by Hannah Paige
Graduation. Now that was a word Rick didn’t think he would be hearing for a long time to come. He nodded, “I understand, and I appreciate you making an effort for Grace. I want her to have the best, of course, but…it’s a lot to think about. Can I take those?” he asked, pointing to the school pamphlets in her hand.
“Yes, yes, take them, talk it over with Grace. I know this would be a big change for both of you, and there’s a lot of factors to take into consideration.”
Rick stood up from his plastic desk chair, “Could you do me a favor and not mention any of this to Grace today? I still haven’t told her that she has to go see her mom tomorrow and I don’t want too much news on her shoulders right now.”
Miss Adkins rose from her seat, smoothing a hand over her crimson skirt, “Yes, of course, whatever you think is best. Thank you for meeting with me this morning, Mr. Griffin. I truly appreciate it.”
Rick shook the woman’s hand gingerly, “Thanks for taking such an interest in Grace.”
The frail, young teacher smiled genuinely, “She’s a special girl. She’s going to go far.”
Rick nodded as he took a step away from the desk, “Don’t I know it.”
“How did it go?” Grace asked as Rick came back inside the front office.
He sighed, “Well, I’m afraid you’ve been expelled.”
She splayed her hand over her forehead and laid out in her chair, “Oh, no! Whatever will I do now? How will I find eligible suitors if I am not given a proper education?”
Rick shook his head and laid a hand on Grace’s shoulder, “I guess it’ll be the spinster route for you.” He knelt down and smiled at her, “Now how about you get to class? We can talk about this after school.”
She frowned and slung her backpack over her shoulder, “But I want to hear about it now. I honestly don’t think it will make much of a difference if I miss the first bit of class… or the whole first hour.”
“Math is first, isn’t it?”
She pursed her lips, “Wouldn’t you guess it.”
Rick chuckled and stood up, giving her a nudge towards the hallway door, “Get to class. I’ll pick you up after school.”
She heaved the door open as the first bell rang, setting off a stampede of student’s shoes that echoed all the way into the office where Rick stood.
“I’ll see you at 3:30?” Grace checked.
Rick nodded, “I’ll be there.”
She flashed him one more grin and a thumbs up before bounding through the doorway and off to her classroom.
Rick pulled up outside the school at 3:10. He hadn’t been early to pick Grace up from school since before he had taken his last job. It was his first job in intelligence, and as a result, the hours had been terrible. He’d strayed from his ten-minutes-early-or-late mindset and was trying to make up for it now. The bell rang about five minutes later, and kids poured out of the front door momentarily. A teacher wearing a bright orange vest took her place in the front crosswalk and started waving cars forward in the carpool lane. Rick’s truck inched forward as he moved up in line. Grace spilled out the front door, laughing with another girl—Rick recognized her, maybe she had come over to their house a few times, but he couldn’t remember her name.
Grace was slinging her backpack off and starting to sit down on the brick wall when she spotted Rick’s truck. Her beam of surprise tugged at Rick’s throat as she waved goodbye to her friend and took off towards him. Ignoring the crossing guard, she wrenched the passenger door open and climbed into the front seat.
“You’re early!” she informed Rick, as if he couldn’t read the clock on the dashboard.
“I’m unemployed! I have no excuse to be late.”
She tossed her backpack into the bench-seat in the back of the truck, “You’ll find a job. I’m sure it’s just taking all of the places that you’ve sent your resume to a long time because they’re all fighting over you.”
He gave her a half smile and pulled out of the carpool lane and into the exit lane.
“So, Father-Dear, I have waited all day. What did Miss Adkins want to talk to you about? Really, this time.”
Rick turned onto the main street where the cars in front of him were stopped at a red light, “She wanted to talk to me about you.”
Grace glared at him, “Well, duh. I would have been slightly concerned if I hadn’t been in the conversation somewhere.”
“Easy, smart-ass.”
Grace sighed and propped her elbow up on the car door, “Sorry. So she wanted to talk about me…”
Rick turned right as soon as the light turned green and the cars in front of him moved out of the way, “I’m thinking Chinese for dinner, what do you think?”
“Dad? What did she want to talk to you about?”
“Grace, it’s not important right this second.”
“Are you saying that giving me time to decide whether I want moo shu chicken or sesame chicken supersedes something that has to do with my education? Because if that’s the case I can assure you that I don’t need this much time to decide. Mu Shu chicken, there, now will you tell me what Miss Adkins wanted?”
Rick suppressed a laugh and continued to keep the subject away from his talk with her teacher. He still had to bring up the little detail that Grace was supposed to be flying to see Tammy tomorrow. One bombshell at a time.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Miss Adkins was moving to New York?”
Grace frowned, clearly surprised by the direction of the conversation, “Oh, well, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. She’s only been my teacher for a little over a month. I mean, she’s nice, but it’s not like I’ll be crushed by her absence.”
Rick nodded but stayed quiet as he turned out of another intersection. The truck hummed between him and Grace, providing the only sound in the cab. Air spurted through Grace’s cracked window and Rick tapped the radio; ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ murmured through the speakers.
Grace lurched forward in her seat and smacked it off.
Rick’s jaw dropped, “Now, what would Brian Wilson say?”
“Dad,” she urged, “Why are you avoiding this?”
Rick turned onto their maple tree-lined lane, “Grace, because I have something else that I need to talk to you about, first. We’ll talk about it at dinner.”
“Why not now?”
He pulled the truck into the garage and yanked the emergency brake on, turning the engine off, “Because I said so. Go inside and start your homework.”
She shot him a glare and stomped into the house.
Grace skewered a piece of chicken with a single chopstick while holding her smoldering glare on Rick. She hadn’t dropped her simmering gaze since they’d sat down at the table. True, she had followed Rick’s directions and finished all her homework, gotten changed, and joined him in the truck without making him wait. But right now, Rick would have taken combat over his daughter’s disposition.
“Grace, you’re being ridiculous. Lose the attitude and eat your dinner. You love Chinese.”
He swore he could hear her grind her teeth together over the noise in the restaurant, “I also love it when you don’t keep things from me. I just don’t—”
“You’re going to see your mom.”
Grace’s chopstick clattered down on her plate and rolled off the table.
“Beg your pardon? I am not going anywhere!”
Rick kept his voice level and calm, “You haven’t seen her since the divorce, it’s time for you two to make up.”
“Make up what? It’s not like she was all that interested in me before you two split.”
“Now, that’s not true. You may not remember, but I was gone a lot. It was just the two of you.”
“It was just the three of us, counting the nanny that saw me more than she did.”
Rick had hoped that Grace wouldn’t remember that part of her childhood. Of course Rick knew that Tammy wasn’t exactly an active mother in Grace’s life; he’d paid the bills every month and seen t
he money that went to a nanny service.
He sighed, “Grace, I’m sorry about that, I am. But, she reached out to me and really wants to be more involved in your life.”
She scoffed, “How uncharacteristically maternal of her.” A long pause hung in the air before she went on, “She didn’t call you, did she? You called her,” her tone of voice wasn’t questioning; Grace knew the answer.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Yes, it does. If she called you, then I might—and that’s a gargantuan might—believe that she was trying to make an effort to get to know me. But…that’s not the case, since you called her.”
Rick sat back against the booth, “Grace, you need a mother. You’re getting older now, and you’re going to want a relationship with your mom, no matter what that might look like at the moment.”
She propped one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. Rick let it slide, not wanting to argue about manners right this second. “I don’t get a say in this, do I?”
Rick crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.
“When do I leave?”
Rick braced himself for the impact, “Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow? So neither one of you care about me missing school? You don’t care that I’ll be missing a spelling test, a lesson in math, and vital study time for science? I could be missing a lab where we’re learning to dissolve salt in water, because that’s about all the public education system can afford to teach elementary school-age kids. What if I miss those lessons, Dad? They’re crucial for my education. I could flunk fifth grade.”
“Somehow, I think I’ll still manage to get some sleep at night knowing that you skipped a science lab where you boiled water. You’ll make everything up. Your mom and I have already been over that.” Rick took a few more bites of his sweet-and-sour pork, “Is that really what you do in science these days?”
He could see Grace resist the urge to laugh at him as she scooted forward in her seat, “What time does my flight leave tomorrow?”
“At eight.”
“Not too bad, I guess,” she reached for her chopstick, but after realizing that it was now at her feet, she grabbed the fork by her plate instead. Grace bit off a pepper and a piece of chicken, keeping her chin steady on her hand, “California is going to blow.”
“Hey, don’t say that. You’ll get to spend a couple of days with your mom. Besides, you get to ride in a plane all the way to California. Not many people can say they’ve done that.”
“What? That they’ve flown 3,000 miles in a metal machine? I’ve never flown before, so I’m no expert on the whole process, but it doesn’t sound too safe to me.”
“You’re being pessimistic. It’ll be fun, your first flight.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and waved the waitress over for the check. “Ready to go?” he asked as he tucked a couple of bills into the black folder.
Grace took her last bite of chicken and another slurp of her lemonade, “Let’s rock and roll.”
The air was still, that September night, and with Grace’s window cracked—she hardly ever rode in the cab without it open—and ‘The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’ coming softly through the speakers, Rick couldn’t help but recognize how peaceful it seemed. Not just the moment in the cab, with Grace next to him, the cool air streaming through the window and his daughter’s favorite band playing in the background, but the world around him. It was quiet, still, and tranquil.
The track changed and Grace turned the radio up, drawing Rick out of his head. It was track four, her favorite song on the CD—on any CD, really. Grace had developed her taste for old music from a Beach Boys CD that she’d picked out one day at the store. She saw the bright colors on the case, didn’t even know who the band was, and she just had to have that bright orange and yellow CD. After turning it on for the first time, Grace was hooked on the summer sounds of the Wilson brothers, Love, and, of course, Jardine.
She tapped her fingers on her knee, singing along as the song started, “I don’t know why, but I keep thinking something’s bound to go wrong.” She caught Rick watching her as she bobbed her head, her little, off-key voice ringing through the cab.
Grace grinned as the chorus started and Rick saw her eyes smile too, as she joined in again, “And she says, ‘Don’t worry baby. Don’t worry baby. Don’t worry baby. Everything will turn out alright. Don’t worry baby.’”
The phone rang as soon as he and Grace walked through the garage door.
“I’m going to go pack,” Grace called as Rick nodded in response and grabbed the phone from its stand in the kitchen.
“Hello?”
“Rick Griffin?”
“This is Rick. With whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Rhonda Simmons. I am calling because it has become apparent to us that you are, at the present time, unemployed. And my employer has taken a certain interest in you.”
Rick flicked his bedroom light on, “Excuse me?”
“You show great experience in a wide variety of fields within the army; it’s impressive, your skills. We would like you to come in tomorrow to be interviewed for a possible job opportunity at 9:30 am. Will your current address be alright for us to pick you up? Or will another location be necessary for a landing pad?”
Rick closed his closet door after hanging up his jacket, “Who exactly is your employer, Ms. Simmons?”
“Indirectly, the commander in chief.”
“And directly?”
“The Pentagon, Mr. Griffin.”
“You have an interview at the Pentagon, tomorrow! That’s unbelievable! What position?” Grace asked that night when Rick came into her room to tuck her in.
“An army intelligence specialist. There’s lots of them stationed at the Pentagon.”
Grace stacked an armful of her throw pillows on her window-seat. “Does that mean you have to drop me off at the airport unseemingly early tomorrow, so that you can have time to drive all the way down there?”
Rick shook his head, “Actually, I won’t need to worry about that at all. They’re coming to pick me up…in a helicopter.”
Grace’s jaw dropped and she folded back her sheets to climb into the twin bed, “A helicopter? It’s coming here? There can’t possibly be room for them to land it!”
Rick shrugged, “They looked it up on the satellite and they said they would meet me at the park across the street; there’s room there.”
Grace wriggled down under the covers, “I can’t believe I’m going to miss that, all because of a flight to better some nonexistent relationship.”
“Grace,” was all Rick had to say.
“Right, right, open mind,” she sighed and stared up at Rick for a moment, “It’s just for a few days, right? I’m coming back on Friday, promise?”
Rick nodded reassuringly, “Promise. It’s just a few days, and who knows? You might have fun. Miracles happen,” he added, sparking a smirk on her face.
“Actually—”
Rick cut her off, “Grace, please don’t hit me with a statistic right now. Take the optimism,” he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, “and run with it.”
He followed the glow of her blue lamp over to the door and reached up for the light switch.
“Goodnight, Grace. See you bright and early tomorrow.”
She gave him a thumbs up, “Night, Dad.”
Rick’s alarm went off at four-thirty am, same as it did every single weekday. He got up, showered, dressed in one of his nicer suits, and knocked on Grace’s door at five to wake her up. He heard her moan from the other side of the door and he eased it open, seeing the 4'5 mound under the covers shift in the dark.
“Come on, Grace, time to get up. Breakfast in twenty.”
She grunted in response, and he shut the door once more, heading down the hall to the kitchen. He cranked on the pot of coffee and pulled out the egg carton, cracking two eggs into a bowl to be scrambled. Bread was added to the toaster, and within ten minutes Grace shuff
led into the kitchen with disheveled hair sitting sideways on her head. Her oversized shirt hung off one of her shoulders and her right legging was scrunched up around her calf, while the other was still around her ankle.
“Morning,” Rick greeted, plating the scrambled eggs and toast for her.
She took a seat at the kitchen table and Rick grabbed the jar of strawberry jelly out of the fridge, along with a knife from the drawer under the toaster. At the sight of the plate of food Rick set down in front of her, Grace’s eyes widened, slightly, and she sat a little straighter in her seat.
Rick poured himself a cup of coffee and joined her at the table, “You get everything packed last night?”
She nodded, plopping a glob of jelly on her toast, “All packed and ready. What time do we need to leave?”
Rick took another pull from his coffee and felt the strong heat of the dark roast spread through his throat and chest, “Seven; that will give me time to drop you off and still get home in time to get picked up.”
She chomped into her toast, “Oh yeah, your date with Mr. President.”
“The President won’t be there,” Rick laughed, standing up to clean the kitchen.
“It’s possible! I saw on the news the other day that the flag was down at his home, so he could be anywhere. He could just drop in, say hi to a couple friends, maybe even meet a prospective employee.”
Rick shook his head, squirting some soap on the egg pan, “Yeah, alright, Grace. I think the early wake-up time is messing with your head. Eat your breakfast and go get dressed.”
She shoveled in another bite of eggs, “You’re right. This sunrise alarm is totally screwing with my circadian rhythm.”
Rick smirked and shook his head, swirling the hot, soapy water around in the pan. Grace finished up her breakfast, cleared her place, and padded down the hall to her bedroom. By seven, she was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes, and was lugging her duffel bag out to the garage. She handed it to Rick who tossed it into the back of the truck. Grace clambered into the passenger seat, positioning her backpack at her feet, and Rick started the truck.