by Erynn Mangum
I did not follow that at all. The more tired Layla gets, the less she makes sense. And she doesn’t start out making a lot of sense to begin with.
“What?”
“I have seriously cried nine days this week.”
I’m going to assume Layla knows there are only seven days in a week and she’s just making a point.
“About what?” I again feel like a terrible friend. I should have been there. Instead I was comforting other crying girls, attempting to answer questions about obscure Old Testament references, and trying not to get killed in a game of dodgeball.
She shrugs miserably. “You name it. Whether or not we ordered enough hors d’oeuvres. Whether or not I even still like my wedding dress. Whether or not I like the bridesmaids’ dresses anymore. I mean, is rose even an in color nowadays?” She rubs her forehead, then cups her face in her hands, looking down at the table.
“Layla—” I start but she cuts me off.
“And Peter and I have been fighting like nonstop lately. I mean nonstop. And when we aren’t fighting with each other, which is rare, we are fighting in other ways because the temptation is so stinking ridiculously hard, Paige.”
I just watch her, not sure of what to say. She’s treading in uncharted waters for me. I mean, my boyfriend hasn’t even held my hand in eight weeks. The closest I’ve ever come to having to avoid that particular temptation was when I was dating Luke and he thought he was going to just spend the night.
I was so shocked that it wasn’t a big deal to send him right back out the door.
This is much different.
Layla is rubbing her temples, looking for all the world like an exhausted little kid, and I’m overcome with compassion for my best friend.
I don’t say anything, but I pull my chair around next to hers and wrap my arms around her shoulders. She lays her head on my shoulder and just sighs. “Tell me we should elope.”
I rub her arm. “You don’t want to elope, Layla.”
“I know.” She’s quiet for a minute. “Tell me I need to get a new dress.”
“You love your dress. It’s perfect for you.”
“I know. And the bridesmaids’ dresses?”
“Also perfect. And rose is definitely an in color. And I don’t know what to say about you and Peter, but you could bring it up in premarital counseling.”
Rick is marrying Peter and Layla, so he’s been meeting with them. They had to take a big break over the summer just because everything with the youth group got so busy, but they are back to meeting again.
“Don’t you ever struggle with this kind of stuff with Tyler?”
I take a breath. “Not really.” You have to be around someone in order to struggle with sexual temptation, I would think.
“Oh.” She sighs and straightens, smiling over at me. “I’m glad we are having dinner together.”
I nod. “Me too.”
Friday dawns hot and sticky. I swipe at my forehead while I’m waiting to meet a girl for lunch at Panera, and my foundation comes off on my finger.
I don’t know why I bother putting on makeup in the Dallas humidity sometimes.
Today is technically the last day of summer work hours for me, so I packed the girls in. I’ve already met with two, and I’ve got two more after this. According to Rick, my job during the school year will be much more manageable.
“Maybe one kid a day,” he told me. “Actually, I’d even go so far as to say I’d like you to meet with five girls a week, so divvy that up however you want. I don’t care.”
Rick, for all his obnoxiousness, is really a very good boss. I do my job and he does his. I hand him the receipts and get my reloadable Visa card reloaded, and he gasps at the number of Frappuccinos I’ve consumed with the girls but continues to pay for them.
Danika walks in then, and I wave at her from the booth I’d saved, since Panera on Friday at lunchtime can be comparable to hell, except I was sitting inside so we didn’t have the heat.
Still had the gnashing of teeth, though. I have been watching a woman decide what kind of bread she wants for the last ten minutes. “I don’t know,” she keeps mouthing over and over.
She is likely speaking aloud, but my booth is too far away to hear her.
I grab my wallet but leave my purse to save the booth. My father would have a heart attack if he ever saw me do that. But I figure, we’re at Panera. Most people aren’t paying attention to my purse sitting there anyway, and if someone tries to steal it and make a break for it without my wallet in it, all they’ll wind up with is a half-gone pack of gum and a cosmetic bag filled with tampons.
Danika orders a bowl of soup and I order a small salad. After the two coffee drinks I’ve ordered today, I need something semi-healthy.
We go back to the booth and my purse is still there, like I knew it would be. “So, are you ready to go back to school?” I ask her as we sit down. I’ve only met with Danika twice or so this summer. She’s a hard one to get ahold of. Apparently her family spends most of the summer visiting all of their obscure relatives across the country.
Our food comes, I pray for the meal, we chat about random things while we eat, I share a quick verse I’ve been thinking about this week, and then I give her a quick hug as we leave.
Danika is an easy one. She comes from a great family and has been in the church her whole life.
Others are not so easy.
Like my next appointment. I climb in my car and start the air-conditioning. I have half an hour to kill before I need to be ten minutes away. So I reach for the phone and call my mother.
“Hey, Paige,” she answers, crunching into the phone.
“Lunchtime?”
“Mm. My doctor told me the only way to lose the perimenopausal weight I’ve gained is to start eating six small meals a day.”
“So you are supposed to eat more to lose more?”
“Didn’t make sense to me either, but I’m sitting here eating celery and peanut butter because what do I know? I didn’t go to medical school.”
I grin. I love my mom.
“So, have you talked to Preslee recently?” Mom asks, apparently eating another celery stick. The crunching is a little obnoxious.
“No.” My used-to-be-but-no-longer-estranged sister moved back to Texas about four months ago. She’s engaged to a man who is, for all I can tell, a giant, real-life Ken doll. He’s blond, he’s beautiful, and all he does is just stare at my sister like she’s the most incredible thing he’s ever beheld.
It was cute the first time I was around him. Now it’s just kind of weird.
I’d hate to be there the first time she has the flu in his presence.
“Well, I just talked to her and she was going to call you and find a time for you to come try on dresses.”
Preslee’s wedding is exactly one month after Layla’s. I will be the maid of honor in both of them.
In other words, I will be holding up a lot of big, white dresses while the women pee.
Joy and gladness.
“Okay,” I tell Mom. “I guess I’ll wait for her call.” Not a lot else I can do.
“And she’s thinking about going with a mint color scheme.”
“Mint. Like peppermint?” I think immediately of a barber shop pole–inspired dress, and I’m suddenly very nervous about what exactly I will be wearing.
“No, I think like that weird color between green and white and blue. Not that you need to inform her that I just called it weird.”
I smirk.
“Anyway. How is your day going?”
“Fine.” I look at the clock and shift into reverse. “I’m on my way to my fourth meeting of the day.”
“How do you have anything left to talk about?”
“Mm.” I shrug because I have no idea. Normally on a day like today, I would go home and crash in front of some brainless TV. But I’m going out to dinner tonight with Tyler who I really do want to talk to, but I’m afraid I will be all talked out by then.
M
y stomach cramps up again.
It will be an exhausting day.
“Well. I’ll let you go,” Mom says, still crunching. “Enjoy your meeting! Let me know when you and Preslee decide to go dress shopping because I want to come too.”
“Sure thing, Mom. Have fun with the celery.”
“Oh yes. Old age stinks.”
I hang up smiling and drive to Starbucks. My third Starbucks visit today. By the end of the day, I’m going to smell like I work here.
Tori is already here and we spend the next hour talking about her non-Christian parents, her older brother who is running straight down the path leading to jail, and her little brother, Jake, who is starting to follow in her big brother’s ways. “I don’t know what to do,” she mumbles, trying to hide her tears by furiously chugging her vanilla-bean Frappuccino. “Jake was coming with me to church and everything. And now, I can’t even get him to look at me.”
These are the meetings where I end up praying through the whole thing. God blessed me so much. I had parents who loved me, who raised me in the church, and who taught me about Jesus. I have no idea what Tori’s life is like.
I know a little about sibling issues, though.
I pull my mini Bible out of my purse, just praying like crazy. “Tori. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know what your life is like.”
She nods, swiping at her eyes with a napkin.
“But I know what the Bible says.” I flip over to the same verse I shared with Danika, and I read Psalm 27:8 after clearing my throat. “‘When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.”’”
She looks at me confusedly. “How is that going to help Jake? He’s not seeking the Lord. He could care less. I’ve tried talking to him, yelling at him, bribing him . . .”
My parents did the same thing with Preslee. I look at Tori. She’s fifteen. She shouldn’t be the parent in the family. Tears are spilling down her cheeks and she’s trying to be nonchalant about them, though I can tell she’s one wrong word away from full-fledged sobbing. She’s holding her Frappuccino in front of her face.
I have met with Tori many times and she hates to cry in public. An overwhelming sense of a million different emotions flood my chest. I reach for her hand. “I love you, Tori. And Jesus loves you too. And as much as we want to save those around us, we can’t forget that it’s only Jesus who saves. We can only tell them about Him.”
Tori is nodding repeatedly like a bobblehead doll, and I can see that we need to end this meeting so she can feel like she has some shred of dignity left. “Praying for you, my sweet girl.” I pull her into a hug as we walk out of the door.
She latches on to me on the sidewalk like I’m part of a mining team headed to some asteroid in space. Then she pulls away and doesn’t say a word, but she manages a shaky smile and a quick wave before half jogging to her car.
I watch her leave and my heart hurts.
This is the worst part of my job.
I started working at the church to change girls’ lives, but sometimes I feel like all I’m doing is poking at festering wounds.
* * * * *
It’s six thirty and somehow I have found the time to run home and change out of my coffee scent–soaked clothes and reapply some foundation. I run the curling iron back through my hair and frown at myself in the mirror.
My hair has no definite color. It’s red, it’s brown, it’s blonde. It’s also the longest it’s ever been at just past my bra strap, and since it has been so humid, it’s very frizzy. I try to tame the frizziness into actual curls, but it usually only lasts until I get to the bottom of my apartment’s staircase.
I am wearing a skirt with a fitted T-shirt and flip-flops, and I am starting to second-guess my outfit. I don’t know the proper T-shirt length to skirt ratio here and it’s worrying me. What if the shirt is too long? What if the skirt is too short?
A knock sounds on my door and I have to just hope for the best. I find my purse and force a smile as I open the door and see Tyler in all his curly blond-hair cuteness. He’s wearing plaid shorts and a polo shirt with leather sandals and a slightly awkward smile.
The awkwardness is what kills me. So I muster my courage and stick my right hand out to him. “I’m Paige Alder. It’s nice to meet you.”
He grins a full smile then and bypasses my hand to pull me into a hug. “I’ve missed you, Paige.”
We stand there like that for a couple of minutes in my doorway. His arms around my shoulders, my arms around his waist, my purse dangling from my hand behind him. My head comes to just below his collarbone, and he rests his head on mine while we let all of my cold, very expensive conditioned air fly right past us out the door.
And I don’t even care right then. My heart is settling into a less-frenzied beat, and I take a few deep breaths.
Finally we break apart, and he pulls my door closed while I fish for my keys in my purse to lock it behind us. “Where are we going tonight?” I click the dead bolt.
“Well, that’s kind of up to you. I was thinking we could go to the Cheesecake Factory.”
“Sounds great to me.”
He opens the passenger door of his blue truck for me. I slide in and watch him walk around to the driver’s door. There’s still this twinge of awkwardness between us, but surely that’s because it’s just been so long since we saw each other.
Surely.
Surely not because he’s planning on ending it tonight or something.
My stomach is back to gnawing on itself.
We start driving toward Frisco. My apartment is in Richardson, which is a northern suburb of Dallas, so it’s a short drive. Tyler tells me about some of the projects he’s working on.
“I swear the second I think we are in the clear and we’re going to finally have a slow season, three more clients sign on,” he says.
Tyler is a software engineer and I have never for the life of me been able to picture him at work. Tyler is totally an outdoorsy type. The idea of him sitting at a desk, wearing a suit and tie and staring at a computer all day is just weird.
“I guess that’s a good thing.” I look over at him. “Right?”
“It’s good for the company, sure. And I just got another raise, which is great. But I’m to the point where I would sacrifice the money just for some time off.” He smiles sadly over at me. “I mean, this is ridiculous that we haven’t even been able to have a date in eight weeks.”
I agree.
We park in the always crowded parking lot and then walk through the thick, hot air into the cool restaurant. There’s already a thirty-minute wait, so we find a little bench to sit on by the glass window showcasing all the different cheesecakes they offer.
I am already drooling.
Tyler looks over at me. “So. How’s the intern thing going?”
“Good.” I tell him about the girls and then how Rick told me that the hours were soon going to be much better. “Apparently the craziness is just a summer thing.”
“I hope so.”
Our buzzer starts going off and we get seated at a booth in the far back of the loud restaurant. In a way, it’s good because as I’m scouring the menu, I’m also scouring my tired brain for topic ideas to discuss with Tyler.
I hate that I now have to create a conversational list in order to talk to him.
I peek over my menu and Tyler is studying the book closely. In the old days, he would be pestering me about the time I spend at work, asking me how my time with the Lord is, and working me for details about my relationship with my sister.
Not tonight, apparently.
Maybe he is just tired from work.
That must be it.
The waiter comes by for our drink order and then quickly leaves us to our silent perusal of the menus. I decided what I wanted before we even walked in, so I’m quietly reading through the appetizers again, waiting for Tyler to decide what he wants. There’s a couple at a table semi-close to us who are holding hands ac
ross the table, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes while they talk quietly.
My gaze flickers back to Tyler, and I gnaw on the inside of my cheek, worrying. What if he’s stopped thinking of me like that? What if all this work stuff we’ve both had going on has just made him question whether we should even be dating?
He looks up at me. “Decided what you’d like?”
“Yes.” I’m just worried I decided too late.
The waiter brings our food after a very uncomfortable amount of time. Tyler prays without reaching for my hands as customary, and I just reach for my fork, anticipating a dinner that will likely not result in cheesecake because my stomach is hurting so badly from all the tension that I don’t want to attempt it. There’s not much worse than having to find a new favorite dessert because you spent the whole night upchucking your used-to-be favorite.
“Paige,” Tyler says two bites in, and something in his tone makes me set my fork down. “We need to talk.”
I nod. Well, here it comes. I am fighting the sting of tears in the back of my eyes. For all the weirdness this summer has been, I really like Tyler. I really loved the time we spent together.
There was a big part of me that thought this was finally it.
“We need to talk about Luke.”
I nod, even though I really don’t like to talk about Luke any more than I like to talk with my great-uncle Sam about his digestive issues. I keep nodding, though, because yes, we probably do. Not that we haven’t before. I tried to explain everything.
Maybe now that the memory of me wrapped in Luke Prestwick’s arms isn’t so fresh, Tyler will be more open to hearing the truth.
“Look. I know there is a . . .” He pauses, waving his fork. “Past,” he settles on finally. “I know there is a past between you two and I’m . . . I’m okay with that.”
He says it like he’s just agreed to eat an entire jar of pickled beets. I’m having trouble believing him.
“Look, Tyler, the ‘past’ you’re talking about isn’t some fantastical thing. We dated. We broke up. He moved far away, and honestly I wish he’d stayed there.” No offense to Luke. My life was just a lot less complicated before he came back.