Paige Rewritten (22 page)

Before Natalie was pregnant with Claire, Natalie drove a really cute little blue Mustang. It was likely the best youth pastor's wife's car ever. But when they got pregnant and Natalie started having trouble getting in and out of the car with her big belly and they started thinking about how fun it would be trying to get a baby car seat in the back, they sold the Mustang and bought one of those crossover SUVs.

I think it still brings tears to Natalie's eyes when she thinks of it.

Regardless, it's not a minivan and that seemed to be the biggest issue. I remember being at their house for dinner when Rick casually suggested they look into a minivan. “I am
not
going to drive one of those,” Natalie said, hyperventilating. “You would have to kill me and stuff me to get me in there, and I guarantee that my corpse would still fight you the whole way into that van.”

Rick is in the driver's seat and Natalie waves at me through the windshield from the passenger seat. “Hi, Paige!” she says as Tyler opens the driver's side back door for me.

“Hey, guys.” Looks like we'll be on either side of Claire. I squeeze the baby's foot. “Hi, Clairey girl! How's life this week?”

The baby just blinks at me, cheeks moving lightly as she sucks on her pacifier.

“She's decided to just not waste any time with those little dribbly spit-ups and go straight to full-force projectiles,” Natalie says from the front seat.

“My daughter,” Rick says proudly, driving out of the parking lot. “We aren't raising a little sissy girl over here, folks.”

I look at the baby, who is developing some really cute, little round cheeks and she's now got some blonde wispy hair around her head. “She looks pretty girly to me, Rick.”

“She can be girly. I just want boys to be scared of her.”

Tyler grins. “Ah, what every girl hopes her father says about her.”

We drive to the baseball stadium and Rick tells us about the summer program he's got coming up for the kids. “Well, the first Saturday after Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to start a new thing on Saturday mornings I'm calling Doughnuts and Da Word and we're going to start going through the Psalms of Ascent. Two a week for seven weeks.”

I laugh. “Why not like, Doughnuts and David or something, so you could still be grammatically correct?”

Natalie looks back at me. “See? Rick needs you, Paige.”

“I need you, Paige,” Rick echoes.

I just shake my head and shrug it off, but Nichole's mom's words float through my head again and so does the warm feeling I got in my chest when I talked with her.

Rick parks about eight blocks away from the baseball stadium in the closest parking spot we can find and we all unload. Tyler and I watch as Rick and Natalie pull about eighteen bags out of the car and start strapping them on.

“What in the world are you bringing?” Tyler asks.

“The essentials, man.”

“Your daughter requires a lot of things.”

Natalie unrolls a huge piece of fabric and starts twisting it around herself until I recognize the Jedi Knight thing she had on for dinner a few weeks ago. She slides Claire into it and then looks at Rick.

“Diapers?”

Rick nods. “Check.”

“Wipes?”

“Check.”

“Extra paci?”

“Check.”

“Toys?”

“Um …” Rick looks through one of the bags he's carrying. “Got a set of plastic car keys and an elephant teether.”

“That's fine.”

“Food?” Rick looks pointedly at Natalie's chest.

I grin. Tyler flushes.

“Time to start walking,” he says.

We hike up to the baseball stadium and by the time we get there, I'm beet red and exhausted. The game has already started, so at least we aren't fighting a crowd to get in the gates.

“I'm getting a hot dog,” Rick declares as soon as we reach our seats and he deposits his bags. “Want anything, babe?”

Natalie shakes her head, sweat glistening on her temples. “No thanks.” She fans her face and sighs. “It is like 112 degrees inside this wrap.”

Claire looks content, though. She's completely passed out. Either sleeping or unconscious from heat exhaustion, but I guess Natalie's convinced she's fine.

Tyler goes with Rick to get food and I settle into my seat by Natalie.

“I like him,” Natalie says.

“Your husband? I've heard that makes the home life better,” I say.

“No. Well, I mean, yes, I like him too, but I was talking about Tyler.”

“Oh.” I nod. “Me too.”

“How are things?”

Apparently we have reached the point in the number of times we've been seen together that people now feel the need to ask us how the relationship is going. I look at her and shrug. “We still haven't defined anything, if that's what you're asking.”

“Sheesh. Boys these days are just slow as Christmas.” Natalie digs a piece of paper out of her purse to fan herself with.

Something happens on the field and everyone except me and Natalie goes crazy in the stands.

“Did you see anything?” she asks me.

“Nope. That lady over there with the blue hair distracted me.” She looks similar to Thing One and part of me wonders if maybe baseball games are supposed to be attended in costume. Sort of like a backward version of horse racing.

“Oh. I was looking at that guy a few rows down.” She lowers her voice and tries to point all discreetly. “That's totally what Elvis would look like if he were alive today.”

If I were my grandmother, I would say,
“If?!”

But I'm not, so I just grin, because she's right.

“Holy cow, it's like the world is running out of hot dogs.” Rick scoots through the seats and sea of legs to get back to us. “Or maybe these aren't 100 percent beef and in that case, holy half-ground-up pig parts.”

“Ew,” I say, trying not to gag as Tyler settles down in the chair next to me, holding a hot dog.

Natalie is apparently too used to Rick and his awful descriptions. “That smells good.”

“Which is why I went ahead and got you one, beautiful.” Rick hands her a hot dog slathered in mustard and relish. He looks over her at me. “And that, oh ignorant one, is what marriage is all about.”

“Hey, just because I'm not married I'm ignorant?”

“Yep. Rule of life, kid, rule of life.”

Tyler leans over and hands me a huge plate of nachos. “I figured you were probably more of a nacho girl.” He smiles sweetly at me.

He figured right.

I am touched.

“Thank you, Tyler,” I say. He didn't even put jalapeños on it. I have no idea why some people like to eat food that hurts, so I'm thankful he abstained.

The game is entertaining for about fifteen minutes and then after the ninety-seventh pitch to the same batter, I start to lose interest and get distracted by the crowd. A lady three rows down is doing a crossword puzzle, so I'm apparently not the only one here who isn't a big baseball fan.

Natalie elbows me sometime during the fourth inning. “How long do these things last?” she asks me in a low voice.

“Nine innings,” Tyler and Rick say together, eyes on the field.

“Thank you,
Paige
.” She sighs. “Man, we aren't even halfway there.” She elbows me again. “Want to play I Spy?”

“You must be torture on a road trip.” Tyler grins over at her.

“Hey! Wait until my husband comes to my defense.” Natalie pokes Rick in the arm.

“I don't know why you're poking me. He's the one who said it.” Rick rubs his bicep. “And it's not like he was telling a lie or something. You are torture to take on a road trip.”

Natalie narrows her eyes at Rick.

He returns her look steadily and just shrugs, then looks back at the game. “Sorry to burst your bubble. Asking ‘where are we' every twelve seconds doesn't qualify you as a good road tripper.”

“Yeah, well, you telling me ‘we're in the car' isn't helpful either,” Natalie says, using air quotes as she deepens her voice an octave.

I laugh. Tyler grins. Rick and Natalie have a way of making marriage look much less scary to me, somehow.

Rick pats his wife's knee. “How about some kettle popcorn?”

“That would be lovely.”

“Anyone need anything?” Rick asks us, standing.

“I would like chocolate ice cream.” I dig down in my purse for some cash, but Tyler puts a hand on my arm.

“I'll get it for you, Paige. I asked you to come here.” He stands as well. “Anything else?”

Someone in the row behind us hands Tyler a couple of dollars. “I'll take a water.”

I laugh. Tyler takes the money, half grinning. “Uh. Sure.”

They leave.

Natalie sighs, arches her back as best she can in the stadium chair with Claire strapped onto her chest, and looks at her watch. “Wow. She's sleeping really well. Apparently she likes baseball games.”

“Or she's just bored out of her mind.”

“Or that.”

The guys get back in about ten minutes. “One chocolate ice cream.” Tyler hands me a mini plastic baseball cap turned upside down with three huge scoops of ice cream inside.

“Holy smokes.” I gape at it. “I meant like one scoop.”

Tyler settles in the chair with another three scoops of mint chocolate-chip ice cream for himself and shrugs. “There was like a twenty-five cent price difference from one to three. I'll eat what you don't,” he says, passing me a spoon.

I watch Tyler take a bite of ice cream, waiting to see if he passes my eating-ice-cream-with-a-spoon test. He puts the whole spoon in his mouth and pulls it out clean.

Passed.

I absolutely, positively, cannot stand when someone puts a spoonful of ice cream or yogurt or whatever into their mouth and pulls it back out with some of the ice cream still on there.

Makes my stomach hurt even thinking about it.

“So, Paigey,” Rick says, crunching some of Natalie's kettle corn. “How long are you planning on thinking about this job offer?”

I sigh into my chocolate ice cream. “Rick.”

“No, I'm just curious. Because it is a real job, Paige. I really do need to hire some help and the church board just approved it. So, if you are thinking you'll be thinking about it for another year, I need to hire some help before then.”

I look over at him. “I need some hard numbers.”

“One million, seven hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and eleven divided by four hundred and sixty-two,” Rick says.

“What?”

“I'm giving you hard numbers.”

I rub my head. “I meant, I need to know specifics. How much does it pay, how many hours will I be working, and what all the job entails.”

“Well, honestly, a lot of what you already do now is part of the job. Teaching, leading a small group, meeting with girls … it'll basically be what you do right now but more of it.”

“And more of you,” Tyler says.

“Dude. That's the best part of the job.” Rick grins. He shrugs at me. “And we can talk money, but I remember you mentioned once what you made at the agency and let me just say, you'd be making the same, if not more.”

“And hours?” I ask.

“Forty a week. You can schedule them whenever you want to. If you want to work every night between six and two in the morning, I don't care.”

I eat my ice cream in silence for a few minutes, watching the pitcher throw pitch after pitch to the batter, and think.

“
And
,” Rick says, overannunciating the word, “you would get to be making a difference in girls' lives. You would be counseling, praying with the girls, and studying the Bible with the girls.”

That part sounds nice.

Natalie elbows Rick. “Honey. I think we got her.”

“Hush. You are breaking the spell,” Rick whispers loudly. “Dude, I am a genius for asking her over ice cream.”

Tyler laughs. I smile. “I can hear you, you idiot. The only part about this that concerns me is forty hours a week with you.”

Natalie grins. “It is a scary thought.”

“It wouldn't be all with me. You'd maybe spend ten hours a week with me. Maybe. Probably closer to five. We'll have a staff meeting once a week, and I'll see you on Wednesday nights, and then just if you need to do things in the church office.”

I keep eating my ice cream, thinking.

“Okay — ” I start.

“What?” Natalie gasps.

“Really?” Rick grins.

“You didn't let me finish.” I hold up my spoon. “I was saying, okay, can I give you my final decision this time in two weeks?”

Rick looks at me and nods. “Two Fridays from now. Why don't you come by the church office around five thirty or whenever you get off work?”

“I'll be there.”

I have a lot of praying to do between now and then.

I climb into bed at eleven o'clock. The game went into extra innings, something Natalie and I were just thrilled about. Poor little Claire just sat there, teary eyed with her bottom lip poking out, for the last twenty minutes of the game.