“Hey, pal?” he copies, his smile stretching farther across his face. “Hey, pal. Hey! Pal!”
“Okay,” I say, holding my hands up. “I didn’t mean say it continuously.”
“Pal. You know, I once knew a dog named Pal. She was one of those Lassie dogs, with the long hair.”
“They named a girl dog Pal?”
“Girls can be pals,” Tyler says. “Are you saying you don’t have any pals?”
I sigh and close my eyes. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He laughs.
The waitress comes over then, and I order a honey ham sandwich with fried okra on the side. Tyler orders the pancakes with a side of bacon and cheesy potatoes. And a root beer. By the time he finishes ordering, I am feeling a little nauseous.
“I’ll have that right out,” the waitress says sweetly.
“So, I know we haven’t known each other very long, and I think we’re probably still in the coddle-each-other stage of a friendship, but Tyler … ew,” I say, making a face.
He grins. “I knew we were going to be great friends, Paige.”
“So. You said you moved here from Austin? Is your family in Austin?”
He shakes his head. “My mom and stepdad live in Missouri. My dad is in Arizona.”
Broken home. I immediately feel bad for him. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. As crappy as divorce is, my parents aren’t Christians and have no reason to act like they are, so …” He shrugs. “It is what it is.”
“Siblings?” I remember we talked about this while we did the service project. I just can’t remember his answer now. Hunger tends to make me a little forgetful.
“A little sister. She’s married now. Pregnant.” He smiles all sappy at me. “I’m pretty stoked about being an uncle.”
“Is she a Christian?”
He nods. “I became a Christian at UT, and when I got back home for Christmas totally on fire for Christ, I found out that one of Stephanie’s friends from high school had dragged her kicking and screaming to this big Christian concert they were having and Stef got saved there.” His expression is full of joy. “So God got both of the Jennings kids in one month.”
“Wow! That’s really cool.”
“It’s really great. Especially considering my parents are still nowhere close to Jesus. It’s nice to have company at the Thanksgiving table.” He leans back in his chair. “I end up seeing them only twice a year anyway. Stef lives in Austin now, so I go see her once a month or so. She actually ended up marrying one of the guys I roomed with in college.” He smiles at me. “So. Your turn.”
“Oh, my story is pretty boring.”
“That’s how it should be.” Tyler nods. “Stef told me she’s been praying from the day she found out she was pregnant for her baby to have the most boring testimony in the whole world.”
“I guess that’s true. My parents actually live in Austin, too. It’s where I grew up. Both of them are Christians; I’ve been raised in the church my whole life. See? Boring.”
“How did you end up in Dallas?”
“I came to TCU for school, and then I ended up finding out through Natalie that the adoption agency I work at was hiring.” The waitress sets our drinks in front of us and we thank her. “So, I just ended up staying,” I say after she leaves. “I was really close with Rick and Natalie by then, and my best friend Layla moved here, and I found a good church …”
Tyler nods. “Despite the marshmallow gun, Rick seems like a good guy.”
“He’s great. He’s like the big brother I never had. And you’ll love Natalie. She’s just awesome. She’s about a week overdue with their first child though, so I recommend meeting her after the baby comes.”
I’d texted Natalie earlier in the day. HOW ARE YOU FEELING, NAT?
She wrote back not even thirty seconds later. ENORMOUS. THIS KID BETTER COME BEFORE THIS WEEKEND OR I’M GOING TO POP LIKE A BALLOON IN THE HANDS OF A TWO-YEAR-OLD.
That was not a good mental image.
Tyler laughs. “Noted. I’ll wait to meet her. So, you aren’t adopted.”
It is a weird statement. I frown. “Should I be?”
“No, I just meant, you work at an adoption agency. What made you want to work there?”
I shrug. “I just want to have a job that makes a difference. You know?”
His gaze warms as he smiles at me. “And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have a job that makes a difference?”
Our food comes then and saves me from having to answer that question. It sticks in the back of my brain, though, and pokes at me all night until I shush it with the fried okra. We make small talk over our dinners. He makes me try a bite of his cheesy potatoes, and they are pretty good.
“See? Told you. I mean, really, you have to look at this meal like a balanced breakfast. Pancakes. Hash browns. Bacon.”
“Root beer,” I add.
“Exactly.”
I laugh.
* * * * *
I climb into bed at ten thirty that night and pull my Bible over into my lap. I flip it open to the first psalm I see. It is Psalm 34, which doesn’t surprise me. I’ve read this psalm so many times that my Bible is probably creased there. Verse 14 catches my eye.
“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
I frown and close my Bible, then turn off the light. How do you even pursue peace? Isn’t the whole connotation of pursuit sort of antipeace? And where does peace fit in when everything is so busy all the time?
I drift off while thinking about it.
I end up leaving work late on Thursday, so I don’t even get to Nichole’s apartment to pick her up until well past five thirty. “I’m so sorry,” I say when she comes to the door. “I got stuck at work.”
Nichole is fairly short with short blonde hair and sad blue eyes. She just smiles. “It’s fine, really. Let me tell my mom I’m leaving.”
We end up going to a Starbucks just a couple of blocks from her apartment, and she tells me about how she ended up in Dallas. “So then my mom found out my dad has been cheating on her with his secretary for almost six years.”
My heart hurts. Little girls should never have to deal with news like that about their daddies. And I feel woefully inadequate to be talking to her about this when my wonderful, amazing father has always been the first person there whenever I needed anything, and he would never hurt my mom like that.
“I’m so sorry, Nichole,” I say, at a loss for words, trying to dig up something from my classes in psychology from the recesses of my brain.
“Me too,” she says, obviously trying not to cry while she takes a sip of her vanilla bean latte. I’ll need to remember that she apparently doesn’t like coffee.
“How’s your mom doing?” I abandon the psych stuff and try to tune in to the Holy Spirit.
“She’s okay. My grandparents live here, so they’ve been helping us a lot. She’s trying to find a job right now.”
“What does she do?”
“She worked as a vet assistant in college. I guess she’s thinking about something along those lines, but it just doesn’t pay very much. I’ve been applying around to see if I can find some part-time work after school too.”
I nod. “If I hear of something, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Paige.”
I take her back home a little over an hour later and ask if I can meet with her again next Thursday. It is the first time she really smiles at me. “That would be awesome.”
I smile back. “Great. I’ll see you then. Have a good night, Nichole.”
I drive away, shaking my head. Lord, how much I take for granted in the face of others’ problems.
I pull into Layla’s apartment complex and climb out of my car, walking the long, creepy sidewalk to her apartment. I knock and Layla opens the door a second later.
“Come in, come in. Oh, Paige, wait until you see what I just found!” She dances through the apartme
nt over to her computer and points excitedly at it. “Look!”
I drop my purse and the folder of ideas I’ve been printing off the Internet on her sofa and walk over to her computer on the kitchen table.
“Is that not the most beautiful centerpiece you’ve ever seen?” she squeals.
It is beautiful. Yellow roses are everywhere and the whole thing is lit in candlelight.
“I’m going to order these tonight!” She jumps up and down, clapping her hands. “Won’t they look spectacular on the tables around the dance floor?”
“Layla, how much are they?”
She waves a hand. “I haven’t checked yet.”
“They’re probably around two hundred dollars.”
She gasps. “No way.”
“Way. We can totally make these on our own for way, way less than they’re going to charge you.” I am pretty certain I’ve never used the word way so often in such a short amount of time.
“Are you sure?” she asks, looking doubtful. “I mean, I can trim the cost in other ways.”
“Where?”
“Well, the park is free.”
“But you want to serve steak, chicken, and shrimp for dinner.”
She gets all dreamy-eyed again. “With the Burgundy sauce,” she says, in a hushed, reverent voice. “Don’t forget the sauce. It’s exactly the same menu Mom and Dad had for their wedding. I’ve heard about that sauce since the day I was born.”
“With Burgundy sauce,” I add.
“We’re not cutting the meal.” She squints at me. “We can cut the cost of the invitations. I can hand deliver some of them.”
“That would probably save you about fifteen dollars.”
She snaps her fingers. “Shoot.” She looks at the picture again. “You really think we can make this?”
“Look, print a picture of it, I’ll work on a mock-up over the weekend, and then you can see what you think. If you don’t like it, you still have plenty of time to order them before the party.”
She sighs. “Okay. Are you sure? I mean, I want it to be nice.”
“Positive.” I’ve been itching to get my glue gun out anyway.
“Well. Okay. I guess we can try it.” She closes her computer and looks up at me. “I’m going to make spaghetti for dinner. Want some?”
“With your mom’s homemade meatballs?” My mouth starts watering just thinking about it.
“Yeah. She sent me home with three huge gallon Ziplocs filled with them at Christmas.” Layla walks over and opens her freezer door just to prove her point. All that’s in her freezer are the meatballs and a frozen pizza.
“What can I do?”
“You can sit. You’ve been doing a lot for me, and I want to make dinner for you,” she says. “So, I was thinking about going to look for a wedding dress this weekend.”
I sit on one of the bar stools at her tall counter that overlooks the sink. “Oh yeah? Don’t you think it’s a little bit early?” The wedding is a little over nine months away, after all.
If there’s one thing I am dreading about Layla’s wedding, it is looking at bridesmaid dresses. Not only are they incredibly expensive for something I will wear only once, but they always look so uncomfortable. I’ve never been a bridesmaid before, but it just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me.
But I am Layla’s best friend, and of course I will wear whatever dress she picks for me.
“Well, true …” she says sadly. Then she grins and starts bubbling about the kind of wedding dress she is searching for. “I want strapless but not skanky and lace but not overdone, and I really like the Cinderella style but I don’t want to seem like I’m playing dress up.” She dumps about twenty meatballs in a dish and sticks it in the microwave while she pulls a jar of spaghetti sauce and a box of noodles from the pantry.
Layla is not really a homemade kind of person. Which is just funny because her mom is about the most crazy-talented cook in the whole world.
Layla told me once that she just felt like it was a lot to live up to, and she decided one day that she was going to be totally different and not cook at all. She said that lasted until she gained ten pounds eating out all the time.
A copy of a magazine called Wedded Bliss is lying on the counter in front of me, so I thumb through it while Layla gets water boiling for the noodles. “Here’s one.” I hold up a page with the most awful dress I’ve ever seen in my whole life.
Layla glances over at it. “That’s not too bad.”
“The wedding dress, Layla.”
She squints at the picture again. “Ew. That looks like moss grew on that girl.”
“The dress is white.”
“It has a greenish tint to it. Pass.”
“I was joking, anyway.”
“I would hope so. Just think about all the ideas this is probably giving you for your wedding someday, Paige!”
“Mmm.” I shrug. Layla and I have such different tastes in everything that our weddings will probably be like night and day.
In ten or so years, when I get old enough to be married.
Never mind that Layla and I are the same age.
“So, we have a big problem.” Layla takes the meatballs out of the microwave.
“Not with the meatballs.” I hold back a shudder at the thought.
“No. With the flower girl.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She doesn’t exist,” Layla says sadly. “I don’t have any little cousins, and Peter doesn’t know any girls under the age of six — ”
“Does he know any over the age of six?” I cut in.
Layla purses her lips in thought. “He knows you. And me.”
“So two.”
“He’s a quiet sort.”
“Layla,” I say, deciding to just voice my concerns while there is still plenty of time to call the whole thing off. “Are you really sure you want to marry Peter?”
She gives me a funny look and dumps the sauce from the jar into a skillet. “Uh, yes, Paige. That’s why I said yes when he asked me.”
“I mean, he’s nice,” I concede. Most people would argue that it is hard to be mean when you just kind of stand there unmoving like a rusted-open barn door all the time.
“He is, isn’t he?” Layla sighs.
“But he’s not very … um …” I struggle to find a word that doesn’t have a nasty connotation to it. “Animated?”
“Of course he’s not, and I wouldn’t want him to be.” Layla spoons the meatballs into the sauce carefully so it won’t splash. “He’s a very real person. He doesn’t try to pretend.”
Animated is not the right word.
“He’s just not who I always envisioned you with,” I say slowly.
She looks over at me with a smile. “I know. I just figured out one day that Gilbert Blythe probably wouldn’t be knocking at my door anytime soon.”
We both have a moment of sighing silence for sweet Gilbert who stole Anne of Green Gables’ heart.
She goes back to stirring the sauce. “Peter’s a good guy, Paige. You can stop worrying.”
I won’t, so I don’t promise anything. “If you’re certain, Layla. All I’m saying is, you’re going to be with him the rest of your life, and I just want you to be 100 percent certain.”
She pulls a colander out of the cabinet. “I’m 200 percent certain. Stop worrying about me. You’ve done that since we were kids.”
“You needed worrying about back then.” She still does now. She just obviously can’t see it.
She waves a hand. “Please. I was fine. You were the one running around during finals like you and six of your rodent friends had to make a ball gown by midnight.”
I laugh. “What?”
“Like it?” She grins. “I just came up with it by myself.”
“You are so weird.”
She pours the spaghetti noodles and the boiling water into the colander and nods. “And yet, somehow, I am still loveable.”
* * * * *
“Thank G
od it is Friday night,” Peggy gripes as she comes down the hall, putting on her jacket. “I am not going to have to look at one more birth father who is contesting the adoption or one more adoptive parent who needs to learn some patience, kindness, and gentleness toward their case manager. I am going to sleep in tomorrow morning. I am going to sit at my breakfast table with my husband and drink my green tea while we work crossword puzzles together.”
I grin at her while I stack up the papers strewn all over my desk. “Sounds like good, clean fun.” I slide them all into a stack to work on come Monday.
“Watch it, Paige. You’re going to get old one day too.” She finishes pulling her jacket on and waves a finger at me. “And then see how you feel about the antioxidants in green tea helping to prevent the sag under your chin and the chance to exercise your aging brain doing a crossword puzzle.”
“I think I’ll have to take my chances with my macchiato.”
“Suit yourself.” Peggy shrugs. “I plan on dying beautiful.”
I laugh and stand, grabbing my jacket and purse and turning off the lamp on my desk. My desk is so bare compared to everyone else’s here. Peggy has pictures of her husband and kids and new grandbaby, Candace has pictures of her family, and Mark has pictures and a baseball that his kids signed that says, “Warld’s Bist DAd.”
My desk has a lamp on it. And a pack of gum. And all the files I am working on. And a mock-up of the floral centerpieces for the banquet. But I am pretending it is a bouquet of flowers for me from a secret admirer. Even though I have no time for an admirer, secret or otherwise. Still. The thought of a guy sending flowers is nice.
I wave at Peggy and climb into my car. Time to run home and change into jeans before I go to help with childcare at the church dinner tonight. I yawn, pulling out into traffic. I am tired. And really wanting to just stay on my couch eating chocolate-covered popcorn and watching Emma tonight.
The good version with Gwyneth Paltrow.
I hurry up the stairs to my apartment, change out my black skirt for jeans and my ballet flats for sneakers, and throw on a hoodie over my cami. I grab a cheese stick and run back down the stairs to my car.
Cheese sticks should never be dinner as often as they are mine.
Which sounds something like a song by Taylor Swift, but I rip open the package and inhale it on the way to church anyway.