by Niki Lenz
We set up a romantic date atmosphere. A cluttered closet off the fellowship hall contained decorations from a mishmash of weddings. We found a white linen tablecloth, a few long candles in holders, and a slightly dusty flower arrangement. Bea wanted to be in charge of the music. She picked the soundtrack to a cartoon, but at least it was a cartoon where people fell in love, so I allowed it.
We dimmed the lights, lit the candles, and warmed up a whole pizza we discovered in the refrigerator that the youth group hadn’t managed to devour at their last event.
When everything was in place, we stood back and surveyed our hostage situation/date. I had a very good feeling about this. Now to lock them in.
* * *
My dad was finishing up some stuff in his office at the church on Wednesday night, so I used the basement phone to call Miss O’Connor. I disguised my voice and said that the church was flooded and that I was looking for volunteers to come clean it up.
“Is she coming?” Bea asked nervously.
“Yeah,” I said. “But she sounded annoyed.”
“She’ll be less annoyed when she sees the basement isn’t under water,” Bea said.
“Grace, Bea, you guys ready to go?” Dad yelled down the stairs.
“We can’t let him see all this”—I gestured around to the date setup—“until Miss O’Connor gets here. He’ll know what we’re trying to do.”
Bea tapped her chin. “Okay, you go stall him. I’ll make sure Miss O’Connor doesn’t come upstairs. Oh, and get their phones! We don’t want anyone calling for backup.”
“You’re super smart, Bea.” I dashed up the stairs.
“You owe me!” she called after me.
“Done studying?” Dad asked. I’d told him that Bea and I needed to come with him to church that afternoon so that we’d have a quiet place to work on our projects. My throat tightened around the lie I was about to tell.
“Almost. There was one thing I needed your help with, though. Can I borrow your phone?”
Dad cocked one eyebrow but handed over his phone. “Sure.”
I held up my hand and turned around like I was making a call. Inside, my heart hammered in my chest. What if Miss O’Connor showed up right now? What if Dad went downstairs and saw our setup? What if I couldn’t think of anything to say to this fake person I was supposedly talking to on Dad’s phone? Sweat broke out on my forehead.
Bea’s voice called from the basement, “Um, can you come help with that thing?”
Someone mumbled, “What’s going on here?”
I recognized Miss O’Connor’s voice. She must have come in from the other side of the building. I grabbed Dad’s hand and dragged him down the stairs. “You see, there’s this thing we need you to help with.”
“Yes, you already mentioned that. What’s going on?”
“Um, we think someone left one of the stoves on in the kitchen. And we can’t figure out how to turn it off.”
I slipped his phone in my pocket. As we landed at the bottom of the stairs, I pushed him through the doors of the fellowship hall, at the same time Bea squeezed out. We pulled the doors closed and twisted the lock, peering at our prisoners through the small rectangular windows.
“What in the devil is going on here?” Dad roared, and Miss O’Connor banged at the doors, pounding with her fists and tugging on the handles.
“Let us out of here right this minute!” she yelled, and swayed on her feet, stumbling over to a chair. “Oh my gosh. Walls closing in. Feeling faint.”
Dad’s face changed from contorted with rage to full of concern. He sat down in the chair next to her and put a cautious hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t like being locked in. Get a bit claustrophobic.”
Dad looked at us in the windows. “Do you hear that? She’s claustrophobic and you’ve locked her in. Whatever it is you’re planning is not going to work, Grace. Let us out.”
I looked at Bea and she looked at me. I cleared my throat. “It’s a really big room. She should be fine. And we’ll let you out in one hour.”
“An hour! You’ve lost your mind. I’m calling…hey, my phone!”
I wiggled it in the window, and Bea wiggled Miss O’Connor’s. That made Miss O’Connor laugh, and then Dad laughed and their eyeballs glued together for just half a second before they remembered they were prisoners.
Dad lowered his voice and spoke through gritted teeth. “Grace, this is ridiculous. You have to let us out immediately. This is not the way grown-ups do things.”
“Yeah, but the way grown-ups do things isn’t working, so this is the way kids do things. Eat some pizza. And be nice. We’ll be back in an hour.”
Bea and I practically skipped out of there, sure we’d made a love connection. Before long they’d be laughing, talking about what an adorable rascal I am, and looking into each other’s eyes.
We went upstairs in the empty church and raided the animal crackers in the preschool supply closet. They were slightly stale, but I was so happy with myself I didn’t mind.
We played about a million rounds of charades to pass the time. I did an amazing impression of a cuckoo bird, but I always forgot you weren’t allowed to make sounds. And since Bea is basically the rules police, I was losing big-time.
I bit the head off a lion cracker. “What do you think they’re doing right now?” I asked, crumbs spraying everywhere.
“Thinking up punishments for you,” Bea said.
I laughed. “Come on. Dad hasn’t punished me for anything in…well, since Mom. That’s not how Team Gravy operates.”
Bea shrugged. “That’s how parents operate. He looked royally cheesed off.”
“Sure, at first. But after he’s had some pizza and he and Miss O’Connor have shared their hopes and dreams, he’ll see it was all for his own good.”
“I hope you’re right because it’s time to let them out.”
An hour had gone by. Had it been enough time? Would everything be okay now? My knees shook as we walked back down to the fellowship hall. But nothing could prepare me for what we saw when we unlocked the double doors. Miss O’Connor was gone, and Dad looked madder than I’d ever seen him.
“What happened? How did she leave?” I asked. Bea tried to squeeze behind me, like a toddler playing hide-and-seek.
“We were rescued,” Dad growled.
Miss Regina emerged from the kitchen, wearing black cropped pants and a leopard-print shirt. She smiled when she saw us, but there was a mean glint in her eye.
“Miss Regina,” I said.
“You have quite a lot of explaining to do, young lady. If I hadn’t driven by and seen the chair stuffed under the back door, your poor father might’ve wasted away in here.”
“What were you thinking? Why on earth would you do this?” Dad’s hands were balled into fists. He looked like a different person, anger twisting up his face.
“I…we wanted you and Miss O’Connor to talk.” I glanced at Miss Regina, who listened intently. “Like on a date.” She burst out laughing but stopped short when I glared at her.
“Sorry, it’s just…” She leaned over and put a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “I just can’t see you two together is all.”
“Neither can she. She was mad enough to chew through the door. It’s a good thing Miss Regina showed up when she did.” For a second there was a flicker of confusion and hurt in his eyes.
“So you didn’t talk at all? You didn’t tell her…how you feel or anything? All you did was complain about being locked in without your phones?”
Dad stood up. “I don’t want to hear one more word about it. Bea, I’ll be giving your mother a call after I drop you off. And, Grace, you’re grounded. No leaving the house except school and church. And the rest of your time will be spent doing chores. No computer. And no TV.”
He looked frantic to make the punishment sound extra scary, but the truth is, anything he would’ve dealt me would’ve stung. Usually, when I flew off the handle and did something unwise, we’d talk it out. He’d tell me not to do it again. We’d snap right back to being best friends. But not this time. He was determined to make me feel the bite of the punishment. “And no desserts!” he added.
Tears streamed down my face, and I turned on my heels and smashed right into Bea, bonking our heads together painfully. We walked up the stairs and out to the truck without speaking. How did things go so terribly wrong? This was never what happened in the movies when people got locked in elevators. It wasn’t even what happened when kids did sneaky stuff to their parents. I was being punished, and Dad was mad, and the whole plan had been a big failure.
* * *
I sniffed loudly and wiped snot on the back of my arm. “Well, that didn’t quite work out.” I opened the truck door and slid in. Bea didn’t reply.
I continued. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting them to fall in love, but I sure wasn’t expecting this garbage fire.”
Still nothing from Bea.
“Hey.” I touched her knee, but she wouldn’t look at me. “Great, now you’re mad at me too?”
“Well, now I’m in trouble, and it was mostly your idea! I don’t know why I go along with these things.”
“Mostly my idea? You’re the one who came up with locking them in! Plus, nobody forced you to hide in the closet and eat a million pounds of animal crackers!”
Dad opened the truck door, and we got quiet. He drove us home, dropping Bea in her driveway before parking in ours. She didn’t turn and wave when she got to the door. Dad and I walked into our house without saying a word to each other.
I planned to escape to my room, but Dad wasn’t done yelling at me.
“I can’t believe my daughter lied to my friend and told her the church flooded. Of course she rushed over to help. Because that’s the kind of person Olivia is. I’ve never been more disappointed in you, Grace.”
Dad was disappointed. In me. He had never said those words before, ever. Heat crept up my neck.
“I’m not sure I can ever look that poor woman in the eye again,” Dad said.
“Miss Regina?” I asked hopefully.
“No, Olivia!”
My voice wobbled. “Was she super mad?”
Dad rubbed the back of his neck. He needed a shave. His chin was stubbly and his hair was a mess. “She wasn’t exactly mad. I mean, once the claustrophobia calmed down. We talked for a few minutes, until Miss Regina showed up to save us. Then she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
I groaned. “Dad, that’s because everyone knows Miss Regina has a thing for you. I’m sure Miss O’Connor saw her with her paws all over you and got discouraged again!”
“Enough, Grace. Miss Regina and I are just friends. Olivia and I are just friends. We all attend the same church. Stop trying to make all of this into something it’s not. Stay out of my love life. I mean it.”
Stay out of my love life. Maybe what he really meant to say was Stay out of my life. Dad was lonely, and I’d made things worse instead of better. Some teammate I turned out to be.
“I just think if you two spend some more time together, you might find you have a lot in common.” Dad arranged the magazines on the coffee table as though Gretchen would score him on tidiness after dinner.
“What exactly do we have in common?” I grumped. I had been grounded for exactly three days following the hostage situation, and I was not enjoying my imprisonment. So far it included a lot of extra chores, no TV, and no time with Bea. Which didn’t really matter, ’cause as far as I knew she was still mad at me for getting her in trouble. And now, as the cherry on top, I was forced to spend an evening with Dad and Gretchen. The urge to sabotage was strong.
I realized that Dad still hadn’t answered my question, so I stared hard at him until he said, “I don’t know! That’s why you need to spend time together! There must be something.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
“After dinner, Gretchen suggested we all sit down and watch a movie together. She mentioned Country Bridges. Have you seen that one?”
“Uh, isn’t that the one with all the old people kissing?” I asked, plopping down on the couch.
Dad was defensive. “It won all kind of awards. And…I’m sure other stuff happens besides the kissing.”
“Ew. Not exactly the type of movie you want to watch with your dad and his girlfriend,” I mumbled.
Dad started flipping through our DVDs. “Maybe there’s something else in here that we might all enjoy. Do you think she’s seen America’s Bloodiest Battles?”
“I’m guessing no. Good luck convincing her to check it out,” I said.
“Hey, you wanted less kissing.”
“So, what are we ordering for dinner?” I asked. My mouth watered at the thought of pizza.
Dad straightened up with a handful of DVDs in his arms. “We are going to cook dinner for Gretchen.”
“Say what,” I said, staring at my dad like he’d grown a second head.
“You and I are going to prepare a nice meal for Gretchen. Together. Using all of our combined cooking skills. And YouTube. We will definitely need to consult YouTube. But I think it’s time we learned to be more self-sufficient.”
I snorted. “You just want to show off for Gretchen.”
“If Gretchen is impressed with our culinary skills, so be it. Now come in here and help me.”
The recipe we were attempting was for chicken piccata and angel-hair pasta. Dad also ambitiously thought we should have some kind of garlic bread and salad with it. The printed recipe was spread out on the counter, right next to the grocery bags. He’d gone shopping earlier, and as he read through the recipe, I was surprised to find he had managed to get everything we needed.
We alternated between Dad reading a step of the recipe and me Googling how to actually do that step, and slowly but surely, the meal came together. The kitchen was a mess, and there were dirty dishes piled on pretty much every surface. But an hour later we had cooked chicken, delicious sauce, al dente pasta, toasted garlic bread, and salad all sitting on the kitchen table, just as the doorbell rang.
Dad greeted Gretchen with a hug. She took off her expensive-looking coat and smoothed her dress. She had a fresh manicure and just the right amount of makeup and of course looked perfect, but her smile was tight and it didn’t quite make it up to her eyes.
“Grace, how nice that you’ll be spending the evening with us,” she said. “Your dad tells me you’ve been sticking close to home lately.” She cocked an eyebrow at me and I just smiled like a wooden puppet.
“I hope you’re hungry, ’cause Grace and I whipped up a delicious Italian feast for you!” Dad said, leading her to the kitchen.
Gretchen surveyed the table and patted Dad on the arm. “Well done. And I see you didn’t even burn the kitchen down.”
Dad’s face got serious. “Did you hear about the Italian chef who died?” He paused for dramatic effect. “He pasta way.”
Dad and I cracked up, but Gretchen only half smiled.
“His legacy will become a pizza history!” I said, giving Gretchen the same look my dad always gives me after a punny joke.
“Clever,” she said, sitting down. “I’m sorry, I should have told you that I just started cutting carbs this week. No pasta or bread for me.”
Dad’s face fell, but only a tiny fraction. “That’s perfectly fine. You can still have chicken and salad.”
“No sauce, though. That looks rich,” she said, sipping daintily from her water.
Dad shrugged, and we all filled our plates. I ate extra pasta and garlic bread to make up for Gretchen’s diet. It was delicious. And that sauce! I couldn’t believe that me and Dad had pulled that off! It was a
form of gravy, I guess, so that made sense.
Gretchen turned to me. “Grace, tell me about your plans for the summer?”
“Oh, well, Dad and I are planning a bunch of little road trips to try and visit all these wacky presidential sites. And then we were hired to portray Teddy and Alice at the World’s Fare in July—you know about that already.”
I was pretty much daring her to say something bad about me and Dad and the stuff we like to do. But she went another direction with it.
“When I was your age, I loved to go to summer camp. For the entire summer. It was so much fun, making new friends and spending time in nature.”
Dad looked down at his plate and I swallowed my last bit of chicken. “That’s…nice,” I said cautiously.
“Maybe you and your dad should look into some camps? That might be more fun for you, and less driving and dress-up for him!”
I jerked my head toward Dad, who just shrugged and gave me the What do you think? look.
“Um, no. Me and Dad like all the extra time we get to spend together during the summer. We already have plans.”
“Maybe next year, then,” Gretchen said, taking a slow sip of her water.
* * *
After dinner, Gretchen suggested I clean up the kitchen and clear the table so she and Dad could get the movie ready. Normally, I would’ve been irritated that she was ordering me around, but if cleaning the kitchen meant I didn’t have to endure any more not-so-subtle hints to get lost, I was a happy volunteer.
I carried the dishes to the sink and filled it with warm soapy water. We had a dishwasher, but tonight felt like a good time to do things the old-fashioned way.
Is this what my life would be if Dad got married? Would I spend all my time staying out of the way and hoping Mommy Dearest wouldn’t talk to me?
Not if the lady was Miss O’Connor.
Dad’s phone was abandoned on the table and I picked it up and considered calling her. There was something I wanted to tell her. I’d followed up on her Edith Roosevelt comment at the Muffins with Mom event and done some extra research on the early years of the Roosevelt family.