Paige Rewritten (21 page)

“They can't be right this time, Layla. A salad should be like twelve calories.”

“It should be but I guess it's not. Something about the calories in the dressing. I think they were advertising for oil and vinegar instead.”

Ick. The thought of more oil is turning my stomach, particularly since I am now sitting in the grease-soaked air of my car.

“Well. Surely there are other options.”

“Don't call me Shirley. And I assume you are asking me to dinner,” she says.

“Well, you know what they say about assuming,” I tell her, clicking my seat belt.

“No, Paige. What do they say?”

I look out the windshield, bite my lip, and then shake my head. “That you, uh … shouldn't do it.”

“Well, that's a great saying.” I can hear the grin in her voice. “All right. Peter is watching Thursday night football anyway. Did you know it's on like nine nights a week now?”

Layla is fairly decent at math so I figure she's just making a point. Either that or I need to tell her that
someday
and
one day
are not part of the calendar week.

In my opinion, Sleeping Beauty should have been singing, “In April, when spring is here.”

Or was that Snow White?

Either way, it's beside the point.

“I'm heading there now,” I tell her.

“I'll get my shoes back on. See you soon.”

Ten minutes later, I'm loading a water-spotted plate onto a plastic tray and standing behind two people who are picking through every bowl of lettuce on the counter, while I listen as Layla tells me about her day.

“So, then, I called the caterer I really liked and of course she's booked until July six years from now or something insane like that and I was like, well, why did you have me taste your food in the first place if you knew I wasn't going to be able to use you for my wedding? And the lady's all, people have changed their wedding dates for me, missy, and I was like, yeah, that's not going to be me, ma'am.” She sighs and dumps a tongs full of romaine lettuce on her plate. “Is it just me or is that just ridiculous?”

I honestly got lost somewhere around the fourth comma, so I just nod. “Yep. Ridiculous.” Plus, I'm distracted by these people in front of me, who are now picking through all the cherry tomatoes looking for ones with absolutely no yellow on them.

If only I'd made that one yellow light, I could have beaten these people in line.

Should've gone with the V-6 instead of the V-4 like my dad recommended when I was shopping for my Camry.

“I know, right?” Layla picks her commentary right back up. “And then I called the church because we decided to just do the ceremony there, and I talked to Geraldine and of course they need our deposit like yesterday because apparently every other couple in our church who is currently engaged wants our weekend too and I'm like, look, Geraldine, I am at work right now and you'll be gone when I get off and you won't be there before I have to be at work tomorrow, so other than tossing my check into the offering plate and marking it
save the date
, I have no idea what to do. What do you think, Paige?”

Here's what I want to say: “Come on, people, it's a tiny bit of yellow and it's
fine
like that and it still tastes like a tomato!”

Here's what I do say: “That is an annoying problem, Layla.”

She just sighs and dumps a spoonful of cold peas on her lettuce, which I think is pretty nasty.

Peas should be hot.

My two cents.

“I'll just have to skip my lunch tomorrow and run it over to Geraldine then,” she says. “I had no idea October was going to be such a popular time to get married. What happened to the good old days when everyone got married in June?”

I shrug. “I like the idea of a fall wedding.”

“Oh, me too!” Layla is suddenly all smiles and wistfulness and she sighs all dewy eyed. “Won't it be the most beautiful wedding in the world?”

“I think Kate Middleton beat you to that one, Layla. Sorry.”

She shrugs. “Okay, other than that one.”

I grin.

We finally finish piling our plates full of salad toppings and I put the low-fat raspberry vinaigrette on my salad to compensate for the Sonic today.

We pay and find a booth in the back.

“So, wedding plans aren't coming as expected, huh?” I honestly haven't talked to her that much about the wedding, which is weird considering I'm the maid of honor. I think since I helped so much with her parents' anniversary party, Layla is very sensitive about not having me do work now.

Which is thoughtful but still weird. I am the maid of honor. I should be involved in the wedding.

I bite my lip thinking of Preslee and her question again.

“Eh.” Layla shrugs, putting a big forkful of salad in her mouth. “It's all right. Engagement sucks,” she says, after she finishes chewing. “Pardon my French.”

“I don't think that's a bad word, Layla.”

“My mother definitely washed my mouth out with soap at least once for saying that word. Anyway. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It just stresses me out. And who really needs embossed napkins, huh?”

Apparently, this is a question that needs an answer because she's looking at me expectantly. “I don't know,” I say. “People who don't remember what wedding they are at?”

“I mean, I don't necessarily like the idea of people rubbing their frosting-covered faces or blowing their noses into mine and Peter's names.” She stabs a cherry tomato in her frustration and it shoots off the table, skids across the floor, and winds up under a toddler's high chair. The toddler just blinks at us.

“Well. That was lucky,” I tell her.

“No more wedding talk. I'm tired of being engaged. You talk.”

I shrug. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“I don't know. Tyler. Luke. Preslee. Your potential new job.” She points her fork at my head. “You can start with telling me how you curled your hair today.”

“Same as I always do. I left the ends out of the curling iron though. I was going for the beachy look.” I rub my hair. “It looks okay?”

“I'm doing my hair like that tomorrow.”

It's a high compliment if style-savvy Layla wants to copy something I did on my person. Apartment décor is a different story. Layla doesn't believe in putting work into a temporary dwelling.

Meanwhile I have four different front door wreaths for the four different seasons, pictures up all over the walls, and I even talked my apartment manager into letting me paint one of the walls in my living room a chocolate brown, as long as I repaint it white before I move.

I've been there five years though. I think they're just happy I'm still buying into the illusion that an apartment is the lifestyle I want for myself, when really, I'm just not brave enough to buy an actual house by myself.

Being a single woman is hard.

Layla is looking at me, crunching her lettuce. “Well?”

“Hypothetically, if you weren't getting married, do you think we could live together?”

She chews her salad, motioning with her fork at me. “I can honestly say I never thought I would get propositioned at Fresh Choice from you, Paige Alder.”

“Come on.” I roll my eyes. “You know what I meant.”

“Like roommates? I don't know. For how long?”

“I don't know. What if we moved in together back when we first moved here for college?”

Layla purses her lips. “Mm. No. No, I don't think that would have been a good idea.”

“How come?”

“You would kill me.” She stabs another piece of lettuce. She chews it while she talks. “I would wake up in the morning and find you'd poisoned my cereal with a bottle of iocaine powder or something.”

“I don't think living with you would make me stoop to murder.”

“You can say that because you've never lived with me.”

“Do I need to warn Peter?”

She waves her fork. “Oh, I have. I have so many times that I think he's a little scared he's going to be living in that
So I Married An Axe Murderer
movie.”

“I never saw that.”

“Dude. It's terrible.”

I sigh. “Please don't start saying that.”

“Saying what? Dude?”

“Yes. Every single person in the youth group uses it like every other word. It makes me crazy.” I roll my eyes. “Even Tyler says it.”

“There was a nice little segue.” Layla grins. “How are things going with him?”

I shrug. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Layla just looks at me and frowns. “Fine?”

“Sure.”

“Fine is how you describe the weather or a dog or even a TV show that's just so-so. Fine is not how you should describe your boyfriend.”

I shrug again. “We've never officially said anything about making it official.”

“What?”

“I wouldn't say he's my boyfriend.”

“What would you say then?”

“I don't know.” I think about it, staring at the ceiling tiles. “I'm seeing him.”

“Like dead people?”

I give her a look worthy of that comment.

“No, like we see each other. Sometimes he comes over and we get dinner and watch a movie or, I don't know … he just hasn't ever clarified what we are doing.”

“And you haven't asked?”

“No.”

She shakes her head. “Paige, Peter asked me out like three times before I was like, ‘Look, seriously, what are we doing here because if you aren't interested in the long haul, I'm going to be looking at other trailers,' you know what I mean?”

I laugh. “You are ridiculous.”

“And yet, you can't get enough of me. You were even asking me to move in a little while ago.” She grins.

I just shake my head.

We leave the restaurant about eight and I run by the Starbucks in the same parking lot and get a decaf vanilla chai tea. I drive over to Nichole's house and rap quietly on the door.

Her mom answers it, looking confused. “Hi, Paige. Nichole said she texted you …”

“Oh, she did,” I say quickly. “I just thought I'd bring her a drink anyway. Would you mind telling her that I hope she feels better soon?”

Her mom smiles softly at me and then takes the drink and nods. “You are a godsend for Nichole, Paige. I just need you to know that.”

Words can't even describe how that one sentence makes me feel.

I get home a few minutes later, change into my pajamas, and plop on the couch for a little HGTV before bedtime. I'm working on a burlap wreath for over my mantel, so I plug in my glue gun and sit on the floor in front of my coffee table, gluing folded strips of burlap and watching an interior designer make a big mistake in staging a house.

I would never buy a house with fabric stapled to the wall. I don't care what they say about not thinking about the cosmetics when buying a house — can you imagine filling all those holes to repaint?

I finally unplug the glue gun at ten thirty and go brush my teeth before bed. Climbing in, I grab my Bible and flip over to where I was reading before.

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?”

The thought of my planner fills my head and I wince.

Sorry about that, Lord
.

I don't think God has something against planners. I just think He has a problem with me relying on my own power to control my life.

There are times when my prayer life could be summed up in a text to the heavenly realm.

M
ESSAGE RECEIVED.

Chapter

16

I
am home a good thirty minutes before Tyler is coming to pick me up for the game on Friday after work. It didn't take much convincing for me to leave right at five.

Okay, it took no convincing at all.

I change into shorts and a T-shirt, pull my hair into a ponytail, and make sure my sunglasses are in my purse. It's the end of May and that means it's so hot you feel like you are slowly turning into a steaming sponge here in Dallas.

I've got time to kill before Tyler gets here, so I sit on the floor in my living room, find a bunch of Post-it notes and a black Bic pen, and start writing.

Pros of Being Preslee's Maid of Honor

Cons of Being Preslee's Maid of Honor

I put the pros note on my right on the floor and the cons on my left.

Then I sit there.

Well, obviously, the big con would be that I don't feel like I know Preslee or Wes enough to stand up at their wedding. Not in support and not against. I won't be screaming, “No!” and I likely won't be giggling sweetly as he kisses her.

What's the word for that?

Complacent
.

I write it down and put it on the cons side of the floor.

It would make my mother happy
.

Obviously, this one would be a pro.

I wouldn't have to find a dress for her wedding.

Pro.

I would have to be at the wedding
.

Con.

I write out a few more and at 5:37, there's a knock on my door. I grab my purse and open the door.

“Ready? Wow, what are you doing to your floor?” Tyler asks.

“Nothing really,” I say, lightly pushing him out onto the porch so I can close the door and lock it. Tyler pries too much for me to show him my sticky-note system. “Doesn't the game start in less than an hour?”

“Yeah, but we aren't too far. And I figure you probably aren't one of those girls who likes to get to a baseball game hours in advance.”

“You figured right. Are Natalie and Rick coming?”

He nods. “They picked me up. They're waiting in the parking lot.”