Paige Torn

by Erynn Mangum

  She looks over at me. “Whose wedding?”

  “The mannequins. Because they’re faceless. So they’ll need Mr. Potato Head’s …” I sigh. “Never mind.”

  “You have the weirdest sense of humor sometimes,” Layla says, climbing out of the car.

  This, coming from Layla Prestwick.

  We walk through the doors and a tiny woman looks up from a reception desk. “Welcome to Marcello’s.” She smiles at both of us. “Who is the bride?”

  “I am.” Layla raises a hand like she’s back in kindergarten.

  “Wonderful! Congratulations. Let me see which of our consultants is free. Would you care to have a seat?” She points to a comfy-looking couch underneath a white archway covered in vines and twinkle lights. “Can I get either of you anything to drink?”

  Time to test the waters. “Actually, do you guys happen to have caramel macchiatos?”

  She nods. “Small, medium, or large?”

  This is reason enough to get married right here. I look over at Layla, who shrugs.

  “Two larges, I guess.”

  “I’ll have those right out. While you’re waiting, miss, please look through our catalog and see if anything catches your eye.” She hands Layla a book three inches thick. “If it does, fold the corner down and the consultant will pull the dress for you to try on.”

  “Okay.” Layla starts to look overwhelmed.

  “Dresses are in the front; veils and accessories are in the back.” She disappears behind a wall of white dresses.

  I look at Layla. Her eyes are big. “Paige,” she whispers. “There’s like three million dresses in here.”

  “Good thing you aren’t getting married until October.”

  “We may have to move it even further out. Holy cow.” She opens the catalog and makes a face. “Nope. Ick. Oh wow. Not my style. Ew …” On and on she goes for the first thirty pages.

  The woman comes back holding two huge white mugs with Marcello’s — It’s your day! written on them in blue.

  A little corny, if you ask me. Which no one has.

  “And Liza will be your consultant today. She’ll be right out.”

  “Thank you,” Layla says. She looks back at the catalog, cradling her hot mug. “That one isn’t bad.”

  I taste my steaming macchiato. It is amazing. It tastes like they have a Starbucks on site, which for all I know, they easily could have.

  A very tall, large-boned woman comes around the wall of wedding dresses a few minutes later. “Hello there,” she says, her voice very deep. “My name is Liza. I’ll be assisting you today. I see Greta already got you coffee. Can I get you anything else?”

  “Not right now,” Layla says.

  “Wonderful. What are your names?”

  “I’m Layla. This is Paige.”

  “Hi,” I say. “Great macchiato.”

  “Yes, Pedro is our barista. He’s very talented.”

  Pedro. Why can’t Layla be marrying the Spanish version of Peter, who can obviously make killer macchiatos?

  “Please follow me, ladies.”

  Liza leads us around the wall of dresses, down a red, dimly lit hallway, and into a good-sized, well-lit room with mirrors on every wall. “This will be your fitting room. Please make yourselves comfortable. Now, Layla, what did you have in mind?”

  Layla starts spouting off all kinds of words like lace, white, and strapless while I look around the room. There is a white sofa. A coffee table. A few wedding magazines. And a brochure.

  Welcome to Marcello’s!

  There is a list of all the different types of food trays they have available. I look up at the woman, suddenly starving. As soon as Layla finishes listing every quality she can think of for her dream dress, I break in. “Can we actually get one of these cheese plates? And the chocolate and fruit plate?”

  Liza smiles at me. “Of course, of course. And, Layla, I’ll be right back with a selection of potential dresses for you as well.”

  “Thanks!” we both say at the same time.

  Liza leaves and we both just look at each other. Layla suddenly jumps off the couch. “I am getting married!” she squeals, jumping up and down.

  I laugh.

  Ten minutes later, Liza is back with two trays of food and a rolling hanging bar with ten different dresses wrapped in thick, plastic garment bags.

  “All right. Here are the trays.” Liza sets the cheese and chocolate in front of me on the coffee table.

  “Thank you.”

  “And here are the dresses.” Liza turns to Layla. “I guessed you are around a size 4 or so?”

  Layla nods.

  “Here’s a camisole and a tiered underskirt that I’d like you to put on. I’ll be right back.” Liza steps out of the room to give Layla a little bit of privacy. I lean back on the couch, munching on a slice of Gruyère cheese. I love this particular type of cheese. On months where for whatever reason I suddenly end up with more cash than usual, I always buy cheese and chocolate. Even saying the word Gruyère makes me feel fancy.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Layla says over and over while she changes out of her sweater dress and into the camisole that looks more like a corset.

  “Me neither. Do you need help?”

  She blows her breath out and tries hooking the hooks in the back, staring at herself in the mirror. “Augh. Yes, please.”

  I finish my cheese, stand, and go around behind her. “Okay. You’ll have to suck it in.”

  “I am sucking it in!”

  “Mmm. Try blowing it out then.”

  She exhales deeply and I cinch the hooks together. It is like an armpit to belly button bra.

  Looks ever so comfortable.

  I get all the hooks hooked and pat her shoulder blade. “There you go. You can breathe again.”

  “Ha. That’s what you think,” she gasps. “I suddenly have a lot more respect for my great-grandmother. Oh my goodness. I can’t sit down in something like this!”

  “Well, you certainly won’t slouch.” I smush back into the couch while she wrestles the underskirt on. She levels me with a glare, and I immediately sit straight up. “Sorry.”

  “Hmph.”

  “On the plus side, your figure looks very nice right now.”

  She finishes pulling on the skirt and turns to look at herself in the mirror. “Wow, you’re right!” She pats her abdomen. “This just eliminated like six of the last brownies I ate!”

  Liza knocks on the door and then sticks her head in. “All set?”

  “I think so. Is it supposed to be this tight?” Layla asks.

  Liza goes over behind Layla and tugs on the camisole. “Oh yes. If not tighter. This is what’s going to keep the dress from sliding around on your wedding day.”

  “Tighter?” Layla says weakly.

  Liza gives Layla a polite smile. “Yes. Okay. We’ll start with the first dress.”

  Liza shoves the yards and yards and yards of white fluffy lace over Layla’s head, cinches up the back, and directs her to stand in front of the mirrors.

  Layla giggles. And twirls. And preens in the mirror. “Oh my goodness! Peter is going to lose his socks.” Layla giggles again.

  I smile, but then I think about Peter and the reaction he will most likely have, if it is anything like his normal reaction to things. One time, Layla set a kitchen rag on fire while she was trying to cook oatmeal on her gas range, and Peter and I were over at her apartment. She jumped around the kitchen screaming for someone to call 911, grabbed the edge of the rag while continuing to scream, threw it in the sink with the screaming still going strong, and ran water over it.

  By that point, I was up, running to the kitchen, calming Layla down, and helping her scrub the char off the cook top.

  And Peter? Peter waited until the smoke alarm turned back off before he said, “Is breakfast almost ready, Layla?”

  I stare at my best friend in the most beautiful dress she’s ever worn, looking absolut
ely radiant, and suddenly get very, very sad.

  She whirls to me then, a huge smile on her face. “What do you think? Is it the one?”

  The dress? Sure. The groom? I am not so sure. The marriage itself?

  All I can think is, I am losing my best friend to the Tin Man, and I bite back tears along with the Gruyère.

  Monday and Tuesday are a blur. I wake up, get dressed, go to work, work all day on banquet preparations, go home, work on the lesson for youth group and a few things for taxes coming up at work, go to bed, and do the whole thing over again.

  Wednesday morning, I’m sitting at my desk when Mark walks in the door, whistling. “Good morning, Paige. It looks like the Teller family’s birth mother delivered last night.” He smiles at me. “Big, healthy boy.”

  I grin. I love the Tellers. They first came to us about eight months ago, and every time, without fail, when Mrs. Teller comes into the agency, she brings everyone in the office Starbucks.

  Including me. She is a favorite. Plus, she is young and really cute and her husband is about the most disturbingly affectionate man ever. If they are in the same room, he is either holding her hand, caressing her shoulder, or wrapping his arms around her waist.

  So, while I love her, I alternate between really liking and feeling really awkward around him.

  “What did they name him?” I ask.

  Mark pulls his phone out of his pocket and scrolls to his notebook app. Mark can’t remember anything. He even has to program his phone to tell him when it’s his daughter’s birthday.

  I find that just sad.

  “Samuel Michael,” Mark says. “Nine pounds, nine ounces.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I gasp, thinking of their poor, tiny birth mother.

  Mark nods. “But Rachel is doing well too. Candace is at the hospital with them today, so she won’t be coming in.”

  “Okay.” This isn’t uncommon in a field that involves pregnant women. I pull up Candace’s schedule on my computer and start calling the clients she has meetings with today to let them know she’ll have to reschedule.

  Peggy has a meeting with a potential birth mother at a coffeehouse, so it ends up just being Mark and me for most of the morning. Which is nice, because I actually get some work done. My goal every year is to get taxes filed and done by the beginning of March so I’m not stressing out that whole month.

  I try not to think too deeply about the fact that filing taxes for an adoption agency six weeks before deadline has become one of my primary goals in life. It tends to depress me.

  I remember back when I was about seventeen or eighteen and had plans to change the world. I was going to be the best family counselor in the state, I was going to change children’s and families’ lives for the better, and I remember being so totally on fire for Christ that I dragged six of the people who worked with me at Tratoria’s Pizza to church. Four of them have become Christians, and the last time I looked on Facebook, three of them are married, one with a baby on the way.

  I look at my computer and the receipts stacked in front of me and just sigh. Sometimes, I like being an adult. I like being able to set the thermostat in my apartment at the temperature I want, I like having single possession of my remote control, unless Layla is over, and I like being able to go to Starbucks at nine at night and order a regular macchiato without my mom hinting that maybe I should be drinking decaf by then.

  I don’t like all the work that comes with being an adult. Or the tiredness. Or just the lack of passion.

  I click around on my computer and look out the front window. It’s time for a change. I just don’t know where to even begin.

  * * * * *

  I hang up the phone at noon and cross another thing off my list for the banquet. So far, we have three speakers — a local TV personality who has adopted his three kids, a March of Dimes representative, and a girl about my age who was adopted when she was an infant and is now a beauty pageant queen.

  We don’t mess around with adoption fund-raising. Mark has been doing this banquet since he first opened the agency, and every year it just gets bigger. We had to rent one of the ballrooms at the Marriott for this year’s.

  I pull out my lunch cooler and open a cheese stick. Cheese and a packaged salad aren’t necessarily the most filling lunch, but it is more nutritious than yesterday’s lunch of Oreos and fruit snacks. Even though, according to the package, the fruit snacks contain real fruit.

  Right.

  Layla texts me at twelve thirty, right as I am putting my lunch away and clicking off the blogs about party planning.

  JUST HEARD ONE OF THE BANDS WE ARE THINKING ABOUT IS TOTALLY BOOKED UNTIL MAY.

  I write her back. WE’LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE. DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.

  I’ve already booked one of the bands for the banquet. They are a swing band, so I figured it would be fun dance music. And Mark actually liked the demo I gave him, which is something of a miracle. Mark is all about the music and the dancing at these banquets.

  Much to all of our chagrin.

  * * * * *

  Youth group goes well. The girls really learn from the lesson on sin, and honestly, I do too. Rick has an interesting way of looking at things. He doesn’t make a lot of sense in person, but for whatever reason, he can write well.

  After the class is over, I gather all the extra pencils the girls used, and everyone has already headed back to the youth room for snacks. I grab my jacket, Bible, and leader’s guide and follow a group of sophomore guys down the hall.

  Nichole approaches me as I walk in. “Hey, so I think I can meet again tomorrow.” She had to cancel last Thursday because her mom had already scheduled a dentist appointment for her.

  I nod. “I’ll pick you up at five thirty.” I’ll be skipping my workout again this week, but who am I kidding? I haven’t had the time to work out in about a month.

  A few of the other girls come over and we end up talking about a new movie that has just come out that a few of them have seen. “Oh, Paige, it is sooo cute,” Tasha gushes. “It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen!”

  I know Tasha well. “You always think that,” I tell her, grinning.

  “I do not!”

  “I present Exhibit A,” I say. “Cheaper by the Dozen 2.”

  “Oh yeah! That’s a great movie!”

  Obviously this girl needs some serious movie therapy. And quite possibly some kind of a brain scan.

  “I really need to organize a movie night for you,” I say offhandedly.

  “Oh, Paige, would you?” one girl says.

  “Can I come too?” another one jumps in.

  Suddenly all six girls are jumping up and down about the movie night at my place.

  “I’m so excited!” Brittany, one of the girls, says. “When are we having it?”

  “Um,” I say, trying to defuse their enthusiasm. I can barely find time to eat. How in the world am I going to pull off a movie night?

  “Friday?” Tasha suggests.

  “Friday works for me!” Brittany says.

  “I mean, I guess … that might wor — ” I barely get the word work out of my mouth when all of the girls explode, and somehow they multiply.

  “Movie night at Paige’s on Friday!” Tasha yells.

  “Sweet,” Tyler says, coming over. “How about Gladiator?”

  “Ick,” Brittany says. “And no boys allowed. This is a girls’ movie night.”

  Tyler backs away to the snack table, hands up surrender-style. “My bad, my bad.” He grins at me.

  “Okay, guys, listen.” I try to corral the madness. And how are there suddenly twelve girls excited about this?

  “I’ll bring popcorn,” Tasha says.

  “And my mom will totally make cookies,” Paris Kleinman says.

  That part sounds good. Mrs. Kleinman makes the most amazing sugar cookies I’ve ever tasted. Paris will probably bring them and they’ll be shaped like those clapperboard things that directors use. Or a movie camera. Or, considering the talent Mrs. Kle
inman has, a rendering of a poster of whatever movie we decide to watch. She has basically a full-time job making cookies for everyone at the church.

  “Well,” I say, feeling myself weakening.

  What do I really have planned for Friday night anyway?

  “We can all get there about six and pitch in for pizza!” Tasha suggests.

  “Yeah!” seven of the girls shout.

  I leave church with my entire Friday night planned without my help.

  * * * * *

  Candace walks in Thursday, weaves her fingers together under her chin, and says, “Okay, Paige. You can’t hate me forever.”

  “What?” I smile up at her from my desk. “I’ve never hated you.”

  “Right. Hold on to that feeling.”

  “Why?”

  She shakes her head and disappears into her office. Five minutes later, my e-mail notification dings.

  So sorry, Paige. I need these by Monday.

  Three home-study audios are attached to the e-mail.

  Normally, one home study takes me about six hours to transcribe. Six uninterrupted hours, which never happens. The home studies end up being about thirty single-

  spaced pages and have to be perfect because they are legal documents.

  I bite my bottom lip. Taxes and banquet preparation officially take a backseat, and it looks like I will be working late tonight. Especially because I can’t work late tomorrow, since it’s my job to pick up the pizza before heading back to my apartment to watch Tangled.

  And I really, really don’t want to come in over the weekend.

  Particularly since my weekend is going to include more listening to bands for the anniversary party. Layla found one she was almost sure of last night on the band’s website. I’ve never heard of them. Plus, she says she might want to go back to Marcello’s and look at more dresses.

  Which means there is potential for more of the amazing cheese and chocolate platters at Marcello’s. Not a chance I am willing to give up, even if it means I have to work my tail off all day and night tonight and try on thirty bridesmaid dresses like I know Layla will want me to do.

  It was really good cheese and chocolate. The only thing I hope is that the bridesmaids don’t have to wear that awful corset.