Chapter Two
“Stop acting like a fool!” Paige scolded herself in the bathroom mirror. She was acting a ridiculous mess if she didn’t say so herself. She thought she could do this. She thought she could stand up as Mother Doreen’s bridesmaids without getting all emotional, but she was failing miserably.
Paige had been a basket case ever since walking into the church and seeing all the wedding décor. She’d held up during the wedding shower and the rehearsal dinner, but actually walking into the wedding-ready church had just set off something inside of her. Memories flooded her mind; memories of what could have been. No—memories of what should have been.
The memories of her own wedding day should have brought nothing but tears of joy to her eyes, but instead, they were tears of hurt and pain. “She slept with Blake on the morning of our wedding. How am I supposed to ever get over that?” Paige asked her reflection in the mirror. “I can forgive, but how do I forget what I’m forgiving ?” Paige wondered why God had granted Himself a sea of forgetfulness but not man; not when it came to things so painful and hurtful anyway. Birthdays, anniversaries, doctors appointments—yeah, those were easy to forget. But what about the stuff people wanted to forget? It just didn’t seem fair.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This isn’t about you, Paige. Get it together.” And on that note, she grabbed some tissue and began blotting away her tears, leaving bags underneath her eyes. If her skin wasn’t so dark, the bags probably would have been red. That beautiful deep chocolate skin she wasn’t so sure she admired as a child she was now grateful for.
Opening her eyes, she let out a deep breath and smiled at herself in the mirror. The deep pits in her cheeks referred to as dimples nearly sunk in her face. “Okay, now you’re trying too hard. Just be yourself.”
Paige turned on the water and wet her hands. She then wiped away some of the tissue that had gotten stuck to her face. Looking at herself one last time in the mirror, she willed herself not to cry again; that is, unless they were complete and utterly tears of happiness.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, most of the tears Paige had shed thus far had been tears of hurt and pain. Walking into the church this morning had been like walking in on her own self-given surprise pity party. She had no idea all the hurt would come flowing back like salmon down a stream. But it had, and the future was too bright—way too bright—to let the past get the best of her, especially when today was supposed to be about Mother Doreen anyway.
“God, I thank you for who you made me to be,” Paige prayed. “Thank you that what I might have seen as pain and suffering I can now count it all joy. I’m so glad that you know me better than I know myself. I’m so glad that I have a Father in heaven that cares so much about me that He even knows how many hairs are upon my head. So thank you for loving me, God, and never failing me, even when man did. Hallelujah.”
Feeling brand new, rejuvenated, and restored, Paige opened the bathroom door and headed through the kitchen, making her way back to the dressing room. With a smile on her face, she thanked God again for showing up and pulling her out of her rut. Within moments, though, she’d have the devil to thank for showing up and pulling her down into a pit.
“Paige?”
Paige stopped in her tracks. She knew the voice, the voice that had just called out her name.
“Sister Paige, there you are.” Unique sounded like she was almost out of breath. Rightfully so, considering she’d just made a speedy beeline to the kitchen.
Figuring her mind must have been playing tricks on her, Paige shook her head and kept walking toward the kitchen exit. Unique stood panting in the kitchen doorway. Unique had one hand on her chest as she inhaled and exhaled like she’d just run a marathon. Suddenly, Deborah appeared behind Unique, nearly smashing right into the back of Unique.
“Oh, you found her—good,” Deborah exclaimed, just as out of breath as Unique was.
Paige put her hands on her hips and looked back and forth between the two women. “What in the world? You two are acting like there’s a fire somewhere and you’re running to go try to put it out.”
Both Deborah and Unique gave each other knowing looks. Then Unique spoke. “Uh, no fire—no fire at all.”
“Thank God,” Deborah mumbled under her breath with her head down.
“Anyway,” Unique said, walking over to Paige and looping her arm through Paige’s, “let’s go get your makeup done.” Unique began escorting Paige out of the kitchen as if her life depended on it.
“Well, dang, I must be a tore-up, five-alarm fire with the way y’all acting,” Paige huffed.
“Oh no, it’s not that,” Unique assured her. “We just want to make sure everybody’s ready is all.”
“Good, ’cause y’all had me worried there for a minute thinking—”
“Paige?”
Yet again, Paige stopped in her tracks. Once more, she’d heard a voice that she thought she recognized call out her name. Just like before, it had sounded like the voice was coming from behind her, but then Unique had showed up in front of her. All this had led Paige to believe that her mind was playing tricks on her. Was it? Was this entire wedding thing and thinking about the past making her go crazy? She reminded herself that God’s Word said He’d given her a sound mind, so she shook her head—she shook it off—the voice. With Unique’s persistent urging that consisted of the pulling of her arm, Paige continued her exit.
“Paige, is that you? It’s me, Tamarra.”
For the final time Paige stopped in her tracks. Deborah, who had been a step or two in front of Unique and Paige turned around. She was the first to see the owner of the voice: Tamarra. Unique didn’t want to believe it was really her, not after they’d been so close to getting Paige out of that kitchen without incident. But the look on Deborah’s face told her otherwise. Deborah nodding her head confirmed it even more so.
“Come on now, Sister Paige, you can catch up with old friends later. Right now, we’ve got to get your face all did up,” Unique said as she pulled on Paige in an attempt to continue their trek to the dressing room. It was to no avail, though. Unique’s little self had nothing on Paige’s full-figured self.
Not too long ago Paige had gotten down to a size twelve, pushing for a ten, but the final stages of her weight loss had been drastic and unhealthy caused by stress. Once she began to put the pieces of her life back together, it included a few pieces of pizza and a couple pieces of pie as well. But knowing she had diabetes, she got back on track and was now maintaining a size fourteen, fluctuating to a size sixteen every now and then. Of course, this didn’t do Unique any good. She couldn’t budge Paige.
Ignoring Unique’s pleas, Paige slowly turned around. There she had it—proof that her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her at all. The voice she thought she’d heard, oh, she’d heard it all right. There stood the proof right in front of her—Tamarra—her former best friend.
“You look good,” Tamarra complimented Paige. “Real good.”
Paige just stood there saying nothing.
“And it’s good seeing you.” A smile rested on Tamarra’s face. She was truly being sincere. She missed her best friend; that much was evident as sadness and tears began to form in her eyes.
Still, Paige said nothing and did nothing.
“Well, I guess I better get back to setting up.” Tamarra looked around the kitchen. “It feels good being back at New Day as well. Even if it is only in the kitchen instead of sitting in the sanctuary as a member of the congregation. Lots of memories though.” Tamarra continued to look around. “Lots and lots of memories.” She sighed, remembering the day she decided to leave the church, which had nothing to do with her incident with Paige. She had been engaged to a member of New Day. When things didn’t work out with him and he got together with another member of the church, she knew she couldn’t hang around for the drama.
What exactly was going through Paige’s mind, nobody knew—that was, until a few words were exchanged between the two former best friends and then . . .
Try as she might, everything in Paige wanted to be like Jill Scott’s character in Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? When Jill Scott ran into the woman who used to be her former best friend but had slept with her husband, all Jill said to her was “I’m gonna pray for you.” And that’s all Paige wanted to say to Tamarra. But unfortunately, her actions spoke louder than words, because before anybody even had a chance to see it coming, the two women were brawling, and Paige had handfuls of Tamarra’s hair in each of her fists. Paige hoped God was good at math, because if He knew how many hairs were on Tamarra’s head just a second ago, He’d have to do some quick subtraction to figure out how many were left now.