Paige Turned

by Erynn Mangum

  Tyler’s acne-stricken guys are in the room, but Tyler is nowhere to be seen. I’m trying to subtly look for him when someone stops behind my right shoulder.

  “I sent him home early,” Rick says.

  “What? Who?”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “Sure.”

  I bite my lip, feeling a sinking deep in my stomach. “Rick . . . is he . . . okay?” I try not to overstep into the bounds of pastor-parishioner or pastor-volunteer confidentiality.

  If there even is such a thing.

  Rick looks at me for a minute and then nods. “He’ll be okay.”

  “Is it me?” The dreaded question. I can barely get it out it’s so awful to even think about, and now I’m afraid that Rick didn’t even hear it because I asked it so quietly and not in his direction. I’m mashing the corners of my eyes with my thumbs so the tears don’t start.

  Rick, who is never gentle, puts a kind hand on my shoulder and smiles in a way I would imagine an older, wiser brother would to a silly question I asked.

  “Normally I would say that I can’t divulge any information to you,” Rick says quietly. “But he told me I could reassure you because I made sure he knew that you were worried about him. And no, Paige. It’s not you.”

  That makes me feel better and worse. Rick moves on to talk to some of the new ninth graders, and I pick up a tasteless Nutter Butter and start chewing it, just for something to do.

  I’m glad it’s not me and what happened with Luke.

  I think.

  That, at least, is a problem I could fix.

  “Well, someone has to tell him!”

  I am rubbing both of my temples as I watch Layla pace my living room Thursday night. She is mad and I’m pretty sure everyone in my apartment complex knows it.

  It’s always interesting to see Layla mad because her cuteness level doesn’t change. Layla is one of those favored people who can get so steaming mad and still look adorable. Her wavy brown hair is bouncing as she charges back and forth across my floor, her skirt flying.

  I still am not completely sure what happened. I was sitting here, having a perfectly quiet dinner of mac and cheese I picked up at Panera when I met one of the girls there today for tea and scones. I thought ahead and remembered I had no groceries at home. I am still a little proud of myself for that.

  Normally, I will meet with a girl for an hour right when she gets out of school, meet another girl the hour after that, and then go home and suddenly remember I have nothing edible in the house since I haven’t been to the grocery store in a month.

  Not from lack of opportunity but from lack of motivation.

  The older I get, the more I hate buying food.

  And since it’s just me here, I’ve decided that half the time, it’s cheaper for me to just get something to go. Or I take someone to lunch and bring back half of it for dinner.

  Layla glares at me as she paces. “I don’t see how you can just sit there and eat after hearing what happened!”

  And there’s my opening. “What exactly happened again?” I ask timidly, afraid of the giant alien that has taken over Layla’s body suit.

  “What happened? What happened? I’ll tell you what happened! Peter went and bought a Kong for Belle! And then he put peanut butter in it and left it there for her and I just found it when I got home from work along with a barely breathing dog and a carpet of ants that covers my entire floor!”

  Ah, Belle. The world’s ugliest dog. “Why wasn’t she breathing?”

  “Because, Paige,” Layla says in a duh voice, “she is allergic to peanuts. She nearly died. I just spent nine hundred dollars getting the vet to bring her back to life, and Peter just asked me why I paid that much.”

  Based on her tone of voice, I can see that question did not turn out well for Peter.

  Poor guy. He didn’t have a chance. You don’t mess with a woman planning a wedding for 250 people.

  “In his defense—” I start, but I am immediately cut off.

  “Defense!”

  “In his defense,” I say again, louder. “Peter most likely did not know that Belle was allergic to peanut butter. He was probably trying to be nice to the dog.”

  That stops her pacing. She freezes halfway in the middle of my living room. “You think he didn’t know?” she asks in a small voice.

  “If he did know, why would he give it to her? Unless he doesn’t like Belle, but even then, there are quicker ways to get rid of a dog.”

  When I was a little kid, we lived next to these people who had this mastiff who would bark at the top of its very large lungs every single morning at five thirty. Every morning. Without fail.

  Until one day. And then the next and the next. Dad saw our neighbor getting his mail a week later and asked about the dog, and our neighbor told him that his wife had gone all postal because the dog kept waking up their toddler every morning. He came home from work one day, and the lady had given him away at the grocery store.

  Yep. The grocery store.

  Needless to say, there was much toasting with our milk that night in our neighbor’s wife’s honor in my house.

  Layla’s face is slowly crumpling and I know what’s coming. My mac and cheese is apparently going to need to be reheated a second time. I stand up right as she collapses in tears on my couch.

  “I am the most awful fiancée on the history of the whole earth!”

  I don’t correct her bad grammar. I just walk over, sit next to her, and sigh, rubbing her arm. “You aren’t the most awful. You’re better than that lady in McKinney who killed her fiancé last month and left him in their apartment swimming pool.”

  Layla covers her face with a pillow. “Ack, Paige! Why do you tell me these things? I’m never swimming in a public pool again.”

  I smile. “Look, have you eaten dinner?”

  She shakes her head, mascara tracing black lines down her face.

  “Okay, good. Leave. Redo your makeup. Go to Peter’s apartment. Ask him to go get Chinese and you can apologize. The dog is fine. You’re five weeks away from your wedding. Go and be romantic again. Like the olden days.”

  Layla nods through my whole speech, snorting and snuffling like an elephant in need of some Claritin.

  If this is any indication of what engagement is like, I am in no hurry to experience it.

  She hugs me. “Okay.” She stands. “I love you, Paige. I don’t know where I would be without you.”

  “Probably trying to drag Peter’s body down to your apartment swimming pool.”

  She throws the couch pillow at my head.

  * * * * *

  I’m just leaving the church after spending the entire day doing the absolute worst part of my job.

  Designing and mailing postcards for youth events.

  Rick came in this morning, handed me a chicken-scratched paper with all of the dates and names of future events on it, and asked me to please go ahead and make up postcards for the next eight events so we don’t have the mad rush two weeks before like we usually do.

  “And what do you think of gasoline?” he asked.

  “I’m a fan of it in my car. Probably wouldn’t be as big of a fan of it dousing my apartment,” I told him.

  He rolled his eyes. “No. Like, welcome to Gasoline Ministries!”

  I tried to think of the nicest way to say it. “It sounds like you’re starting a ministry to those poor guys who were hosing off with gasoline in Zoolander.”

  Rick just looked at me for a minute. “I cannot believe,” he said slowly, “that you not only have watched that movie, but that you just referenced it to me. Your stock in youth ministry just went up significantly.” He bowed from the waist, eyes closed and arms outstretched.

  I’m feeling like that wasn’t a big compliment.

  My girl I was supposed to meet this afternoon, Brittany of the espresso machine fame, just came down with the stomach flu this morning, so we have officially canceled our meeting at Starbucks. I never found another girl to meet after Brittany
, so I’m officially free for the evening.

  I am twenty-three, I have a boyfriend, and I am still free on a Friday night.

  It does not get more pathetic than that, ladies and gentlemen.

  I drive to the grocery store and spend thirty minutes gathering all the things that show I am definitely single and not wanting to cook for just one person. I’m passing women with kids clawing at them, pushing carts filled with bags of frozen chicken breasts, heads of lettuce, and blocks of cheese. And meanwhile, I’ve got three Lunchables, two boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and a couple bags of prepacked salad mixes.

  Single life equals gourmet eating.

  I check out, load my groceries in the back of my Camry, and drive to my apartment. I do my usual trick of sliding all of the bags over my arms so I only have to make one trip up my stairs.

  And that’s when I see him.

  He’s sitting on the bottom step of my stairs. His hair is curly extra today and he’s wearing straight-cut jeans and a polo shirt. He’s squinting into the sun and apparently hasn’t seen me yet.

  He looks so sad.

  My heart drops into my toes, and I’m suddenly wishing I didn’t just wear my usual jeans and a T-shirt today. If you’re going to be dumped, you should at least make the guy pause long enough to wonder if he’ll regret it. My thoughts, anyway.

  I take a deep breath and say the fastest prayer of my whole life. Lord, please help.

  Then I muster whatever courage I can get from the depths of my intestines and keep walking.

  He finally sees me when I get about two yards away. He hops off the step. “Oh! Hi, Paige.”

  “Hey, Tyler.” I clear my throat. “Have you . . . uh, been waiting long?”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Tyler shakes his head. “Just a few minutes, actually. Here, um, let me help you.” He takes all of the grocery bags and lets me walk up the stairs empty-handed.

  “Thanks.” I unlock my door and let him in.

  He sets all the bags on the kitchen counter and then scoots quickly around me, standing awkwardly by the high counter that splits the living room and the kitchen. He’s quiet while I start unloading the groceries into the fridge and pantry.

  “So,” I say, mentally thumbing through every possible topic we could talk about. “How is work?”

  Well. That was a lame one to end up on.

  He lets this little tiny breath out like he knows this is terribly awkward, and I’m just waiting for his “Sorry, Paige, but obviously this hasn’t been working for a while and I think it’s best if we just go back to being friends” speech.

  Like that ever happens.

  I have never personally known anyone who has dated someone and then remained friends after they broke up.

  “It’s fine,” Tyler says in response to my question. “It’s finally slowing down. I just finished the last of my big proposals that were due this afternoon, actually.”

  “Oh good.”

  And there is our conversation. This is like talking to Peter.

  No, strike that. At least when I’m attempting a conversation with Layla’s fiancé, I’m not fighting off tears or feeling like I might throw up the huge knot in my stomach.

  Tyler watches as I put away the groceries. I shove the carton of milk in the fridge and shut it, and that’s when he pipes up.

  “Want to go for a walk?”

  Yep, I should just go ahead and change into my post-breakup sweats and start mixing the cookie dough. We have never gone for a walk before. Maybe if this was a normal thing, I wouldn’t worry, but let’s face it. We aren’t Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert. People don’t just take walks nowadays.

  Unless they want to break up with someone, not in that person’s apartment.

  I swallow. I might as well get this over with. I’ve been waiting for it all summer.

  “Sure,” I say in the tiniest voice possible, but it’s the best I can manage.

  “We can walk around Stonebriar.”

  I just look at him. “The mall?” I double-check because this is Tyler I’m talking to. The man avoids malls like I avoid jack-in-the-boxes.

  Those things will give me a heart attack someday.

  “It’s hot,” he offers.

  He is right. When I got home, the temperature gauge on my car dashboard said ninety degrees, and the weatherman mentioned last night that it was likely going to be upper nineties humidity today.

  It’s not the best day to be outside. Walking.

  But in outside’s favor, at least Tyler wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell whether I was crying or sweating when he breaks up with me.

  I nod, grab my purse, and follow him out the door, down the steps, and over to his truck. I kind of want to offer to drive myself so at least we don’t have the courtesy ride back home that will be awkward after he says his piece, but I bite my lip and climb into the passenger seat.

  We drive to the mall in total silence.

  Almost total silence. I guess he did ask me if I minded if he turned up the music.

  We get to the mall, walk inside, and the relief from the humidity is immediate. Stonebriar, for a Friday night, is fairly empty. We walk through a pet shop and look at all the puppies for sale that will not be coming home with me, then we glance in the windows through the rest of the stores.

  All in silence.

  I’m racking my brain, trying to come up with something to say because he obviously is putting off the inevitable. I kind of want him to just say it so I can leave this place, go home, and watch HGTV while I cry into a bowl of cookie dough.

  “So.” I finally come up with something to talk about. “Tell me about Stefanie’s baby.” Stefanie is Tyler’s younger sister who just had her first child. A little boy, if I remember right.

  “He’s really, really cute.” Tyler manages the smallest of smiles. “I mean, I figured he would be because Stef and Mason are both pretty attractive, but seriously, he’s definitely the cutest baby I’ve ever seen.”

  “How many babies have you seen?”

  He pauses, eyebrows knitting together as he thinks. “Unimportant,” he finally says.

  I wish I felt like laughing.

  We are passing a little area squared off with a love seat and two chairs. It’s an advertisement for some furniture store near the mall, but I imagine it’s usually populated with poor men dragged here by their wives and girlfriends. Tyler stops suddenly and nods to the love seat. “Do you mind?”

  I follow him over to the white leather love seat and sit down, fighting the urge to just keep walking and leave. The couch is comfy, but not as comfy as the couches I already own. And my couches were free.

  Well, for me. Not for my grandmother forty years ago.

  Maybe I should be in the market for some new furniture.

  I’m trying to distract myself and it’s not working. Tyler looks awful. He’s sitting there, hands clasped tightly together between his knees, biting his lip. His eyes are raw.

  “Thinking of buying a couch?” I ask Tyler because he still isn’t saying anything. I’ve only been to his apartment once, and it’s about as opposite of mine as you can get. While I tried to go for a homey feeling—adding pictures, staging the furniture, setting out a welcome mat and a wreath—Tyler’s house is basically bare. He’s got one very old black couch, and it’s plopped right in the middle of the room in front of the TV, which is sitting on an upside-down neon-orange eighteen-gallon plastic tub. And that’s it for living room furniture. No coffee table, no end tables, no bookshelves. Nothing.

  It’s no wonder he enjoys being at my apartment more.

  He looks over at me. “Why would I be looking for furniture? I’m good.”

  “Oh.”

  “You think I need new furniture?”

  “New implies that you started with some old stuff,” I tell him.

  “I have a couch.”

  “Right. And?”

  “And a TV.”

  I nod. “Okay. And?”

  “And what
else do I need?”

  Men. I give up and lean back against the couch, crossing my arms over my chest so my hands won’t shake so badly when he tells me the news.

  Just say it, Tyler.

  “I wonder what happens to couches after they are display pieces?”

  I try to think about that, watching a couple walk by pushing a very new baby in a stroller.

  I remember my mom telling me that the only place she went for weeks after I was born was to the mall to push me around in the stroller. “It was that or sit at home and sob,” Mom always said.

  My birth was apparently not a happy occasion.

  “We need to talk,” Tyler suddenly says.

  I look at him and his expression makes everything in my chest go very still. Here we go. I can’t even answer him. I just try to force my head to nod.

  He leans his elbows on his knees and looks at his hands. “Paige.” He glances over at me. “I’m . . . well, there’s something I’ve never told you about myself.”

  A million thoughts go through my head at once as I watch him nervously pick at a hangnail, his expression sad and serious: He doesn’t really like me after all. He’s got a prison record. He’s not really a computer-software engineer. He’s an operative for the CIA and he’s fallen in love with Sydney Bristow. He’s a recovering addict. He was formerly a female.

  I look at him again and give my head a slight shake, scratching that last one. I’ve seen all the extreme makeover shows on TV, and they don’t ever make people look quite as good as Tyler does.

  He clears his throat. “I didn’t become a Christian until college.” He talks so quietly I have trouble hearing what he’s saying with the loud ambient noise in the mall, so I lean a little closer to him.

  “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t raised to . . .” He sighs and rakes a hand through his curly blond hair. “I made mistakes.” He finally looks me in the eyes. His blue eyes are big, tortured. “Big ones. Particularly in the area of relationships.” He drops his gaze to his hands again.

  He looks so broken that my heart immediately aches for him. I want to reach out for his hand, but I don’t know if I should. So I sit quietly beside him and weave my hands together between my knees.