Paige Rewritten (9 page)

I drive home, park, run up the stairs to my apartment, replace the skirt and pretty top for jeans and a ragged T-shirt I've had since high school, grab my sneakers in one arm and a Lunchables and my Bible in the other, and run back down the stairs in my socks.

My mother spent years of her life telling me to take better care of my socks. “People will think you have no home,” she'd always tell me, pointing to my feet.

“What people, Mom?”

“EMTs. Emergency sorts. Anyone who would be looking through the wreckage to see if the poor girl in the accident has a family who needs to know what hospital she's at.”

Mom has a morbid sense of priorities.

My phone buzzes as I slide behind the wheel, and it's my mother. I love when I am thinking or talking about someone and they randomly call. It makes me want to declare myself a superhero, stop sleeping at night, and start wearing glasses during the day to hide my identity.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Hello, Daughter.”

“I was just thinking of you.”

“I guess an angel got its wings then.”

I turn the key in the ignition, frowning. “What?”

“Oh no, that's when a phone rings. No. Bells? Whistles? I don't know. Anyway, I was calling for a purpose beyond remembering lines from movies I haven't seen in years.”

I tuck the phone between my shoulder and my cheek while I back out. I love my mom.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Well, as you know, Preslee is staying here.”

Something freezes deep down near the base of my esophagus at the mention of my sister's name, but I keep swallowing, hoping I can thaw it out quickly.

“She mentioned that she saw you.”

“She did.”

“She said it was brief.”

“It was.”

“Well, that's what I want to fix. I know the past and I just want to remind you that Preslee hurt us as much as she hurt you. But I'm calling a truce. And I'm your mother and it's your duty to listen to me.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, knowing what is coming.

“We are having a family dinner on Sunday,” Mom says. “And you are going to be there. At four o'clock sharp because I know you have a long drive home. I don't care if you are mopping yourself up off the floor thanks to the flu. You'll be there. Okay, Paige?”

Mom is pulling out the big guns today. Rarely does she ever ask me to do anything and today she's not asking — she's demanding. I suddenly have a great deal of sympathy for the older brother of the prodigal son. No one ever cares about his side of the story.

“Yes, ma'am,” I mutter.

“Paige?”

“Yes, ma'am!” I say louder.

“Good. Now. What would you like me to make for dinner?”

“Traditionally, I believe it's supposed to be a fattened calf.”

“Sorry, honey, I lost you for a minute. You must be driving somewhere. What did you say?”

Probably is a good thing she didn't hear my sarcastic response. I clear my throat and put on a fake happy voice. “Whatever, Mom! I like all your meals.”

“Well, that's a statement that was born in the Falsehood Tree and hit every branch on its way out.”

“Okay, fine. All of your meals except for stroganoff.” Even saying the word makes my gag reflex act up a little bit.

“No stroganoff. Got it. I'll let you go. You shouldn't drive and talk on a cell phone anyway. Especially with the kind of socks you wear. Love you, sweetie.” She hangs up.

Only my mother can pay me a big, fat insult and then tell me she loves me in the same breath. My socks are fine at the moment, running through the parking lot notwithstanding.

I walk into the church and into the youth room, still carrying my shoes, Bible, and dinner.

“You are late,” Rick declares.

“Am not,” I say, sitting in one of the folding chairs.

“Are too. I have five thirty and forty two seconds.” He waves his phone at me.

I set everything in my lap and pull my phone out. “Five twenty-eight.” I wave my phone right back into his face.

Rick garumphs, which means I win. A good thing. Rick is mean to those who are late to the leaders meeting. Last week, he made Tyler walk across a littering of Legos barefoot.

That one hurt to watch.

Typically, Tyler is the only one who is ever late.

Tyler is in the chair beside me, early for once, and he grins at me. “Dinner?” he asks, nudging my arm.

“I always wanted these as a kid and my mother never bought them for me.” I push my shoes to the floor and rip open the Lunchables. “We're about to see if all the commercials were correct in that they are fulfilling and nutritious.”

“They are fulfilling. If you're five.”

Rick claps a hand. “All right. Order of business for tonight. Sam, the junior and senior guys are doing a project on Saturday, yes?”

“Yep.”

“Got enough chaperones?”

Sam shrugs. Sam is one of the most laid-back guys I've ever met. “Half of them are eighteen, Rick.”

“True point. Trevor, fill us in on the sophomores.”

We spend the next few minutes talking details about service projects, studies, and prayer requests the kids have. I eat my crackers, ham, and cheese in silence, trying to make it to the Oreos before it's time to pray and go mingle with the kids before the study officially starts for the night.

Two Oreos. I can't even remember the last time I ate only two Oreos.

Even after I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I still managed to eat three.

That's the reason I never buy packages of Oreos. I will polish them off in two days. I do not trust myself with them. And I don't have the energy to run the hundreds of miles it would take to burn them off. Or the time.

“Paige? Questions? Comments?” Rick looks at me.

“They only put two Oreos in my Lunchable.”

“That's because they are meant for children. Anything that applies to this discussion?”

“It's not all it's cracked up to be.”

“The Oreos?”

“The Lunchable.”

Rick just looks at me and I start on the Oreos. “That's all I had to comment on.”

Tyler looks amused.

Rick just rolls his eyes. “And with that, let's pray.” He prays something short and sweet and then we head out to the foyer to mingle with the kids already congregating.

I spend the next hour teaching the girls about love. We are starting a new series on the fruit of the Spirit, and I'm going to regret being the teacher for it, seeing as how the opening chapter Rick wrote says this:

People use the word
love
to describe many things, but to see what love really, truly means, we have only to look to the Cross and who hung there. Love is sacrifice. Love is being willing to put others first. Love is putting wrongs behind us and turning to the future.

I am not so fond of that last sentence. Especially with my mandatory dinner with Preslee and my parents coming up.

One of my girls, Nichole, raises her hand. Nichole and I still try to meet weekly, though lately it's been more like every other week. She moved here with her mom after her parents' divorce.

“So, the whole putting things in the past …,” she says.

“Yes, Nichole?”

“What does that mean? I mean, my dad left us for his secretary. So should I just move on like he never did anything wrong?”

Twelve pairs of eyes stare at me.

I hate teaching the girls. They ask hard questions.

I rub my cheek and pray that God gives me both grace and wisdom. “No,” I say slowly. I squint at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what is in my head so I can put it into words.

“I think there is a difference between forgiveness and forgetting.” I pray my interpretation of the Bible is in fact biblical. “You can forgive someone without forgetting what he's done.”

They all just look at me, and I see no connections happening.

“For example,” I continue. “Nichole, you're right. Your dad sinned against you. And you should forgive him. You should give all the hurt and pain and anger to Jesus. But you will always remember what he did. It's just choosing how you will react to him now.”

Every word I'm saying is turning into a pocketknife the second it leaves my lips, flipping around 180 degrees and slamming right into my chest.

Teaching is painful when you haven't come to grips with the subject.

“What about the whole like, ‘forgive and forget'?” Tanya asks.

“
God
forgives and forgets. We forgive and move on. I'll use another example. Let's say you are in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend, so you break up with him. You can forgive him. You should forgive him. But I would never counsel you to forget what he did and start dating him again.” I rub my forehead, wincing. “Does that all make sense?”

Twelve heads start nodding like an audience of bobble-head dolls, and I start seeing some pistons firing in their eyes.

“Sooo …” Nichole says, drawing the word out, still some confusion in her expression. “I should forgive my dad, but I shouldn't trust him again?”

I sigh. “Here's what I'm saying. Remember that verse, ‘Shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves'?”

The bobble heads are back.

“I'm just saying be wise. You might someday be able to trust your dad again. Be gentle with him. Encourage him to turn back to the Lord. But be wise with yourself. Don't put yourself in a situation where you could get hurt again too soon.”

She nods. “Okay.”

“Okay. I think we're done here.” I'm so physically battered and emotionally spent, I couldn't keep teaching even if we weren't done. I take prayer requests, writing them in my teaching binder so I can pray for the girls over the week, pray a blanket prayer for tonight since God knows all anyway, and dismiss them into the youth room for snacks.

I just sit there for a few minutes, thinking over what I said, thinking over what the lesson said, thinking over the list of wrongs longer than my leg done against me by two people in particular.

Tyler pokes his head in the half-open door. “You okay in here?”

“I need EMS.”

“Early Morning Syndrome? You don't want it.”

“Emergency Medical Services.”

“That's only in Canada. We refer to them as EMTs here. Welcome to Texas.” He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Tough group?”

“Tough lesson.”

“Better that than the other. My guys must have been drinking Red Bulls all day. I finally told them I was going to make them sing karaoke during snack time, singing only songs about love, or they were going to sit down, shut up, listen, and answer the questions.”

“You told them to shut up and answer questions? Aren't those mutually exclusive?”

Tyler shakes his head. “You were
that
kid in school.”

He holds out a hand and helps me up off the floor. “I think I saw Allison's mom handing her a grocery bag full of Nutter Butters to bring for a snack,” he says quietly as we walk out the door. “Make time, Paige.”

As a general rule, I prefer Oreos, but Nutter Butters are a very close second when it comes to junk food. Followed by Skittles.

We hurry into the youth room and snag a few cookies before the senior guys' group gets out. They are notorious for walking in this room, breathing in, and leaving the place completely void of edibles. One time I followed them in and one guy had even tried to eat Natalie's pumpkin-scented lotion on a graham cracker.

Boys are gross.

“So when is our next movie night, Paige?” one of the high school girls asks me, crunching a Nutter Butter.

“Yeah!” “Yeah!” “I was wondering that too!”

Suddenly I am surrounded. A few months ago, we started an informal movie night at my apartment every so often. The girls wanted it to be once a week.

I was envisioning more of a once-a-month thing, especially seeing as every time they come over, I have to spend the following Saturday morning cleaning.

“Not sure.” I try to be all nonchalant about it. I once asked if anyone else wanted to host it but was quickly assured that having the movie night in a cramped apartment was way more cool.

Ah, to be young and think crappy apartments are cool again.

“Well, we should do it soon. It's been a long time” is met by a bunch more enthusiastic “yeahs.”

I finagle my way out of the mob and Rick walks past me, heading for the snack table. “You could be paid for that,” he singsongs as he walks.

“Paid for what?”

“And this,” he says, drawing the word out in a falsetto that makes the inside of my eardrums ache.

“Listening to you sing?”

“No. Movie nights. Nutter Butter consumption. Bible studies.” He crunches a cookie and grins at me. “The ever-changing and joyous company of Yours Truly. All a part of the job I am humbly offering to you.”

So not only would I be teaching Bible studies that stab me in the chest, I'd be accepting a paycheck for doing so.

I can't decide if that makes it better or worse. At least I could afford EMS.

Or the EMTs. Whatever.

On
Flashpoint
they call them EMS. Any knowledge I have of emergency services is from movies and TV shows, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. I've never even sat in an emergency room waiting room before. Not for myself. Not for someone else.

I think that is considered a good thing, no matter what country you're in.

“I'll think about it,” I say, just to get him to change the subject.

“Yes! Thank You, Jesus, she's thinking about it!” Rick yells, raising his hands in victory fists.

Rick's outbursts are normal. No one even looks in our direction. They just keep talking and eating cookies, chatting with their friends.

“You are obnoxious.”

“All a part of my joyous company.”

“What's she thinking about?” Tyler asks, coming over, holding a half-empty Nalgene water bottle. I always wished I was sporty enough not to look completely ridiculous holding one of those. Tyler looks good with it. I believe he can suddenly pack up everything he owns into a single backpack and start walking across the mountains, fleeing the Nazis or whatever while a bunch of nuns sing a song for him.