Paige Rewritten (20 page)

“Well, my point is that I don't even know Preslee anymore. She's a completely different person than she was five years ago.”

“So get to know her.”

That wasn't necessarily the answer I was looking for.

“Look, Paige, I can appreciate that she hurt you deeply, but look at it from her side. If you had done something awful against me and I wouldn't forgive you, how would that make you feel?”

I really don't like talking to Tyler sometimes.

I sigh again. “Not good.”

“So. Get to know her. What can it hurt? She lives close enough that you could easily meet halfway to get coffee or something.”

I think through that. Coffee. Alone with Preslee.

It sounds terrifying.

“I don't know, Tyler,” I say, slowly.

“It's your call. I'm just saying to think about it. Well. I'll let you focus on your driving. Want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Can we not talk about Preslee?”

I hear his gentle laugh. “Sure.”

“Then yes.”

“Drive safe, Paige.”

I hang up and toss my phone back on the passenger seat, thinking.

Preslee.

A potential job with Rick.

Luke.

I rub my head, crank the radio, and then grip the steering wheel with both hands. And then I try with everything in me to focus my aching head on the song blaring over the speakers.

Chapter

15

T
he week drags by.

And not just because somehow this ended up being the week when every mundane task that my job could possibly have ended up all together.

I sigh at my work computer again.

“Bad day?” Candace asks, walking by. She's carrying a bag of carrot sticks.

“Whose wedding?” I ask her instead, trying to take the focus off me and my sad problems. I have another job offer, my estranged sister wants me to be in her wedding, and hey, hey, my ex-boyfriend's back.

And I have nine hundred bills to write checks for and process in the agency's online budgeting system.

Hip hip hooray.

Candace shakes her head slightly. “Bar mitzvah. Friend of Bob's son.”

“Isn't Bob's son your son?”

She frowns and looks at the ceiling tracing invisible lines with her finger. “A friend of Bob's from work, it's his son.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Too many trails there. Anyhow, I've got to fit back into The Dress.”

I grin. Candace has one dress she wears to every wedding, funeral, and apparently bar mitzvah she goes to. And she goes to a lot of events.

“When is it?” I ask.

“Saturday.”

Today is Thursday. But considering that Candace has been on some sort of diet since January, I'm not real concerned. She and Peggy are constantly going on some new fad diet. No meat and all vegetables. No dairy and all meat. No carbs and all proteins.

It gets hard to keep track of, so I've just stopped offering cookies when I bring them into work and set them on the desk. If people want one, they'll come get one.

Mark, however, is always up for cookies. Cookies and Sonic tater tots.

I look at the clock on my computer, waiting for the inevitable Thursday “Oh, Paige, could you run to Sonic?” question that is likely coming.

It would be a welcome relief from writing all these checks.

Unless my name is in the “To” line, I'm not that fond of check writing.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, after Candace has gone back down the hall, Mark comes out of his office, walks over to my desk, and looks around at the stuff on it. “What are you up to, Paige?”

Mark, in general, is a very good boss. He does his work; I do mine. He doesn't look over my shoulder, and he doesn't call me on the weekends. I feel like we have a good working relationship, and if all I wanted out of life was to be a secretary, I think we could probably work together for the next twenty years without any problems.

“Bills,” I say, trying to keep the moaning out of my voice. I am semisuccessful.

He grins at me. “Want to take a break?”

“What do you want this week?” I reach for a Post-it note.

“How about the double cheeseburger and a Diet Coke? With tots, of course. And get something for yourself.” He lays a ten and a five on the desk, and I look up at him, shaking my head.

“It's fine, Mark, I brought my own lunch.”

He shrugs. “You've been running to Sonic for me for the last … how long have you worked here?”

I smile.

“Get yourself lunch. Sheesh. It's the absolute least I can do.”

Sometimes I think Mark picks up on my I'm-not-exactly-content-being-a-secretary vibe.

Thus the raise. And the free lunch.

My bagged salad can definitely wait. There is not much better or worse for you in life than a Sonic cheeseburger, tots, and a cherry limeade.

There's no sense in asking Peggy or Candace if they want anything because both of them always say no.

Peggy just waves her hand at me when I stick my head through her door. “Begone, temptress, I'm saving myself for Christmas pecan pie.”

“But Peggy, Christmas is like seven months away.”

“When you are old and gain weight just by looking at a picture in a magazine, you can come talk to me about all the buts.”

I smirk. “The butts?”

“Go.” She points to the hallway.

Candace just sighs at her carrot sticks and then hands me a couple of dollars and asks for a Diet Coke. “Just a small one.”

There is doubt ringing in her tone, so I know if I don't bring back at least a large, she'll be moping around here the rest of the afternoon.

I drive to Sonic and there's a line all the way around the building. I'm craning my head out the window, trying to see if they're offering free fries or something and that's why everyone has suddenly decided to risk coronary heart disease today.

I can't see anything so I just sit back in my seat and yawn, preparing myself for a long wait.

I pop open the console beside my seat, looking for the tin of mints I keep in the car, and that's when I see it.

My old planner.

I think I shoved it in here a while back when I finally stopped overscheduling myself and I could actually remember more of what I was supposed to do every week.

I pull it out and flip through it, sort of missing the feeling of it in my hands. It is really cute. I covered it in denim and added all kinds of fun appliqués to it, back when my sewing machine was new and I was experimenting.

I flip over to this week, the end of May, and there isn't anything written there since it's been several weeks since I scheduled anything.

Come to think of it, I have a couple of things I could write in here. I mean, it wasn't the planner that everyone was so upset about. It was that I barely had time to eat.

I find a pen in my purse and write down Saturday's end-of-the-year barbecue with the youth group. All that means is small groups are over for the summer. It has nothing to do with the activities of the youth group. If anything, Rick stays busier than ever during the summer.

Sunday, I am teaching the two-year-olds again. So I write that down.

Tonight I'm meeting with Nichole. She's been sick the last couple of times we were supposed to meet, something about allergies leading to bronchitis or something that just sounds miserable during the spring when everyone is supposed to finally be well again.

Tomorrow night I'm going to the baseball game with Tyler. He said he might ask Rick and Natalie if they want to come and bring Claire.

Yet more time for Rick to keep trying to convince me to come work at the church on yet another day when he could very easily win the argument after a day consisting of nothing but paperwork.

I am making a difference in people's lives, but it is the people at the power company for paying our bill and not making them come down to our office and shut off our power.

I guess in that sense, I am making a difference in Mark, Peggy, and Candace's lives too.

“Welcome to Sonic.” The voice on the other end of the speaker sounds about as content with his job as I am with mine, and I realize things could be worse.

At least I don't leave my job and smell like work the whole rest of the evening. People working here must hate the smell of tater tots.

What a terrible life.

Could you file a workman's comp claim for altered smell enjoyment?

“Hello?” the voice says.

“Oh, sorry.” I tell him my order and then wait to get to the window, then hand over Mark's and Candace's cash to a kid who doesn't look like he should be old enough to have a job.

“Here's your change. Let me get your drinks,” he says in a monotone.

This guy is too young to be so depressed.

“Long day?” I ask him when he hands me my cardboard drink carrier, full of three huge cups.

He just sighs. “The three cars before you all yelled at me that I wasn't going fast enough and that's why there is this huge wait. When really, it's that our grill randomly shuts off for no reason and wasn't working for about ten minutes.”

He must see the scared look cross my face as thoughts of death by salmonella found in a cheeseburger start cycling through my head because he starts talking faster. “But don't worry, we got it fixed and everything is cooking all the way through again.”

“That's good. Sorry about the yelling.”

He shrugs.

“So do you still like the smell of tots?” I ask him out of curiosity when he hands me the grease-stained paper sack with our food it.

“Not at all.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It comes with the job. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

I drive back to work, loving the smell of grease in my car right now, but when I walk back out to my car to leave tonight, the smell will make me want to puke and then wash out the pores on my face.

There's something about consuming a lot of oil that never sounds like such a good idea after you've already done it.

I park in front of the agency, carry the bag and drinks inside, disperse them around the office, and then go sit at my desk and stare at the online banking system yet again while I eat my tater tots.

The afternoon passes very slowly. I sit there in my chair, writing checks and answering the phone, thinking about how I am twenty-three years old and most likely developing the secretary spread as it relates to my lower half.

This is not good.

I always have these thoughts after an unhealthy lunch.

At four thirty, my phone buzzes with a text message. I glance over at it while pulling out a calculator.

H
EY
P
AIGE
. I
STARTED RUNNING ANOTHER FEVER TODAY
. W
ENT TO THE DOCTOR AND THE BRONCHITIS IS STILL THERE, SO THEY ARE GIVING ME A STEROID SHOT NOW.
N
OT GOING TO MAKE IT TO COFFEE TONIGHT AGAIN.

Poor Nichole.

I write her back quickly. Mark doesn't care about cell phone use at the office as long as it's not constant or in front of clients. At this moment, there's no one in the front room except me.

S
O BUMMED TO HEAR THAT!
P
RAYING YOU FEEL BETTER SOON!!

For some reason, I always become very fond of the exclamation point and smileys when I text.

I leave the office right at five, not wanting to see another decimal point for as long as I live or at least until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.

I call Layla as I climb into my car. A wave of stale tater-tot smell runs for freedom when I open the door.

“Nichole is still sick and I need something healthy for dinner,” I tell her when she answers. “I'm going to that new salad-bar place.”

“You know, they say that the average salad in one of those self-serve places contains over two thousand calories,” she says.

“Who is they?”

“I don't know.
They
. The invisible people who tell us poor ignorants how to live.”