Tyler listens to me, nodding. “Got it. We don’t know each other. I’ve never seen you before. What is your name?”
“You don’t have to go to that extreme. I’m just saying. Layla has a knack for being overly dramat — ”
Right then, I see Layla’s Jetta pull into the space right beside us. Layla glances over at us, sunglasses on her face, looks away, and then whips her head back. Her lips form the words. Oh. My. Gosh.
She rips her sunglasses off her face and jumps out of her car, obviously giddy. I sigh and look at Tyler. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Hi, Paige! Hi, Tyler!” She is so loud I can hear her perfectly inside Tyler’s car with all the doors and windows closed.
I open the door. “Hello, Layla.”
“So, are you guys going out now? Oh, I’m so excited!”
Tyler grins at me and then looks at Layla. “Y’all have fun listening to the bands.”
Layla starts squealing about how excited she is and heads to the door, chattering happily about how long she’s waited for this day, the day that I would show up to hear a band play in my boyfriend’s car.
I sigh and start to climb out of the car. Tyler reaches over and grabs my hand. “Oh, and Paige?” he says, grinning at me.
I look at him.
“I really prefer a black suit for a wedding. A tux is just so stiff, you know?”
I level him with a smoldering look, he starts laughing, and I climb out of the car. “This is all your fault, Jennings.” I close the door.
He waves three fingers at me while holding the steering wheel and backs out of the parking lot. Layla is holding open the door to Paparazzi’s, still talking. “And oh, Paige, wouldn’t it be so wonderful if we can find little houses in the same neighborhood? We can be all, ‘I’m out of sugar!’ and the other one can run over with the cup of sugar.” She sighs happily.
I stare at Layla — at the expression of pure joy on her face, at the tightly dressed hostess inside the door — and just sigh.
“It would be nice to have someone to borrow sugar from,” I say. Maybe my oatmeal would taste a little better then.
Sunday morning I pull on a gray jersey skirt, red ballet flats, and a bright red sweater. It is my official “well, I guess what we call winter is over” outfit, and it comes out every February.
It is now February.
Basically, I can look forward to seventy-degree weather and more party planning. Layla cannot make up her mind on a band to save her life. And the agency banquet just had its first vendor cancellation in six years of banquets.
“I’m so sorry,” Tina said on the phone last night from Flowers R Us. “We didn’t realize we’d double booked for your party and a wedding. And honestly, we’re just not staffed to handle it. I’m refunding your money. I apologize.”
Which leaves me with a few weeks to find another florist to make eighty-four table centerpieces that look both fun and classy.
I grab my Bible and my purse, lock the door behind me, and hurry down the stairs. I traded my time to make coffee for sleeping in, so I have to get coffee at the church.
Which is always a coin toss on whether or not it will be good. One lady who serves at church in the mornings can make the perfect pot of coffee and leave you feeling like all is right with the world. And the other lady can make you swear off coffee for the rest of your earthly life.
I drive to church, end up actually finding a parking spot in the very last row of the parking lot by the youth room, and hurry inside. Rick asked me to start coming to the youth Sunday school on the days I’m not teaching the two-year-olds, so here I am.
“Paige!” two girls say excitedly when I walk into the youth room. The place is dead save for four girls and one guy, who looks like he hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours.
“Hey, guys,” I say, walking over. I set my Bible and purse on a chair and turn back to the group of kids. “How are you guys?”
One of the girls is Allison Hanniger, the girl in my small group whose mom just had surgery. I ended up stopping and getting them one of the to-go boxes you can order from a local barbecue place. It had shredded beef, creamed corn, rolls, potato salad, and brownies in it.
I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that.
And went ahead and blew my eating-out budget until July.
“Paige, thank you so much for dinner last night,” Allison says, smiling at me. Allison is a very cute girl. If she already looks like that as a fourteen-year-old, her mom will have some issues with boys flocking to her house when she gets a little older.
“Sure.”
“It was wonderful. And Mom is already feeling a lot better. Creamed corn is her favorite thing to eat.”
“Wow, that’s great!” I say. Mrs. Hanniger is one of those church moms who I want to be more like. She is constantly doing something for someone. When I got to their house last night, it about killed her to sit there and watch me leave dinner on the table instead of making me sit down and eat with them.
“You’re sure you can’t stay?” she asked me for the eighth time. “There is more here than we’ll eat in a week.”
“Then enjoy the leftovers,” I said, giving Allison a hug and waving to her little brother, Michael.
I never knew Allison’s dad. He was killed in a car accident when Allison was five. She barely remembers her father. Mrs. Hanniger always told me that if it hadn’t been for Grace Church, she wouldn’t have made it through that time. “So of course, I’m going to give back now,” she always says while doing something around the church.
I go back down the church hall for my coffee. It is still a little early, so there isn’t the mad rush for the caffeine like when I usually show up to the coffee table.
I carefully peek into the kitchen to see who is running the coffeepot today.
“Well, good morning, Paige!”
It is Melba Waters. I force a smile. Caffeine and I will not be friends this morning, apparently. I look longingly at the shiny, stainless-steel pot. We won’t even be neighbors. Melba Waters destroys coffee.
“Hi, Mrs. Waters.”
“Go ahead and get some, sweetie. It’s all ready now.” She pats my hand.
“Oh, that’s okay. I think I’ll just get some tea today.” I pray that the Lipton tea bag I am holding, which has probably been there since 1995, will still contain enough caffeine to ward off my incoming headache.
Melba shrugs. “Suit yourself, dear.”
I walk sadly back down to the youth room with my tea. Tea. In my opinion, the only reason to drink tea is if you’re sitting opposite Mr. Darcy looking at Pemberley’s beautiful lake. I look around. No lake, no Mr. Darcy. Only the beige-painted hallway and sixteen-year-old Justin, who is about to go into the youth room.
“Hey, Paige,” he says, his voice cracking slightly when he says my name. He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says again, an octave deeper.
I love Justin.
“How’s it going, Justin?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“I’m drinking tea.”
He steps three steps back from me. “Look, I can’t get sick. School just started back up, and if you saw the Mount Everest that is my homework, you’d offer to get me a sherpa.”
“Chill. I’m not sick. And I won’t get you a sherpa. They’re going extinct. Too many fleece jackets are being made right now.” I dunk the tea bag up and down in the water. Maybe if I get it really, really strong, it will taste like coffee.
I take a sip and try not to gag.
“Are you okay, Paige?”
“Justin. There is a reason the early American settlers threw all that tea in the ocean.” I make a face.
“Taxes?”
“Taste.”
“My mom makes me drink green tea the second I tell her I’m not feeling good,” Justin says. “One day I fell in gym and busted up my knee and Mom made me drink green tea until the swelling went down.” He sighs and looks a little sick even remembering. “Two weeks I drank that stuff.”
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” Rick asks, poking his head out of the youth room.
“Justin had to drink green tea for two weeks, and I’m going to need Starbucks,” I say, still gagging.
“Okay. Well, in the meantime, come on in here. I have to teach you how to run the words.”
“What words?” I ask. “Please don’t tell me you use a teleprompter.” I walk into the youth room and follow Rick over to a computer.
“It’s for the music, weirdo. So it’s pretty user friendly.”
“Is it a computer?” I put my hands behind my back like my dad used to tell me to do anytime we were in an electronics store.
Rick looks at me. “Com-pu-ter,” he says slowly, touching the top of the screen. “It’s a wonderful invention, really. Has changed the way we live and move and breathe.”
“Rick.”
“Look, it’s basically just a slide show. Everything is all set up and in there. All you do is click the arrow to switch to the next slide. See?” He pushes a button and the first verse of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” pops up on the computer screen and on the wall at the front of the room.
“Wow,” I say. “I didn’t even know y’all did music on Sundays.”
“You really don’t pay attention during leaders’ meetings, do you?” Rick asks.
“You’ve talked about it?”
“I spent most of the last one complaining about how hard it is to find bass players in this youth group.” Rick sighs.
“You have a bass player?” I wave my hand at the front of the room. “There’s a whole band?”
“What did you think the drums were for?”
I shrug. The whole youth room looks like someone’s garage. There is exposed ductwork in the ceiling, the whole place is painted gray, and there are cement floors. Not to mention the odor that always seems to hang around in here, though I think that’s due to too many thirteen-year-old boys, who haven’t quite gotten the hang of daily deodorant, mixing with eighteen-year-old guys, who haven’t quite gotten the idea behind a hint of cologne as opposed to bathing in it.
“Anyway.” Rick points to the computer. “Good?”
“I thought I was just supposed to sit in here and be an adult presence for the girls.”
Rick grins. “Well, life changes sometimes. Which is a good segue into my lesson.” He claps his hands and whistles loudly. “Round it up, guys!”
Fifty-some-odd kids fall into their seats. Six of them walk up to the front and pick up guitars I hadn’t noticed there and one sits down behind the drums. Bethany sits behind the keyboard. Rick stands beside me and operates the soundboard.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“I know. I feel powerful here,” he whispers back.
“Hi there,” Ben, one of the senior guys, says into the microphone. “Good morning.”
Everyone mumbles something that may have been “good morning” back to him while Rick pushes six or seven little knobs and buttons around. He looks very professional.
“Everyone stand up, please.” Ben starts strumming and I immediately panic. Whatever he is strumming is definitely not “Come Thou Fount.” Then the drums start and I get even more panicked.
“This isn’t the right song!” I hiss to Rick.
He frowns at me. “Put the words up, Paige.”
I click the button right as Ben starts singing. “Come thou fount of every blessing,” he sings and the rest of the kids sing with him.
Wow. This song has taken a makeover in here. I didn’t even know you were allowed to play drums to hymns.
Ben leads the kids in four songs, and I am so focused on making sure I’m clicking the button at the right time that I don’t even notice the extra thirty or so kids who trickle
into the room during the music. Our youth group is exploding.
Rick thanks the band, grabs his Bible, and walks up there as the band goes to their seats. “All right, guys, turn to James.”
I walk back to my chair and listen for the next thirty minutes as Rick teaches on serving. “You guys are single. You guys have very few real responsibilities. You guys have the ability to be totally focused on Christ. So how are you spending that singleness? Doing things for yourself? Or serving Jesus with the time you have right now?”
I write a note in the margin of my Bible. Am I serving Jesus with the time I have now?
I am single too. I have very few responsibilities. Other than showing up for my job every weekday morning and paying my rent on the fifteenth of every month, I don’t have much else to be responsible for.
So why am I so busy?
Tyler’s voice from yesterday’s lunch comes back into my brain. “I think you need to learn how to say no.”
I know how to say no.
“Paige, will you pray for us?” Rick asks me suddenly.
I jump and then nod. “Sure.”
“By the way, everyone, if you haven’t met Paige, she leads the freshmen girls on Wednesday nights and is one of the best people I know, so get to know her,” Rick says.
“Let’s pray,” I say, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. “Jesus, thank You for this time, thank You for this day, help us use it to serve and honor You. Amen.”
“Amen,” Rick echoes. “Don’t forget to stack your chairs on your way out!”
Chaos erupts and for the next ten minutes all I hear are loud voices and metal clanging against metal. A few girls come over and chatter about how much fun they had at the movie night last week.
“We should totally do that every week!” Brittany says.
“Dude, you shouldn’t just invite yourself over.” Tasha elbows Brittany in the ribs.
Now even the girls are saying dude? This greatly concerns me. I don’t know what it is about that word, but it just grates somewhere back in my left temporal lobe.
“I don’t know about every week,” I say slowly when all the girls get quiet and look at me, and I suddenly realize they are waiting for my thoughts on it.
“Every other week then,” Brittany says. “And we can all just keep pitching in for pizza, and I bet if Paris’s mom can’t make cookies, our moms would make some snacks for us to bring.”
And with that, my apartment gets booked every other Friday night until graduation in May. I think about the question Rick asked during the lesson and bite my lip. Maybe this is the way God wants me to serve Him with my time.
“Your apartment is so cool,” Tasha says to me. “I can’t wait until I get to move out and get my own apartment.”
I remember when I used to think that. Back before I realized that having an apartment means having to pay for rent and utilities.
I wave good-bye to the girls and walk back down the hallway for church, squeezing through the crowded hallways filled with chattering, happy people. I find the same row I sat in last week all by myself and sit down, smiling. Alone. I might be weird, but I love worshipping God when it is just me and my thoughts.
“Paige!”
I look up as Layla comes into the row. “What are you doing here?” I ask as she pulls me up to give me a hug.
“Dude, we totally just skipped the singles’ class!” she squeals.
“Not you too,” I moan. Seriously, there are so many other wonderful choices to express the word friend.
“Yep! Rebels, we are. Is this where you’re sitting? We’ll sit by you. Oh, this is nice! I haven’t been to big church in, goodness, I don’t even know how long.”
“Too long if you’re still calling it big church.” I wave at Peter. “Hi, Peter.”
“Hey.”
“Well.” Layla dumps all her stuff in front of the seat next to me. “We’re here now.”
Yes, they are. Peter squeezes past me and sits on the other side of Layla. I try not to sigh as the worship band takes the stage. So much for being all by myself.
“Why don’t we all stand?” Victor, the music pastor, says into the microphone. Everyone in the room stands and he starts strumming his guitar.
“Hey, guys.”
Tyler is suddenly standing right beside me. He looks down the row at the extra empty seats. “Can I sit with you?” he whispers as everyone starts singing.
“Before the throne,” the congregation sings.
“Oh!” Layla squeals, turning to see Tyler standing there. “Peter! Move down so Tyler can sit by Paige.” She half nudges, half pushes Peter down a seat and then grabs my arm and yanks me over so Tyler can get the aisle seat I previously had.
“Thanks.” He grins at me.
“Sure.”
Now I am not only not alone, I am surrounded. Layla’s sweet soprano is on my right. Tyler’s surprisingly good voice is on my left.
I can’t sing loudly now. And I also don’t feel comfortable closing my eyes and raising my hands like last week.
We sing three songs, and then Pastor Louis climbs onto the stage. “Thank you, guys, that is great music. Let’s pray, shall we?”
He prays and preaches for the next thirty minutes. Tyler takes notes from the sermon on his bulletin, and Layla keeps giving me sidelong grins through the whole thing.
It is very hard to pay attention.
The service ends, and I pick up my Bible and jacket. Now I am slightly depressed, and I have a headache from the lack of caffeine this morning.
“So,” Layla says, drawing the word out. “What are you two up to for lunch?”
I cannot eat out. Especially when I really won’t have the spare funds to eat out until the summer. And I still have to be saving for a bridesmaid dress, the inevitable shower I’ll throw for Layla, and a wedding gift. I am already planning on a quiet afternoon at home, finally finishing that wreath and probably eating peanut butter and crackers.
“Well,” I start, about to tell them my grand plan of hot gluing muslin fabric rosettes to a grapevine wreath.
“Because I am thinking we should all go to that little sandwich shop down the street. Last time I was there, I had the best peach iced tea I’ve ever had in my life.”
Too much tea in this day.
“I had tea today already,” I say. “And I really shouldn’t eat out.”
Layla shrugs. “It’s on me. And why did you have tea?”
“Mrs. Daugherty wasn’t doing the coffee this morning,” I say sadly.