Paige Turned

by Erynn Mangum

  I watch to see how Mom takes this. She thinks about it, opens her mouth, and then closes it and nods, maybe remembering what she just said about her and my grandmother fighting over Mom’s wedding.

  Preslee grins triumphantly, and I just have to give props to my sister for her impeccable timing for once in her life.

  Monday morning and I’m right on time for our staff meeting.

  And Rick is nowhere to be found.

  This is typical.

  I walk into the empty youth office, flick on the lights, and turn on the computer at Rick’s desk, noticing a few new pictures tacked to the corkboard in the office.

  When Rick first took over as youth pastor, the first thing he did was install this floor-to-ceiling corkboard that ran the entire length of the wall. And he’s been adding to it ever since. There are pictures of kids when they were in junior high who are now off at college, fun youth events that happened over the years, graduation announcements, Bible verses, postcards people have sent, cartoons kids have drawn, everything. Rick even tacked the very first cup of coffee from the new espresso machine on there.

  I took it down right afterward, though. Goodness only knows what would live in this office if it weren’t for my presence here. He’s put up a few pictures from some of the recent events, but really only one stands out to me.

  It’s a picture of Tyler and me at the karaoke picnic. Tyler has me dipped down in our finale and his face is an inch away from mine, and we are both grinning into each other’s eyes.

  It was a happy moment in the midst of a bad summer.

  I just stare at the picture, biting my lip. What can I do to fix what went wrong between us? I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with Luke.

  Tyler canceled on dinner last night. Said he was working on a deadline that was due this morning, and he still had a long time to go.

  Mom spent dinner sighing over Preslee’s beautiful wedding dress, so I don’t think she minded too much.

  I pull out my phone to text Tyler and Rick walks in right then. “Sorry I am late,” he says, balancing a Thermos, a lunchbox, his keys, and a water bottle on top of a yellow legal pad. He slides everything onto his desk and holds up the pad to me. “Fully prepared, just like I said I’d be.”

  “I’m impressed.” I roll my eyes and sit on the couch. I kick my flip-flops off and tuck my feet underneath me, crisscross style. I look at my phone.

  I’ll have to text him later.

  “Okay.” Rick sits in his desk chair and rolls over so he’s across from me. “First up. How many girls are you meeting with this week?”

  I dig my planner out of my purse on the couch beside me and flip to this week. “Eight,” I tell him, counting up all the names. “With another four as potentials.”

  He nods. “Great. I’ll reload your Visa card today. Okay. We need to talk about the new curriculum for the youth nights. I just finished writing it, and I’d like you to read it before I print off the leader copies.”

  “I can do that. What is this one on again?”

  “Sanctification,” Rick says in a deep, booming voice.

  I just look at him.

  “No, really, Paige. It’s about sanctification. I’m basically going through the fruits of the Spirit and how God uses them in the process of sanctification.”

  I have a love-hate relationship with how much I learn while teaching the girls. Sometimes I feel like Rick writes the lessons just for me.

  “Sounds like a good series.” I look at him. “What’s the big news you mentioned on Sunday?”

  “The curriculum.”

  “But I already knew you were writing new curriculum.”

  “Well, it obviously wasn’t as big of news as I thought it was going to be,” Rick says.

  “What’s the big news?” Natalie asks from the door, a drooling Claire on one hip. Natalie’s holding a basket with muffins that are quickly filling the room with the smell of cinnamon and sugar.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting.” She grins and sets Claire on the couch next to me.

  “We always welcome muffins and cute little dimples.” I kiss Claire’s chubby cheeks.

  “Just not the carrier of said muffins and dimples?” Natalie rolls her eyes at me and nods to Rick’s legal pad.

  “How’d she take the new, organized Rick?” she asks him.

  “Pretty good. I think she was a little surprised, but overall I think she is handling it well.”

  “Um, hello? I am sitting right here.”

  “What did I miss?” Natalie picks up Claire and sits where she was, plopping the baby in her lap. Claire coos at her mama and grabs two fistfuls of Natalie’s hair.

  “We are just starting,” Rick tells her. Natalie comes to most of our staff meetings. She taught the senior girls’ small group until she had Claire. I think she misses it.

  She told me that when she’s not nursing anymore, she’s hoping to find a babysitter for Claire on youth nights and come back to join us.

  As it is, I love Natalie like an older sister so any time I get to hang out with her is always welcome.

  We spend the next hour talking about the kids, about specific prayer requests they have, and family issues that have come up with some of them. Then we spend time praying.

  I love this part of my job.

  “So. Let’s look ahead here.” Rick uncaps a pen with his teeth and pulls over a giant wall calendar he got for free from his dentist. It has all these pictures of fake-looking waterfalls with inspirational messages scrolling across the bottom of the pages.

  It’s never too late to fulfill your dreams.

  I have to argue with that one. It is way too late for me to fulfill my childhood dream of being on the United States gymnastics team. For several reasons, but the first being that I am no longer fourteen years old, and the second being that if I was any less flexible, I wouldn’t be able to climb into a car.

  “Okay. We’re in the first week of September. Our first Wednesday night youth group is this week,” Rick says. “There will be a leaders’ meeting fifteen minutes before the kids get there.”

  “Y’all need a name.” Natalie hands Claire a slice of apple in a little net thing with a plastic handle. It looks like something my sister used to use to fish her dead guppies out of her fish tank. Natalie notices my look and grins. “Isn’t this the coolest thing? Claire can chew on the apple, which soothes her gums, without getting any seeds or big pieces she can’t swallow yet.”

  Claire is going at it like the thing will eat her back if she doesn’t get it first, so I keep my mouth shut about the guppies.

  “A name for what?” Rick asks.

  “For youth group. I mean, youth group. Does anyone still call it that? It’s so nineties, hon.”

  Rick frowns at her. “Adolescent collection?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No, like a name. Like Wildfire or Fishermen or something that has some meaning to it but is all cool and hip. Pretty much whatever sounds the least like you.”

  Rick is offended. “Hey! I am cool and hip.”

  “Sweetheart. You’re not.”

  There are times when our meetings start to get a little uncomfortable for me. This is one of those times.

  Rick looks at me. “Do you think I’m cool and hip?”

  I look at Natalie, who is shaking her head at me, then back to Rick, who looks all fake wounded. “Uh . . .”

  “Babe,” Natalie cuts in. “If you have to ask, you probably aren’t.”

  “Well, that’s sad. Guess we can’t count on Nike calling me and asking me to be their new model anymore then.” He sighs at Claire and chucks her cheek. “No college for you, honey love.”

  Natalie just rolls her eyes.

  * * * * *

  I spend the afternoon meeting three girls and I get home about eight. I took the last girl to dinner at In-N-Out.

  I really need to find healthier options for meeting with people.

  I change into workout pants and an old T-shirt that says Be
Safe. Always Watch for Falling Anvils. It has a picture of the ill-fated coyote on it with an anvil seconds away from connecting with his head. Dad gave it to me in high school.

  Which really should just illustrate my need to clean out my closet at some point.

  I grab a water bottle, fill it up, and open my front door to head down to the apartment gym.

  Tyler is standing on my porch, hand ready to knock on my now-open door.

  “Oh, were you going somewhere?” He looks flustered. “Oh, that’s fine. We’ll just try to get together some other time.”

  He turns and starts racing down my steps.

  “Wait, Tyler!” I follow him. He stops at the bottom of my stairs and I stand on the last one, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t have to go right now. I don’t have to go at all. I was just going to use the elliptical. I had three Frappuccinos and In-N-Out today. I felt a need.”

  He smiles, but it isn’t really a smile.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him quietly.

  He looks at me and opens his mouth but closes it again and shakes his head. He squints into the sun. He’s obviously come right from work. He’s wearing khakis and a button- down shirt and his curly hair is revolting against the combing that obviously occurred this morning. “Another time.” He finally looks at me, the blue sky and his blue shirt making his eyes even bluer than they really are. “Have a good workout.”

  He turns and heads back to his truck, waving once as he slides into the driver’s seat.

  At least I now have fuel to work out, I guess.

  I walk down to the gym, getting more and more depressed the farther away from my apartment I get. What is going on? This isn’t like Tyler. Tyler is funny. He’s direct. He doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t stop short of saying something just because it might be uncomfortable to hear.

  This is really weird.

  I climb on the empty elliptical and look around. There’s a man I used to see in here a lot on the treadmill, and someone else is using the weight machine. No one appears to be watching the TV, which is tuned to some talk show with some obnoxious women fighting over who had the best hair at the Emmys this year.

  “Would you mind if I changed the channel?” I ask them. The man using the weights has headphones in and doesn’t respond, but the man on the treadmill pulls an earbud out and says, “For the love of all things sane, please.”

  All righty then.

  I flip it to HGTV and Kitchen Cousins is on. I glance at the treadmill man and he nods his approval.

  I watch the two attractive men demolish an awful, outdated kitchen and rebuild in its place a beautiful one that’s all white and stainless steel and shiny for a single mom who just lost her job.

  The Kitchen Cousins are attractive and nice. No wonder they are a hit show.

  I head back to my apartment about nine o’clock, take a shower, and climb into bed. I look at my Bible lying on the nightstand next to me.

  Tonight is a good “everything is meaningless” night.

  Maybe Ecclesiastes is not the best book to read right now.

  I sigh and open my Bible to Solomon’s depressing tale and find where I left off. “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?”

  I stare at the passage for a long time. What did that even mean? That our labor wasn’t really good? That we should just eat, drink, and be merry like the Pirates of the Caribbean?

  And the part about not enjoying anything outside of God . . . I think about all the people I knew in high school and college and even now who are definitely not Christians and seem to have such amazing lives. I just saw on Facebook that one of the girls I knew in high school just got married, and she has about the cutest two-year-old I’ve ever seen. She did things backward and totally without God, and she still seems to be completely happy.

  I close my Bible and purse my lips. “Well, Lord, that was not very helpful for tonight. I need to know what to do about Tyler. I need to know how to act forgiving toward Luke without acting like I like him, and I need to know how to be a good maid of honor in two weddings, which granted, is going to include eating and drinking, but hopefully no labor since I will be wearing high heels. So. What should I read next?”

  I listen, but there’s no voice telling me anything back. I flip through the pages of my Bible, but nothing jumps out at me. I rub my fingers over the front of it and bite back a sigh.

  * * * * *

  It’s Wednesday night and I just got back to the church after ducking out to grab a quick sandwich and cookie at Paradise Bakery for dinner. Our leaders’ meeting starts in ten minutes, and I’m gathering all the copies of the new curriculum for the leaders. I spent most of yesterday reading through it.

  It’s good. I’m not looking forward to teaching it because it was also convicting. The whole thing was about how the fruit of the Spirit can’t be learned like a math equation. It has to be given from the Lord. Our job is to focus on our relationship with Him and the fruits will come.

  Rick needs to start publishing this stuff.

  I walk into the youth room and a few of the leaders are already here. All the volunteer leaders have come back from last year, which is great and pretty unheard of in youth ministry.

  Trisha leads the junior girls, and she pulled in the senior girls last year when Natalie got close to her due date to make it just one big class.

  Sam is the leader of the junior and senior guys along with Rick. Sam is about thirty-five and has twin girls. He says he does this to get his testosterone fix.

  Julie and Trevor are married and they have the sophomore guys and girls. They’re going on like six years of marriage, but they are the most nauseating couple to be around as far as physical affection goes. Particularly if you are having issues with your current relationship.

  And speaking of Tyler, he teaches the freshmen guys. And I lead the freshmen girls. And that’s the staff.

  Trisha, who is always notoriously early, is already in the youth room. She’s a legal assistant for some big lawyer in town, and she always comes straight from work so she always looks all dressed up. I used to dress up for work.

  Now I feel like I’m doing well if I manage something beyond jeans and a T-shirt. It’s hard to dress nice when: (a) I know whatever girl I’m meeting at In-N-Out will be wearing shorts and a tank top, and (b) it’s In-N-Out for goodness’ sake.

  “Hey, Paige.” Trisha smiles at me. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” I lie like I always do when someone who isn’t Layla or Natalie asks me that question.

  “Good!”

  I hand her a copy of the curriculum. “I think we’ll be starting next week.”

  She nods and starts reading through it while the rest of the leaders trickle in. Rick and I set up a little circle of chairs and everyone sits down. Tyler comes running in at ten minutes past when we started.

  Typical.

  He does not look good. Normally Rick rides him about being late, but one look at his face and Rick keeps his mouth shut. “So, guys, tonight is all about welcoming the kids back to Bible study. Spend time hearing how their summers went, how everyone is doing, and I’d like y’all to spend a fair amount of time praying in your small groups.”

  Rick looks around the circle. “Paige handed out the new curriculum, so if you guys could just prepare the first lesson for next week, I think we’ll be good. I’ll be teaching through the intro tonight during the big group time.”

  Everyone is nodding like bobblehead dolls. I pass a curriculum to Julie and she hands it to Trevor who passes it to Tyler.

  I try not to look at Tyler, but I can’t help it. I sneak a peek while Rick is talking and he’s staring at me.

  Tyler looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His curly hair is all messed up, like he’s been raking his hands through it all day. His eyes are bloodshot, and instead of his usua
l clean-shaven face, a fine coating of blond bristles covers his chin.

  He manages a sad tilt to his mouth at me.

  “And I think that’s it,” Rick says, and I break eye contact with Tyler to pay attention to what Rick is saying. “Let’s pray and go mingle.”

  Rick prays a short prayer, and we all stack our chairs and head for the door to visit with the kids congregating in the hallway.

  “Tyler? Hang back for a sec,” Rick says as we all leave. I glance back at them, and Rick nods for me to close the door behind me.

  I bite my lip.

  Something is bothering Tyler. And I don’t know what to do about it. I really like the guy. I care about him. So does that mean I press him for information about what’s going on? Or do I hang back like I’ve been doing, waiting for him to come to me?

  I hate seeing him like this.

  “Paige!” A few of my girls who are now in Julie’s class come running over, hugging me and chattering excitedly about their summers. I try the best I can to push thoughts of Tyler to the background so I can be happy and cheerful for the girls.

  My job is hard sometimes.

  * * * * *

  I have the new freshmen girls, so I spend most of my small-group time getting to know them. I’ve already taken a few out for coffee. I’ve got about six more to go before I’ve met at least once with the whole group, though.

  After I dismiss everyone to go back to the youth room for snacks, I pull a couple of them aside and line up dates for next week.

  One girl in particular, Emmy, who is about the smallest ninth-grader I’ve ever met, seems surprised. “What are we going to do at Starbucks?” she asks me, warily.

  “Just talk. Hang out. I want to get to know you better,” I tell her, trying to suppress a smile.

  “Um. Well, I’ll have to talk with my mom about it.”

  I nod. “Please talk with your mom about it. I can even talk with your mom if you’d like.”

  “That would probably be good.”

  We join the rest of the girls in the big room. Over the next few minutes, the other small groups let out, and the youth room gets louder and louder as kids stuff their faces with Oreos and Nutter Butters and laugh about what they did this summer.