Paige Rewritten (8 page)

Natalie finally pulls the bread from the oven and puts the pot roast on a platter. We pray and I start pulling off the tender meat, slicing it onto the plates, and adding scoops of potatoes and carrots.

“Going to set her down to eat?” Natalie asks Rick.

He shrugs. “I can eat one-handed.”

Rick is softening and I love it.

“So,” Natalie says to me, chewing a bite of bread. “Tell me about your huge personal problems that have nothing to do with monthly visitors.”

I growl into my delicious dinner. “Ugh. Don't ask.”

“I already did.”

I was still dating Luke when I moved here for college, but it ended fairly soon after. I wasn't super close with Rick and Natalie then. They were spared a lot of the drama.

“This guy I used to date is back in town,” I say.

“Please tell me it's not Michael the Martian,” Rick says around a bite of pot roast.

“That's not very nice, and no.” Michael was a little too into space-related things. On our first date, he took me to the planetarium. Which sounds romantic until he made me sit through a four-hour discussion on whether or not some comet's tail was long enough to be considered a comet.

Or something like that. I think I nodded off six times that night.

“Who?” Natalie asks.

“Luke. And uh, I don't know if you remember or not, but he's also Layla's older brother.”

Natalie swallows and squints at Rick. “I kind of remember that. Tall guy. Dark hair. Really cute?”

I nod.

“I don't see the big deal,” Rick says.

“That's so awkward,” Natalie says at the same time. She frowns at Rick. “Seriously?”

“What? They're adults. It was what? Five years ago?”

“Around there.” I nod.

“Eh.” Rick shrugs. “
Hakuna matata
.”

I look at Natalie as she shakes her head while stabbing a carrot. “I'm seeing now why he needs me to counsel the kids,” I tell her.

“No sympathy. No sympathy. Want to know what his Bible college professors said would be his biggest weakness?”

“I'm going to assume the no sympathy.”

“No sympathy.” Natalie is stuck on repeat. “They said, ‘Rick, you've got to learn how to have some sympathy as a youth pastor.'”

“Hey,” Rick says, rising to his own defense. “I have sympathy. In certain cases.”

“Like what?”

“Look.” Suddenly Rick changes into Pastoral Rick. You can see the change like it's physical. His shoulders get straighter, his posture gets better, his voice gets deeper and more thoughtful.

It's very weird, honestly. I glance over at Natalie and she's just leveling Rick with a look of annoyance.

“There is a big difference between sympathy and compassion,” he states. “I have compassion. I have compassion in abundance. But I do not think sympathy is as much of a biblical character trait as others might think.”

“Therefore you don't need it,” Natalie says.

“Exactly.”

She is quiet for a minute, chewing a bite of potato. “Our kids are so going to favor me.”

I'm pretty sure I snorted up some of the carrot.

I get home late. Typical for a night over at Rick and Natalie's. We always end up getting on some random conversation train, and before I know it, it's way past my bedtime.

I climb the stairs wearily, unlock my apartment door, and then lock it behind me. I'd left a lamp on in the living room so I wouldn't be coming home to a dark house.

That creeps me out to no end.

I hurry through my nighttime routine and climb into bed ten minutes later, yawning. I pull my Bible over and on my way to Galatians, I end up in Psalms. I am a big fan of this book of the Bible. There aren't too many other places where the writer just lashes out about everything to God and then praises Him with the next sentence.

Something about that just really appeals to me right now.

I still haven't read Preslee's note. I moved it to six different places around the apartment, and it finally ended up on my bedside table. I look at it, frowning, and look back at the Bible.

Maybe I need a little preface to tonight's Bible reading.

I bite my bottom lip, take a deep breath, and pull over the cream-colored envelope. She scrawled
Paige
across the front in her distinctive chicken scratch. I can recognize Preslee's handwriting anywhere.

I open the envelope and slide out a little folded note card, taking another deep breath, my lungs tight.

Paige,

Happy birthday, sister. I know this is a shock to have me here, to have me this close to home. Honestly, I am shocked as well.

I know I made your life and Mom and Dad's lives miserable. I know I wasn't the little sister I could have been. I missed birthdays, I missed Christmases. I missed Mom and Dad's twenty-fifth anniversary. You have no idea how much I wish I could get those back.

I'm sorry, Paige. I don't know any other way to say it, but please know I mean this with all my heart. I am so sorry. I hope someday you can forgive me.

I love you, sister.

Preslee

Tears burn the backs of my eyes when I close the card.
Sister.
The word should mean so much more to me. Something along the song in
White Christmas
. Like matching blue dresses and peacock feathers and piano music and tap dancing.

It doesn't bring up any feelings of happiness in me at all.

There was a point when Preslee and I were close. When I was in middle school and she was in elementary school, we did everything together. I was the cool big sister who got to have her ears pierced, and Preslee idolized me.

She started getting mixed up with the wrong crowd in late middle school, and by sophomore year in high school, she was pretty much as far down the path as she could get.

Or so we thought.

I rub my eyes and look back at the Bible verses swimming in front of me. Psalm 27 catches my attention.

“When You said, ‘Seek My face,' my heart said to You,
‘
Your face, O L
ORD
, I shall seek.'”

I could feel it now. The gentle longing. The whisper.

Seek My face, Paige
.

I'm trying, Lord. Show me how
.

Chapter

7

W
ednesday morning.

Eleven o'clock.

I have now answered the phone sixteen times. Eight were potential adoptive parents. Two were potential birth mothers. The other six were all Mark's wife because he apparently left his cell phone at home, and this was just not acceptable.

The phone rings again and I don't recognize the number on the caller ID. Part of me is relieved not to have to talk to Mark's wife again. I like Cindy most of the time. I don't necessarily like her on days when she is feeling clingy and I'm the one standing between her and her husband.

Or sitting, rather.

“Thank you for calling Lawman Adoption Agency, this is Paige, how may I help you?” I say this phrase so often, I've answered my cell phone like this without even realizing it until my mother started laughing.

“Hi, um yes, I'm assuming I'm calling the right place.”

I immediately take in the nervousness, the approximate age, and the way she's phrasing her sentence. Potential adoptive mother.

I grab the appropriate notebook to start writing down notes. Mark likes to have first impressions of both the adoptive and birth parents. “What can I help you with?”

“My husband and I are looking to get some information on adoption.”

I smile to myself. Score for me.

“I'd love to give you some info, Mrs. um …” Kind of my informal way of saying, “Name please.”

“Oh, it's Tammy.”

I end up talking to Tammy for over an hour, going over fees, legal questions she has, and then she just starts talking about how long they have been trying and hoping for a baby.

“We've spent thousands and thousands of dollars on very expensive medical treatment to help us get pregnant and nothing worked,” she says, tears in her voice. “This is our last hope for having a family, Paige.”

My heart hurts for her. What I want to say is “Don't give up hope. God has a plan for you.” But this is a place of business and I can't talk to the clients about God. So I just say, “Don't give up hope, Tammy.”

It sounds about as reassuring as a five-dollar bill not backed by anything substantial.

I hang up a few minutes later, ready for my later lunch. Peggy comes down the hall, holding a Tupperware dish filled with some kind of bean salad. “Long conversation there, Paige. I've got nothing to teach her at the orientation meeting now.” She grins at me, poking a fork into her dish and leaning against my desk.

I shrug. “I just tell everyone the basics.”

“You're going to make a good counselor someday.”

I sigh. “Not if Mark has anything to say about it.” I tell her about the pay raise and she nods.

“I know. He asked me and Candace for opinions on that too.”

I pull my lunch out of the drawer with my purse and look at Peggy. “And you said that was a good idea?”

“It's a pay raise, Paige. Most people don't complain about raises.”

I dig my peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of the plastic baggie. I'm not sure what I'm upset about. Everyone seems to think this is a good idea.

Except me.

Well and Rick. But he has ulterior motives.

I think Peggy can tell I don't want to talk about it, so she changes the subject, leaning back against my desk while she pokes at her salad with her fork. “So, how's it going with Tyler?”

Peggy and Candace are all for Tyler. According to them, I usually only date needy, weird men so they think Tyler is an angel from heaven.

“It's fine.” I think it's fine anyway. It's a little sticky with Luke being back in town, but I'm not going to say a word about Luke to Peggy. Lunch on Sunday was bad enough. I'm not necessarily in the mood to relive it.

Plus, I don't have time for a psychoanalyzation from my friendly counselor coworkers today.

“Fine. Hmm.”

“Peggy.”

“Paige.”

“Stop,” I command her, looking her in the eye. “It's fine. No reading into it.”

“It's just that —”

“It's
fine
.”

She looks at me, takes a bite of her salad, and then nods. “All right then. Whatever you say. I'm heading back to work.”

She walks down the hall and I feel incredibly guilty for not wanting to talk about it. Then I feel justified because I had to go through a very long few months to learn how to say no. Then I feel awful again because, dang it, I was born with a very healthy guilt complex.

I stand, slink down the hall, and tap on her door. She's sitting at her desk, looking at a laptop.

“I'm sorry,” I say. She looks up and smiles at me.

“You don't have to apologize, Paige. It's your business. Frankly, I'm just glad to see you've started telling people no.”

“Well, anyway. I didn't mean to be rude.”

“You're fine. I'm glad everything seems to be going well with Tyler. You deserve a good man.”

I kind of nod at her, smile, and go back to my desk, thinking about that. A good man. Tyler is definitely a good man. He was even very gracious to Luke at lunch on Sunday, though Luke kept bringing up memories he had of when he and I were dating.

“Oh,” he interjected into the conversation, laughing. “Paige, do you remember when we went to that coffee shop, and the waiter gave you the tea latte on accident and you said you didn't think you'd be able to even
chai
to force it down?” He laughed. “Didn't they rename the drink after you because of that response?”

I sigh now, raking my hands back through my hair that is still in desperate need of a cut. I glance at the clock. I still have five minutes in my lunch break. Time to call my regular salon.

“Ramona's,” a receptionist answers.

“I need to schedule an appointment with Carla.”

“Okay. Her first available is on Monday at five thirty.”

“Great, thanks.” I tell the girl my name and number and hang up, feeling like I've at least accomplished something for myself today. I haven't had a haircut in six months.

Six months is too long to go between haircuts. If I go any longer, they'll make me go to the new pet salon instead of my stylist.

Five o'clock finally comes and I grab my purse and run for the door. Wednesdays are long days. I only have a few minutes to get from work to home, change, and grab something for dinner, and then head from home to church to teach the ninth-grade girls' small group.

I actually really enjoy it. It's one of the few activities I didn't cut out when I went on my rampage against all my obligations a little while ago.