation.

I finish another bite and try not to feel guilty over something I probably could have controlled better. “I worked. And then I went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Luke.”

Sometimes it's best to just say it. At least, I hope that's the case.

Tyler just looks at me, chewing his burrito, the faintest glint of something — sadness? curiosity? worry? — in his eyes.

I immediately keep talking, waving my hands for emphasis. “It was ridiculous, Tyler. He showed up at my work right when I got off and told me how lame it was that I was going to dinner by myself on my birthday, and he was really persistent, and I was just trying to get him off my back. We sat there for an hour and it was the worst hour of my life.”

Tyler smiles then. “It's okay, Paige. You don't have to explain anything.”

“Well, I just need you to know that Luke and I dated years ago, but it's over. Okay?”

He stares at me for a minute, searching my eyes. “Does Luke know that?”

“Yes.” Especially after last night.

He just nods. “Okay.” He looks like he's about to say something else, but then he stops.

“Preslee came by today.” We should have asked for a bigger table with how much stuff I'm unloading at the moment. All of these issues aren't going to fit with our huge plates.

“Preslee, your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

Obviously I haven't shared a lot with Tyler about Preslee yet. But we are still just in the getting-to-know-you stage. We aren't officially dating.

I take that issue back off the table and try to swallow it along with my now-soggy pancakes.

Eleven o'clock. And Galatians.

I stare at the words swimming on the page in front of me, wishing I were one of those people who could do their devotional times in the morning. I've tried. I end up forgetting everything I've read and focusing on the coffee beside me.

Coffee is a big motivator in the mornings.

I read the same sentence for the third time.
“For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God.”

It sounds like one of those this-is-my-grandmother's-third-cousin's-son's-wife sentences. I need a pencil to figure the sentence out.

I'm too tired to go get a pencil.

I look at it again.
“For through the …”

I rub my eyes and shake my head. Never mind. I'll try again tomorrow night.

Chapter

5

T
his is my one week out of the month when I teach the two-year-old Sunday school class. I used to teach it more often, but I'm working on not working too much.

Like Dad told me, “Grace is free, but therapy is expensive.”

I never really understood that until recently.

I shower and pull on a pair of faded jeans and a black nicer top. Two-year-old Sunday school is not the time to pull out the fashion stops. Not that I pull out the fashion stops very often. The older I get, the more I cling to comfort.

I never expected that to happen so soon.

I mess with my hair for almost fifteen minutes and finally just pull it back in a sloppy, low bun. I'm teaching. I'll use that as my excuse for everything today. I pour my coffee into a thermos and run for the door. I took too long on my hair today so there is no chance for breakfast.

Maybe someone will bring doughnuts to church and feel sorry for me.

I get to church and into my classroom right as the other teacher arrives with her son, Ben.

“Morning, Paige,” Rhonda says all singsongy. “Beautiful day today. Benjamin, how do you say hi to Miss Paige?”

Ben pops the three fingers he was chewing on out of his mouth and the drool crests over his chin. “Gwud mownin, Mwiss Paid.”

“Good morning, Ben,” I reply, somewhat thankful now that I missed breakfast.

There are weeks when I have definitely sworn off future children of my own after working in here. I just don't have the gag reflex for parenting. Or the grime tolerance. Everything these kids touch is blackened afterward.

“Ben learned a new trick,” Rhonda says, her smile proud as she looks at her son. “Want to tell Miss Paige what you learned how to do?”

“Um. I kin count.” Ben holds up four fingers.

“Oh yeah? Let me hear it,” I say.

“Um. One, two, free, four, one.” Then he cheeses at me, eyes squinty. “Yay Bwen!” he yells, applauding himself.

Rhonda smiles as Ben runs off to play with the toys we keep in the corner of the room. “They just change so fast, you know?” She gets all misty-eyed.

This is Rhonda's constant mantra. Every time I see her, she's bemoaning how quickly her son is growing up.

Whenever, or if ever, I have children, I will not be able to wait until they are old enough to blow their own nose and go to the bathroom and wash their hands unassisted.

The kids slowly trickle in, and by nine fifteen, Rhonda and I are surrounded by twenty-one two-year-olds. I do believe it is time for our church to find a third teacher for this classroom.

“All right!” Rhonda yells over the chaos abounding in the room. “Time to clean up the toys and sit down for our story! Benjamin Wilder Matthews, if you don't let go of that truck
right now
, you have got another thing coming!”

Ben immediately lets go of the truck and goes to sulk in the story corner. A few of our more obedient children head that way as well. It takes some coaxing and finally some demanding before everyone leaves the lure of the toys.

I will never buy my potential future children Duplo blocks either. Too many pieces. Too much mess.

“All righty,” Rhonda says again once everyone is seated on the floor, including both of us. “I think Miss Paige has prepared a fantastic Bible story for us today. Everyone needs to be quiet and listen.”

Nothing like the pressure of forty-two eyes staring at you, waiting for entertainment that will very likely not measure up to
Sesame Street
, or whatever kids are watching these days. “Today we are going to learn about a blind man,” I say, trying to instill some drama into my voice.

One little girl who I think is about the cutest thing in the classroom interrupts. “What's bwind?”

“Blind means they can't see,” I say. “All of you can see me, but if you were blind, you wouldn't be able to.”

Twenty-one heads start nodding. “Because it was dawk,” one little boy says knowingly.

“Oh,” three of them chorus, drawing the word out.

“I don't wike the dawk.”

“Sometime it get dawk if you hode your hand over your eyes,” another one says.

“Yeah …” The three hum again.

“It wasn't dark,” I say, trying to get the audience back. “It was daylight. He just couldn't see
ever
.”

“ 'Cause he had on his mommy's gwasses?”

I just look at the boy who asked me the question, mashing my lips together, trying not to laugh in the very serious little face six inches away from mine.

Rhonda grins across the sea of children at me. “Add in about ten zillion of those kinds of questions a day, Paige, and you've got life as a mother.”

I used to go to our church's singles class. Then the pastor in charge of the class, Pastor Dan, went on a sabbatical and left four of the single guys in charge of the teaching while he was gone.

After one too many lessons on how Xbox is biblical, seeing as how it doesn't allow for “idle hands,” I decided to go back to the regular service and see how things were there.

Things are much better. I've been here for almost six weeks now and I have never once heard Pastor Louis mention the word
Xbox
, much less the other favorite
football
.

I find my new regular row. When I left the singles class, Layla and her fiancé, Peter, came with me. Tyler never went to our Sunday school class, but he always went to service, and he sits with us too.

No one else is there yet, but that's typical on the weeks when I teach the two-year-olds. I always end up here by myself for about fifteen minutes, in the lag time between services, before the others show up.

I set my Bible and purse down to save seats.

Right then I hear a gurgling, spitting noise and I look up to see Natalie, our youth pastor's wife and my dear friend, standing there holding their new baby, Claire.

“I can't sneak up on anyone anymore,” Natalie gripes but smiles adoringly at her daughter. Now that Claire is sleeping better through the nights, everything is all sunshine again.

There were days when I wondered if Natalie was going to make it.

“Hi, cutie patootie!” I have no idea why babies promote such goofy reactions from adults, but I partake in the tradition without much resistance.

“Hi,” Natalie says.

I barely spare a glance at Natalie. “Here, let me take that huge burden out of your hands.” I make silly faces at Claire. She's still so little that she just looks at me, pacifier bobbing in her mouth, but I do it anyway.