Paige Torn

by Erynn Mangum

  “Good night, Nat.”

  She jumps off the couch and runs for her bedroom.

  I look at Claire. I’ve never spent very much time with such a small baby, but it can’t be that hard, can it?

  It can.

  After twenty minutes, I can see why Natalie’s hair hasn’t been washed in so long. First off, it takes two hands to hold Claire, and the second I set her down to do something, she flips out with these horrible squawky sounds that verge somewhere between a cry and what I imagine a dinosaur hatching sounded like.

  I finally just reconcile myself to holding her the rest of Natalie’s nap and calling in a pizza or something instead of making dinner. I pick her up carefully, still a little afraid that I might drop her and she will shatter into a million pieces on the floor. Her head lolls around so much. It scares me.

  My phone starts ringing an hour after I get there. It is Layla.

  “Hey!” she says cheerfully. I can hear music in the background. “Just calling to let you know I’m on my way with the invitations!”

  I try to think positively. Maybe she already finished the invites, and she is coming by to show the finished product to me.

  “I’m at Natalie’s, remember?” I cradle the phone between my cheek and my shoulder while I hold Claire in the rocking chair. She is looking at me with wide, dark eyes, her pacifier bobbing up and down.

  “Right. I called Nat last week and she said that was fine to bring the invitations over to work on. Actually, I even suggested we watch a movie or something while we work on them, and she said that would be great.”

  “Well, she hasn’t slept in three days,” I tell Layla. “She’s taking a nap right now. And Claire cries anytime you set her down.”

  “So I’ll work on the invitations and keep you company while you hold Claire. Be there in ten.”

  She hangs up, probably so I can’t continue to debate with her.

  I look down at Claire, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair. I never did much babysitting. Young babies waver between grossing me out and making me nervous. You can never predict what an infant is going to do.

  Claire is still staring at me. I remember my mom telling me once that the only way she could get me to sleep in the beginning was by swaddling me up so tight she could stand me up against the wall.

  It can’t hurt to try.

  I lay a blanket out on the floor, wrap Claire up as tightly as I dare, and settle back into the chair with the baby burrito.

  “So,” I say quietly, rubbing a finger over her soft baby cheeks. “What do you think of the world so far?”

  She seems to relax a little when I stroke her cheek, so I keep lightly brushing my finger over and around her cheeks, her forehead, her tiny chin, and her little Dippin’ Dot of a nose. She keeps melting farther and farther into my arm, and a few minutes later, her eyelids start to flutter.

  Which of course is when Layla knocks on the door. I squint at the front door, see we never locked it after I got here, and ever-so-slowly fish my cell phone out of my pocket and text Layla, all while keeping the same rhythm rocking.

  As soon as I finish texting, I keep stroking my finger over her face. Layla creeps through the door, finger over her mouth, holding two paper grocery sacks.

  Claire’s eyes are half closed now. Her pacifier isn’t bobbing up and down nearly as much.

  I nod to the huge baby swing in the corner. Layla reads my mind and goes over and turns the swing on and then closes the drapes since the sun is shining directly on the swing.

  Claire’s eyes shut all the way.

  I hold my breath, ease to my feet, still half rocking Claire in my arms, sway over to the swing, and ever-so-slowly set her into it.

  And, miracle of all miracles, she stays asleep.

  I breathe for the first time in ten minutes, and Layla nods at Claire.

  “You’re an old pro,” she whispers to me.

  “She hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours,” I whisper back. “It’s inevitable she’d fall asleep eventually.”

  We tiptoe to the kitchen and Layla opens her bags. “Well, I brought all the invitation stuff. And I actually got the chance to make one this week after I got off work. What do you think?”

  She holds it up. Layla is not crafty at all. She is forever saying that if people out there are willing to take the time and energy to make crafts, she would take the time and energy to work and make money to pay them for their crafts.

  “Wow,” I say because I’m not sure what else to say to her invitation. I pictured something totally different when she mentioned burlap and lace. The invite is half a sheet of cream-colored paper with scraps of burlap and lace haphazardly glued on it around the wording.

  “Yep. It’s terrible, huh?”

  “Well,” I say, not wanting to be mean.

  “You can’t lie to your best friend. It’s awful. It’s proof I should never be allowed to handle a glue stick.”

  “Well,” I say again. “I mean, I think I just had something different in mind.”

  “I should hope so.”

  I pick a scrap of burlap from the bag and twist it in my fingers until it looks like a mini rosette. “What if we do more of this style? With lace accents.”

  Layla shakes her head. “See? How did you do that? I spent eight hours working on that invitation, and you made something gorgeous in fifteen seconds.”

  “You seriously spent eight hours working on this?”

  “Some of us have to be good at shopping.” Layla sighs with the burden of her responsibility.

  I laugh.

  “Anyway, I figured Natalie could use some groceries, so I brought a few things for her too.” Layla pulls a frozen lasagna, a few bags of frozen vegetables, some Marie Callendar’s frozen meals, two loaves of French bread, and two packages of Oreos from the other bag.

  “Wow,” I say, this time in admiration. “Natalie will love you.”

  “That’s my goal. I want a beautiful wedding with a killer ceremony. The best way to get to the heart of the pastor is through his wife.”

  I grin.

  Natalie comes walking out of her bedroom at seven thirty, just as I am paying the pizza delivery guy for our extra-large pepperoni pizza. We managed to get thirty invitations put together, and they are scattered all over Natalie’s dining room table, glue drying.

  “She is sleeping?” Natalie whispers, staring open-mouthed at her daughter who is still snoozing away in the swing.

  “I swaddled her up. I hope that’s okay. She hasn’t budged since I laid her down.”

  Natalie just keeps staring. “You. Are. A. Miracle. Worker. And you can never leave.”

  “Did you get some sleep?” I ask her, trying to distract her from that thought, because the idea of living with Rick and Natalie is not necessarily a welcome one.

  “Glorious sleep.” She squints at the clock hanging on her wall. “If she’s sleeping, I’m going to eat dinner before I wake her up to eat.”

  “You have to wake babies up to eat?” Layla asks.

  “You do when you’re first nursing. I’m bursting here.”

  Layla holds up her hands. “Too much information, Nat.”

  Natalie opens the pizza box and inhales. “Wow, you guys did not have to get pizza,” she says, pulling two slices onto a plate. “This is so not on my list of what I was going to eat after Claire was born.”

  I grin.

  Natalie squeezes her eyes closed. “Lord, thank You for these girls, for their generosity, for their sweet hearts, and for my precious daughter. And may this pizza be free of all calories. Amen.”

  Layla nods and gets two slices for herself. “Amen and amen.”

  “So what are these?” Natalie stands with her paper plate and looks at the mess of invitations covering her kitchen table.

  “My parents’ party. Rick says y’all are coming,” Layla says.

  “Did he now?” Natalie rolls her eyes and takes a bite of pizza. “He has no idea what kind of work it is to be a moth
er and be nursing eight hours a day every single day.”

  “I for one would be a little weirded out, though, if I walked in and Rick was nursing,” I say.

  “I’d be way more than a little weirded out,” Layla declares.

  Natalie shrugs. “I don’t know. It would be nice to be able to split the nightly duties.”

  New parents should just avoid thinking.

  I get home Monday night, dragging my duffel bag into my apartment and yawning. I am exhausted. I went straight to work from Natalie’s this morning, and I didn’t get a complete night’s sleep any of the three nights I was there.

  I can’t imagine being Natalie. At least I know I am going to sleep tonight.

  I look at the clock on my phone. It is six. The odds are good that I will be in bed by eight.

  Kicking my duffel bag in the general direction of my bedroom, I slump down on the couch and close my eyes. Next week starts the general panic that will be my life for the next two weekends. I should soak up every second I can and just lie on the couch with my eyes closed.

  My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I roll over to my side, dig it out, and answer it without checking the caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “Paige?”

  Tyler. “Hi,” I say, shifting back to a sitting position and rubbing my eyes.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “Mmm. No.”

  “You weren’t at church.”

  No, we weren’t. Claire finally decided to go to sleep at six in the morning. I spent the whole night taking shifts with Natalie.

  “Mm-mmm,” I mumble.

  “Are you sick? Dying? Take your pulse for me.”

  “Tyler, I’m fine. I spent the weekend at Natalie’s, remember? I didn’t get any sleep.”

  He is quiet for a minute. “Did you just get home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ll let you go relax then.”

  I nod and then realize he never mentioned why he was calling. “Did you need something?” I ask him right before I hang up.

  “What?”

  “I mean, were you just calling to ask me to take my temperature?”

  “Pulse, Paige,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. “I’m calling to see if you want to go get dessert at that Italian place by church, but we can definitely do it another night.”

  My mouth starts watering. But it still isn’t enough to keep my eyes open. Sometimes you have to choose sleep over eating.

  Even if the eating does involve a delicious hot-baked apple dough thing topped with cinnamon ice cream and the company of a cute, very sweet guy.

  I blink. Apparently I am tired.

  “Another night sounds good.” I try to let him down gently.

  “How about I come there and we watch a movie or something instead?”

  “Um, tonight?”

  “Yeah!”

  Obviously he hasn’t been able to tell how tired I am from my voice. I rub my forehead, thinking about Tyler.

  I like the way his hair curls.

  “Well,” I say, thinking about it. I can maybe stay awake through a movie.

  Maybe.

  “Paige,” Tyler says, half gently, half reprimanding. “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No. You can tell me no.”

  “I have.” Many times over.

  “Not often enough. Come on. You can’t hurt my feelings. I promise. You need to learn how to do this. Just because there’s an opportunity to do something does not mean you have to be the one to do it.”

  Candace’s words from last week swim through my sleep-muddled brain. “A need does not constitute a call.”

  Apparently they think similarly.

  “So. Do it.”

  “Do what?” I ask him.

  “Tell me no.”

  “No.”

  “There, see? It wasn’t that hard.”

  I smile. “Bye, Tyler.”

  “Good night, Paige.”

  I hang up, walk into the kitchen, and pull out a cheese stick. And look at it. How often has this been my dinner over the past month?

  I shake my head as I walk to my bedroom. I change into my pajamas, pull back the covers, and see my Bible sitting on my bedside table.

  I forgot to pack it and bring it to Natalie’s.

  I wouldn’t have had the time to read there anyway.

  I pick it up, but the words all run together. I am too tired to read. I can’t even remember the last time I read anything.

  But I am serving. Surely that counts for something.

  Then I fall asleep.

  * * * * *

  Tuesday, we have our official staff meeting to discuss the budget. I push the button on the answering machine at ten o’clock so the machine will play my “we’re here, just not available” message, grab my file folder with all the banquet information, and walk into Mark’s office.

  Mark’s office is where we always have staff meetings because his is really the only office large enough to have them, other than the waiting room where I work, but that isn’t too conducive to meetings.

  Candace and Peggy are already in there, sitting on the chairs in front of his desk. Mark nods to the other chair he brought in for me.

  “All right,” he says. “Let’s start this. Paige, I’m going to need a rundown of the hour-by-hour schedule, as well as all of the vendors.”

  We spend the next hour going over the banquet. It is eighteen days away, and this is the time of year when Mark goes into stressed-out mode. I’ve heard horror stories about what he is usually like.

  He doesn’t seem that bad to me.

  Probably because I’ve done all the work on the banquet.

  “Wow,” he says finally, leaning back in his chair. “You definitely covered all the bases. And the infield. And the outfield.”

  “Thanks.” I tuck all the papers back into the folder. I am glad he likes my work, but something sinks in my stomach. Yet again, I am making myself the perfect secretary.

  Why hire a replacement when you don’t need one?

  My dream of being a counselor is looking further and further away.

  * * * * *

  Between Friday night’s movie night when the girls talked me into watching Bewitched and the weekend spent helping Layla iron out the last-minute details for her parents’ party that is one week away, I stayed so busy that I barely had time to think.

  “I think I’m going to tell them I’ve made reservations at that really nice restaurant downtown. What’s the name of it?” Layla asks, making a pot of coffee on Sunday night. I sit at her kitchen table, staring at the mess of papers, brochures, and plans all over the table.

  “Gustavo’s?”

  “Right. And I’m going to rent a limo to take them to the restaurant, but really it’s going to take them to the park where we’ll all be.”

  I nod. “Sounds like a good, expensive plan,” I say as she puts the sugar bowl on the table.

  “Just the way Dad likes it.” She grins.

  Layla pours me a cup of coffee and then sits down catty-corner to me with her own cup. “And the weather even looks good.”

  I nod, scooping a couple of teaspoons of sugar into my cup. I checked the weather as well.

  “Do you have a sleeping bag?” Layla asks me, sipping her coffee.

  I sigh. She is still bent on spending the night in the park. I told her that surely if we were there by five in the morning, we’d be fine.

  “I just want to be safe,” she told me on the phone yesterday. “It would ruin everything if the park was already taken.”

  “I just want us to be safe,” I tell her now.

  “Well, me too. I mean, if we get kidnapped, that would definitely put a damper on the party.” Layla grins. “Don’t worry about it. I already talked to Peter and he’s going to join us.”

  Now this is awkward. My best friend, her fiancé, and I are all spending the night in a dark, empty park together.

  I give her a look. S
he smiles cheekily. “And don’t worry, you get to sleep in between Peter and me.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “You can tell me if he snores then.”

  “Is that a deal breaker?”

  She thinks about it. “Not if it’s one of those snores that can be solved with one of those weird bandages on his nose.”

  “What?”

  “Sleep Right? Breathe Bright?” Then she grins. “First star I see tonight?”

  “You are so strange.”

  “Oh!” she says quickly and pulls out one of the papers from the stack under the sugar bowl. “That reminds me. I remembered that Aunt MaryAnn and Aunt MaryLou aren’t speaking to each other. We’ll have to move one of them to a different table.”

  “MaryAnn and MaryLou,” I echo.

  “My dad’s mom has a thing for Marys.” Layla shrugs. “I think Dad’s just happy his name isn’t Mary Andrew like in Kate and Leopold.”

  I grin.

  We switch the aunts around, and then Layla sits back, sipping her coffee and nodding at the table seating chart. “Perfect.”

  “When are the tables getting there?” She rented the tables and chairs from a place in town.

  “Noon, I think. Which gives us about five hours before people start showing up to decorate. The band is getting there at four thirtyish. And the invitations told everyone to get there by five thirty at the latest.”

  “And your parents come at six,” I say.

  “Right.”

  We both sit quietly, staring at the mess on the table for a few minutes, sipping our coffee.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost here,” Layla says. “All this work. And it’s almost over.”

  “Your mom and dad are going to be so happy.” I smile at her. “This really is about the sweetest thing ever.”

  “Well, I mean, they did everything for me. I figure this is the least I can do for them.” She gets up to refill her coffee mug. “Now,” she says as she comes back over with the coffeepot to top mine off, “let’s talk about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve been so busy with this party planning and you’ve been so nuts with the banquet stuff and church stuff that I feel like we haven’t talked about anything but business in forever. What’s going on?” She puts the coffeepot back and sits down again.