Miss Match: a Lauren Holbrook novel

by Erynn Mangum

  “No, sir. I’m demure.” I bat my eyelashes.

  “More coffee?” Man-in-Apron asks, pot poised.

  I smile up at him. “I like you.”

  He pours it, laughing.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Shawn Merson.”

  I point. “Like the Merson on the door?”

  “One and the same. And you are?”

  “I’m Laurie. This is Ryan.”

  He nods politely. “Well, I’m glad you came. Hope to see you around more often.”

  “Oh, trust me, Honey. You’ll see me more often than you’d like to.”

  He grins and leaves.

  Ryan looks at me. “You have the talent for making friends.”

  “Yes, but keeping them is a different matter.”

  “Ruby likes you.”

  “Correction. Ruby tolerates me. We haven’t reached the liking stage yet.”

  Ryan angles his head. “I don’t know, Laurie. She was ecstatic when she saw us holding hands at the studio.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve sometimes worried about Ruby’s brain. The lack of sugar can cause serious mental issues, you know.”

  Ryan shrugs. “She seems pretty coherent to me.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “Can I taste your cheesecake?”

  “Of course.”

  He takes a chunk from it, avoiding the nuts, I notice. “You don’t like pecans?”

  “Not at all.” He sticks the fork in his mouth, grimaces, and swallows a lot of coffee.

  Didn’t we just do this?

  He gasps. “You like things really sweet.”

  “Thus the reason I’ve never gotten a cat.”

  “I meant the food, Laurie.” He leans his elbows on the table. “Have you ever had a pet?”

  “In second grade I babysat a parrot for a man I met in the grocery store.”

  “Second grade?” Ryan is incredulous.

  “Yes, second grade. What the man didn’t tell me was that it was a permanent babysitting job because he moved and left the bird.”

  He starts laughing. “What’d you do with it?”

  “I kept it for a while. But it only knew three words and two of them I wasn’t allowed to say. Dad found someone who would take it, and we gave it to them.”

  Ryan grins. “Did you like having it?”

  “What I remember of it, I did. But Dad and Laney cleaned the cage, so my memories probably aren’t the full story. Lexi has a dog that we watch on occasion. Dad isn’t a big pet person.”

  We decide we will go to Vizzini’s for the Big Wednesday Date.

  “Bye, Shawn!” I call as we leave.

  He waves at me from behind the counter. “Bye, Laurie. See you later.”

  Ryan drops me off at my house, and I change into my favorite sweats and open the curriculum.

  Lesson 1: Apostleship

  Read Romans 1:1-7.

  I do it.

  I settle into the couch, Bible in my lap, the curriculum spread out on the cushions.

  I rub my head. Why did I ever consent to this?

  Woe is me.

  The first question in the curriculum catches my eye.

  “Paul was set apart by God. Do you believe everyone is set apart?”

  “Hey, Laurie!”

  “In the living room!” I yell.

  Brandon saunters in, carrying two extra-large coffees. He hands one to me, smiling. “Hey there, stranger.”

  “I love you, Brandon, you know that, right?” I take the coffee, pop off the plastic lid, and inhale the scent.

  “I know. What’re you up to?” He makes himself comfortable on the other sofa.

  “Small-group prep for the middle school girls. I need to have it done by tomorrow.” I sip my coffee. It isn’t quite as good as Merson’s, but it isn’t bad. I look at him. “Do you believe everyone is set apart by God?”

  “Would that be the same question as do you think everyone has a purpose defined by God?”

  Purpose. The word sets off a dinger in my brain, taking me back to those verses in Philippians. I think about it. “I guess so,” I answer him.

  “Yeah, I believe that.” He cradles his coffee against his chest with one hand and gestures with the other. “It’s the whole sovereignty of God thing we were talking about earlier, Nutsy.”

  I nod and make a note in the margin of the book, praying we are allowed to mark them up. Sovereignty of God.

  “So what do you think I’m set apart for?” I chew the end of the pen.

  “Coffee. Chocolate. Photography.” He shrugs. “Marriage, probably.”

  “Okay, hold up on that one.”

  “Junior high girls.”

  “I’m not getting married.”

  “Romantic comedies.”

  “Furthermore, I think you know that —”

  “Taking care of your dad.” He pauses. “And I heard from Ruby who heard from Nick that you and Ryan are going out on Wednesday.”

  “Yeah, well.” I rub my forehead, trying to come up with a good reply.

  Okay, never mind.

  “So what’s your defined purpose?” I ask.

  “Photography. Management. Baseball games.”

  “Taunting, ridiculing, and bringing coffee to poor, lack-of-caffeine-stricken young women.”

  “And Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “He talks like he’s got a mouthful of rock candy.”

  “I thought you liked accents.”

  “Pretty ones. Australian, for example.”

  He stands and pats my head.

  I bark.

  Rolling his eyes, he walks toward the front door. “Get to work!”

  I sit with my pen, lips pressed together. Set apart. It’s a cool concept, really. God works everything, including my life, to the purpose of His will.

  I smile and start writing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ryan holds the door for me as I climb into the passenger seat of his truck. It’s Wednesday night, and we’ve just finished eating at Vizzini’s.

  “What’s the best way for me to get to Nick’s house from here?” he asks, climbing behind the wheel.

  I point, which is useless because we’re still in the parking lot. “Take the first left and the next right.”

  “Left?”

  “Right.”

  Here’s what I will not grow up to become: A driving instructor.

  Ryan promptly takes the first right.

  I look at him. “What are you doing?”

  “You said right.”

  “I said left.”

  “No, I said left and then you said right.”

  “I was affirming the left.”

  “The left doesn’t need affirmation, just confirmation,” Ryan grouses, making a U-turn.

  “Is that a declaration?”

  “Laurie!”

  I hold my hands up surrender-style. “I’ll be quiet.”

  We pull onto Nick’s dimly lit, mass-murderer-hiding street and park behind a forest green SUV that belongs to the male half of Engaged Couple Number 6, nowhere near the street light and about forty blocks from Nick’s front door.

  Just goes to show what Ryan knows.

  Ryan opens my door. I grab my Bible and his arm and hustle him up the cul-de-sac to the front of Nick’s house.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “Fearsome creatures lurk in these parts.”

  “Here?” Ryan looks around. “This looks like a nice area of town. Needs better lighting.”

  “Shh.” I hold my finger to my lips. “You have to scurry inside or they’ll come out and eat you.”

  “Lead on, Gretel.”

  I open the front door and meet the deafening roar that generally accompanies the gathering of twenty or more singles in a very small house.

  And, by my quick calculations, more have joined our midst, because I don’t recognize a third of them.

  The couch is overflowing with bodie
s, the chairs are all occupied, and the floor is filling fast.

  “Grab a piece of carpet quick,” Ryan yells in my ear.

  “Roger.”

  “Actually, it’s Ryan.”

  I squish on the floor beside a blonde beauty wearing jeans, a white turtleneck, and a powder blue fleecy vest.

  “Hey, Laurie,” Hannah greets. Her smile widens. “Ryan.”

  Ryan plops to the floor, banging his elbow hard against my shoulder.

  “Ow,” I protest.

  He grimaces, rubbing his elbow. “Sorry. Hey, Hannah, how are you?”

  “A bit crowded.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A long pair of khaki-clad legs bumps into my knees. “Sorry ’bout that,” a collegian-looking guy says.

  I smile rather than try to reply.

  “Where are all these people from?” Ryan asks.

  “Who knows? Former felons, repentant hookers, clean drug dealers.” I shrug. “There are a lot of options.”

  “Hey, isn’t that Tina Braxton?” Hannah asks, pointing past three pairs of jeans and one skirt.

  I can recognize The Queen anywhere. “Yep.”

  “Where’s her gent?” Hannah scans the crowd.

  I crane my neck but can’t see past anyone’s waist. “I don’t know; wait until Nick makes them all sit down.”

  Above the roar, a loud voice shouts. “All right! Everyone find a seat!”

  Everyone begins the desperate search for a place to plant their heinies.

  A Guy in a Blue Shirt falls backward. Sadly, a much smaller Girl in a Red Shirt is behind him. Providentially, the staircase is behind her, so they don’t fall very far.

  Blue Shirt picks himself up by grabbing the banister and turns to help Red Shirt.

  “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” I see him mouth. He probably spoke out loud, but from my position it is hard to tell.

  “That’s okay,” she says, blushing.

  Well, what do you know.

  Blue Shirt pauses and helps her gather her Bible and then situates himself on the staircase right beside her, talking incessantly. Red Shirt is nodding, smiling, blushing, and nodding.

  What exactly, pray tell, are they going to relate to their kids one day?

  “No, actually, dear, I met your father when he knocked me flat at an overcrowded Bible study for singles, where we then became Engaged Couple Number 12.”

  Gee, how romantic.

  Whatever happened to the good ol’ Knight in Shining Armor encounter? Distressed Damsel gets saved by Shining Knight? None of this Damsel in Distress gets sacked by Shining Knight.

  It’s enough to make you want to stay single.

  The stairs fill faster than a tuna barge in the middle of trout season. The floor becomes the next victim, and by the time everyone has found a resting spot, I’m convinced it is going to be our final one.

  Ryan and Hannah are basically on top of me, a guy’s knees are wedged between my spinal vertebrae, I inhale a mouthful of the girl’s hair in front of me every time I take a breath, and all feeling in both of my feet ebbs into the deep recesses of Nick’s carpet.

  Singles’ class is not the place for claustrophobics.

  Stephen Weatherby, Cool, Collected, and Calm, despite the ensuing crisis of forty-nine people losing feeling in their limbs, sits in the one lone chair in the front. The chair does not have a reserved sign on it. However, no one touches it, and this is why: Lone chairs in the front of the class are predestined for musicians, and everyone who has ever been within fifty feet of a singles’ class knows this.

  Stephen lays his guitar over his right knee and balances it with his forearm. “Great to see all of you here tonight. Let’s begin with a word of prayer.”

  Nick usually says the opening prayer, but looking around, I don’t see him anywhere.

  Stephen prays a short, honest prayer and rubs his pick down the strings.

  Four songs later, Nick appears from the kitchen. His hair is combed, his clothes are pressed, his Bible is in its rightful place under his arm.

  But his eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed, and splintery.

  I close my own eyes in pain.

  Where is Ruby?

  “Open your Bibles with me to the beginning of 1 Corinthians 14, please,” he says, clearing his throat. The rustling and tha-whopping of sheets of paper follows. Nick coughs into his elbow, blinks repeatedly, and starts reading. “‘Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.’”

  He settles his Bible in the crook of his arm and looks up at all of us. “I see three things in this passage I would really like to expound on. First, that in our pursuit of love . . .” He pauses, a thought-frown settling between his eyebrows. “Be it a brotherly love as talked about in 1 John or a romantic love as spoken of in Ecclesiastes 9:9, that this pursuit should be characterized by strengthening each other in our walks, encouraging each other to godliness, and comforting each other with the truth found in the Word.”

  Nick teaches for thirty minutes, not looking much better at the end than at the beginning. As he calls for announcements, I almost feel the need to explain to the visiting masses that Nick does not typically look like he’s been on a drinking binge in the garage before coming in to preach.

  The moment the closing “amen” is said, everyone erupts from their seats like a school of fish in front of a shark. Everyone, that is, except Ryan and Hannah, who stay right where they are, pinning me down.

  “I liked that lesson,” Hannah says, swiping at her hair until it falls behind her ears in perfect waves.

  I nod quickly, pointing to the kitchen. “It was good. How about a snack?”

  “I liked the singing too. Must have a choir visiting.” Ryan stretches, but doesn’t move.

  “You know, I sensed chocolate when we came in.” I’m grasping now for any excuse to get them to move. “Let’s get up and find it.”

  “Come to think of it, the singing was better this week,” Hannah muses.

  Ryan nods. “Told ya, it’s a choir.”

  “Maybe,” Hannah says slowly. “Maybe everyone’s just more talented than we are.”

  “GET OFF!” I scream, jumping to my feet and pushing them to the floor.

  To quote one of my favorite children’s poems:

  Oh! Somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

  The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.

  And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

  But there is no sound in Singledom — Loud Lauren has snuffed it out.

  I may have doctored that just a little. My apologies to “Casey at the Bat.”

  The screaming is a bad idea for two reasons: First, because all forty-nine people shut up suddenly and stare directly at me; and second, because the feeling in my legs is still lost somewhere in Nick’s carpet and I promptly collapse right on top of Ryan.

  I right myself and smile sheepishly. “Sorry, claustrophobic.”

  No one laughs.

  The talking and mingling gradually make it back to their original volume. I cover my face.

  Ryan pats my shoulder, whether to comfort me or to disguise his laughter, I can’t tell. Then he gives me a shove and I tumble off his lap.

  Hannah grins at me unrepentantly. “You do know how to make an impression, don’t you, Lauren Holbrook?”

  I fall into bed later and tug the covers up around my waist as I lean against the pillows, Bible on my lap. How do I consistently do stupid things? You’d think that at some point the Clumsy Actions Vault inside my head would run empty and I’d mature into a twenty-three-year-old young woman rather than staying a twenty-three-year-old kid forever. God, how come I can’t be more graceful?

  I flip the pages to where I left off
in Ephesians 4, take one look at the verses, and immediately start laughing. Hard.

  My door opens suddenly. “Honey?” Dad asks, worry filtering through his eyes. He looks around, noticing the TV is off and I’m sitting on my bed with my Bible. The worry blossoms in his expression. “What are you doing?”

  “Just my devotions, Dad.” I temper the giggles and smile reassuringly. “Sorry to wake you up.”

  “You didn’t. I was going past your room to get a cup of tea.” He gives me a long look and slowly backs out. “Good night, Sweetheart.”

  “Night, Dad.”

  I look back at the Bible. “Be completely humble and gentle . . . until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature . . . then we will no longer be infants . . . we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

  Whoever said the Bible is not relevant for today or that God no longer speaks is insane.

  Ruby meets me at the door on Thursday morning. “Hey, Laurie.” Her eyes brim with . . . laughter?

  She heard about my Grand Exhibition. “Who told you?”

  “Hannah.”

  “Figures.” I drop my backpack into my assigned cubbyhole. “Where were you?”

  “My Aunt Barbara is getting married again on Sunday. I didn’t have anything to wear, so I went shopping.” She makes a face.

  I look at her. “Were you successful?”

  “No. What are you supposed to wear to your aunt’s sixth wedding?”

  “I don’t have any aunts.”

  “Consider yourself blessed.” She shakes her head. “Not really. Aunts are great — when they’re not getting married six times. And making me buy yet another dress.”

  “You still should have come last night. I could quote verses on materialism.”

  Ruby sighs. I dig a Milky Way out of one of my hiding places and start nibbling on it. Ruby watches, frowning. “Didn’t you just have breakfast?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but I’m still hungry.”

  “Well, what did you have?”

  “Coco-Odies.”

  She looks from the candy bar to my waist and lets out an exhale that sounds more like a growl. “How do you stay so thin?”

  “High metabolism. And you’re avoiding the subject.”

  Hannah comes out of Studio Two holding a talking Pooh bear. “Can I have this?” She cuddles it close.