A Slice of Life

by Margaret Lake

  Carrie closed her eyes in relief. This woman was already taking care of Mandy and she had a feeling that Grace would be good for Hank, too.

  “Yes, Grace, she does.”

  “Good. I already baked a blueberry pie for dessert since I know she likes blueberry pancakes. Then I was thinking fried chicken. Nothing like getting all greasy together to break the ice,” Grace laughed.

  “You're a clever woman, Grace,” Carrie laughed.

  “I just know food … and shy little girls who want to hide away from the world.”

  So that's it, thought Carrie.

  “Here's Hank. He's smiling so I think he was successful.” She slapped at her brother's hand when he tried to take the phone. “How about you let us return the favor. Can you make it for Sunday dinner this weekend?”

  Grace hesitated, sighing to herself. She'd made such progress, but she wasn't sure she was ready to commit to an intimate family dinner. Get some backbone, Coulter, she chided herself.

  “I usually eat Sunday dinner with my parents, but I'm sure they won't mind. What time, then?”

  “We usually eat about three if that's good for you.”

  “That's fine, but I won't be able to stay long. I have to put every spare minute into the cookbook.”

  “No problem. We'll see you Sunday. Here's Hank.”

  Hank had been fighting a silent battle with Carrie over the phone for the past three minutes and when she finally offered it to him, he all but snatched it out of her hand.

  “Sorry about that, Grace,” he apologized. “My sister can be pretty pushy if you give her the chance.”

  “I think she's very nice, Hank. I look forward to meeting her.” She paused, almost afraid to ask, but Carrie said she thought he looked happy.

  “Mandy said yes. She couldn't come up with any other reasons not to go.”

  “Oh, that's wonderful!” Grace exclaimed. “When can you be here?”

  “About an hour or so, probably closer to an hour and a half. Carrie's running out the door right now to buy Mandy a new blue dress and by the time we get cleaned up and changed, it'll be well after six.”

  “Okay, Hank. No rush. Take your time and I'll see you when you get here.”

  Grace grabbed a basket and started piling it full of the food she would need to cook the dinner. She only stopped long enough to tell Evie and Keith about the change of plans and that Felix had said they could handle the dinner hour without her.

  “Sure, Gracie,” Keith assured her, “I'll keep an eye on things in the kitchen. I can still stir a pot of soup,” he joked.

  “Thanks, Dad.” Grace dropped a kiss on his cheek and leaned down to kiss her mother, too, and then she was off.

  Chapter Six

  Hank was getting a little antsy. Mandy had already taken her bath by the time he stepped into the shower. He was shaving when Carrie knocked on the door and breezed in, loaded with packages.

  Now he was dressed and pacing while Carrie and Mandy were behind closed doors doing heaven knew what. They even had Sam in there with him and the pup was yapping away. Were they curling his ears, for heaven's sake?

  He checked his appearance for the tenth time in the hall mirror and wished he'd gotten some of that comb in hair dye for men to cover up the gray. Then he gave himself a mental head smack. He'd come by the scattering of gray honestly and there was no reason to be vain about his appearance.

  The blue shirt did look nice with his chinos and blue blazer and this wasn't a formal dinner or even a date, for cripes sake. So what the hell was he doing all nervous and pacing like some pimply-faced teenage boy? He was just worried about Mandy. That was all, right?

  Then the door was opening and Sam came bounding out wearing a ridiculous bow tie and rolling around trying to rub it off. Hank had to laugh and picked up the pup to soothe him.

  “Ready or not, here we come,” Carrie called. “Ta-Da!” She stepped back to let Mandy come out ahead of her.

  Hank couldn't believe how sweet and girly his daughter looked. Well, he couldn't really see her face because Carrie had bought one of those floppy hats for her to wear. But he could see Mandy's radiant smile.

  “Isn't this a pretty dress, Daddy?” she asked shyly, twirling around so the skirt flared out. “Auntie Carrie said the color is called ice blue and it's an angel dress.”

  “Well you certainly look like an angel, honey,” Hank told her past the lump in his throat.

  “And look, Auntie Carrie painted my nails pink and she said if I stop biting them, she'd fix them nice and paint them red.”

  “Red?” Hank glowered at his sister.

  “Yes, brother, red,” Carrie replied firmly. “Being a guy, you wouldn't understand these things.” Hands on hips, she glared right back at him, knowing he would back down for the sake of his daughter's happiness.

  Hank wasn't really mad. He was too happy to be mad. What Sam had started, a new dress and painted nails was helping along. Now it looked like Mandy wouldn't mind going out to dinner with the long sleeves of the dress and the floppy hat covering the worst of her scars.

  Hank held his hand out to Mandy. “May I escort you to the banquet, princess?”

  Mandy giggled and took his hand as Hank looked over her head to mouth thank you to Carrie.

  The chicken was fried crisp and golden and in the warming oven. The sweet potato fries had gotten their first dunk in the hot oil and were draining waiting to be fried again until crisp. The cauliflower was in the oven roasting and the pie was on the counter coming back to room temp.

  Now Grace had time to think about herself. A quick shower and shampoo and then back to the kitchen to turn the cauliflower.

  This much she was an old pro at but the next step had her biting her lip again. What to wear? What to do about hair and makeup? Mom! She made a quick call and in less than a minute, her mother was coming in the door.

  “Where's that outfit I bought for your last birthday?” Evie asked.

  “Um, in my closet somewhere, I guess.”

  “Well, go get it and we'll hope it doesn't need ironing.”

  Grace finally found the slacks and blouse at the back of her closet. Fortunately, she didn't have so many clothes that they were all jammed together and it looked fine.

  Evie held up the blue slacks and blue and white print blouse and examined it critically. “It will do, put it on.”

  Just then the timer dinged and Grace escaped to the kitchen to take the cauliflower out of the oven.

  When the doorbell rang, Evie called out, “It's just Jeannie with the place settings. I'll get it.”

  “Thanks, Mom!” Grace had forgotten that she had no decent dishes, or none that matched anyway. She could hear Jeannie setting the table as she emptied the pan of cauliflower into a large bowl. At least she had decent bowls and platters for when she tried out new recipes. Her kitchen was a chef's dream even if the rest of her house was early Goodwill.

  She came out of the kitchen to see a beautifully set table with flowers and candles. On the sideboard, were two bottles of wine, half a dozen bottles of beer in a small ice chest, and the makings for Shirley Temples for Mandy.

  “Mom,” Grace breathed, “you are a wonder.” She turned to the waitress. “Jeannie, I don't know how to thank you.”

  “You just have fun tonight, Grace,” Jeannie waved as she left.

  “Okay, let's get busy, girl,” Evie ordered.

  Before Grace knew it, she was dressed in the slacks and blouse, strappy sandals on her feet and make-up on her face. Evie had worked wonders with just mascara, blush and lipstick. They'd decided to let her hair flow loose to her shoulders with just a blue hair band to keep it out of her face.

  Evie stepped back to admire her handiwork. “You look absolutely beautiful, Grace!” she declared.

  “You think so, Mom?” Grace asked nervously. “Oh, Mom, what am I doing?” Grace buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

  Evie knelt in front of her, pulling her hands down. “Now you
listen to me, Grace. You're doing a wonderful thing, trying to help that little girl and you can do this. Just look at all the wonderful things you've done in the past couple of weeks.”

  “I know, but this is all so personal tonight.” She looked at her mother with tears swimming in her ice blue eyes. “I mean, there's a man coming to dinner tonight, not just a little girl. I could have handled it in the restaurant, you know, just coming out to talk for a few minutes at a time. But this …,” she waved her hand helplessly.

  “And little Mandy is even more nervous and scared than you are. You just let her know you feel that way and tell her why. Because you've never had people over for dinner before and you hope she won't be mad at you if you make mistakes.”

  “You think that'll work?”

  “I know that will work,” Evie told her firmly. “And don't you worry about Hank. He'll be so grateful that you've done this for him and so anxious to make tonight a success for Mandy, that he'll do everything to make sure it goes right.”

  “I guess you're right,” Grace sighed, “it's just I'm so scared.”

  “Honey, every woman is scared before her first dinner party,” Evie laughed. She stood up and drew Grace up with her.

  They were both tall and slender and Grace owed her coloring to her mother's Norwegian ancestors. Everyone said they looked alike, and Grace hoped she looked half as good as Evie did even now and was even half as wise.

  Evie looked her daughter in the eye. “You've watched me hostess in the restaurant for years. You'll do fine.” She kissed Grace on the cheek and turned to go. “Bring them downstairs to meet us if Mandy is up to it.”

  Grace sent up a silent prayer of thanks when Hank knocked on the door five minutes later. At least she didn't have long to wait and worry. But in that five minutes, she went from hoping they would be late to give her more time to prepare and hoping they wouldn't show up at all.

  Grace took a deep breath, brushed her hair back over her shoulders and all but marched to the door. “Hank,” she breathed. It was the first time she'd been close to him when he was standing up and she hadn't realized how tall he was … at least a couple of inches over six feet. Broad shoulders, broad chest, and my, but he was handsome out of uniform.

  “Grace,” he replied smiling, waiting for her to invite them in. “Are we too early?” Wow, I never realized how beautiful Grace is.

  “No, I … uh … No, not at all,” she stammered.

  “May we come in?” he asked, still smiling. It looked like that shy awkward girl Grace had been when she'd first boarded his bus was back. With Mandy hiding behind him and Grace blocking the door in front of him, he knew he had his work cut out for him.

  “Oh, yes, I'm so sorry.” Grace stepped back to let them in. “I'm very nervous. I've never had people over for dinner before.”

  Mandy peeked around her father when she heard Grace say she was nervous. How could a grown person be nervous?

  Hank stepped aside so Grace could see Mandy, but he didn't push the girl forward. He wanted her to make the first move herself.

  “This is Mandy and her puppy, Sam.”

  Grace knelt down in front of them, afraid her height would further intimidate Mandy. The girl had a death grip on Sam and the puppy was starting to whine, squirming to get loose.

  “Is this Sam?” Grace asked. She didn't think she'd get an answer this quickly so she went on. “I think he's pretty nervous, too.” Grace glanced up at Hank and then went back to Mandy. “You can put Sam down if you like. I don't think there's any place he can get hurt.”

  Mandy hadn't said anything so far, but that was okay … except for the fact that if somebody didn't say something soon to stop her babbling, she might just go running out the door.

  Mandy wondered why the pretty lady kept talking. Maybe she really was nervous. Mandy wasn't nervous. Not really. She just hated it when people looked at her scars. She knew if she didn't say anything, people would give up and go away and she didn't have to worry about them looking at her scars. She didn't have to worry about them making fun of her, or even worse, making a fuss and calling her a poor little thing.

  “I'm not so sure it's a good idea to let Sam run loose. He's not housebroken. We took him for a walk before we came but if he gets excited, he might have an accident.”

  “Oh,” Grace stood up, blushing at her mistake. “I didn't think. What should we do?”

  “Sam stays with me,” Mandy piped up.

  “Maybe Mandy can sit on the sofa with Sam?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Grace was getting really upset with herself. She couldn't even handle the most basic of social niceties like asking people to come in or sit down.

  “Please, yes, both of you sit down. Can I get you a drink while I finish fixing dinner? I have beer and wine, Hank, and Mandy, I can make you a Shirley Temple or just ginger ale if you want.”

  Grace knew she was babbling again, but there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't have to tell Mandy how she felt. It had to be obvious even to a seven-year old.

  “Mandy, you go on and sit down,” Hank told her. “Grace, I'll pour the drinks if you don't mind.”

  “Oh, but you're my guest,” Grace protested weakly.

  “I hope nothing as formal as that,” Hank laughed. “I thought we were at least friends.”

  Grace felt a little better. Hank was such a nice man and, just as her mother said, he was doing everything he could to make this easier for her and Mandy.

  “Okay,” Grace agreed. “Dinner will be in ten minutes.” She turned to Mandy. “Put the TV or radio on if you want.”

  As Grace went back to the kitchen, she could hear Mandy ask her father in a stage whisper, “Daddy why is the pretty lady so nervous?”

  She didn't hear Hank's answer, but at least Mandy had looked at her and thought she was pretty. She found herself hoping that Hank thought she was pretty, too.

  Grace turned up the heat under the fryer for the last cooking stage of the fries and then drizzled olive oil in the frying pan to start the dressing she would pour over the cauliflower. That would take about two minutes and by then the oil should be hot enough to finish the fries.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” Hank said behind her. “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

  She turned around, her hand at her throat.

  “I brought you a glass of wine. I thought you could use it.”

  “Thanks.” She took a sip of the wine and turned back to the stove. There wasn't much left to do but she didn't want to burn anything. And after what Hank had said, she was finding it difficult to concentrate on her cooking.

  “It sure smells good. Anything I can do to help?”

  “No, I have everything under control.”

  Hank thought she was a joy to watch as she sautéed garlic while keeping an eye on the fries. Her movements were smooth and deft; so different from the stiff, awkward way she usually moved.

  She took out the fries and shook them out on brown paper to drain. The last few ingredients for the dressing went into the frying pan to sauté and a minute later, she was pouring it over the cauliflower. A couple of tosses, and the dinner was ready to go on the table.

  “Wow,” he said, reaching for a fry. “I'm impressed.”

  Without thinking, Grace slapped his hand away from the platter.

  “Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean … God, I'm such an idiot.”

  “That's okay, Grace,” he soothed. “My Mom does it, my sister does it, but I'll just keep on trying to steal a taste.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sometimes I actually beat them to it before they can slap my hand away,” he laughed, tapping her on the nose.

  “Come on, pretty lady, let's get this food on the table. I'm starved.”

  He grabbed the vegetables and trotted off to the dining room calling for Mandy to come and eat. Good Lord, the fries are still on the brown paper. Grace was horrified, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She put on her oven mitts and took
the chicken out of the oven. At least it was already on a nice platter.

  She carried it out to the table where Hank and Mandy were already sitting. Sam was on the floor between the two of them, no doubt already accustomed to getting bits of food from them.

  “Will you look at that, Mandy!” he exclaimed. “Do you think we can eat all of this wonderful food Miss Grace cooked for us?”

  Mandy had actually looked up when Grace put the platter of fried chicken in front of her, her violet eyes wide and her delicate pink mouth open. The chicken smelled so good and looked a lot better than what they got at the grocery store.

  Grace took her place opposite Mandy and got a glimpse of those violet eyes open in wonder. At that moment, her heart was lost to the child and she knew she would do anything to help her find her happiness. No child should have to live under the burden Mandy had been living under.

  “How about you go wash your hands, honey,” Hank told his daughter. “Dog hair and fried chicken don't go together too well.”

  “It's okay, Hank. I have a bunch of wet wipes all ready for our greasy fingers.” Grace turned around to her sideboard and took them out of a drawer.

  “Oh, wait. You left your wine in the kitchen.” Hank jumped up to get it. By the time he came back, Mandy had cleaned her hands and she was telling Grace she'd like a wing and a drumstick, please.

  Grace stood up to serve Mandy, heaping veggies beside the chicken. Hank said he'd serve her and then himself, and that she should sit down and enjoy the meal she'd worked so hard to prepare.

  Their plates were finally filled and Grace asked Hank if he would say the blessing. Hank was surprised and pleased that Grace kept to this custom.

  They bowed their heads as Hank began, “Dear Lord, on this very special occasion, we offer our thanks to you for your bounty and pray that you bestow your blessing on the lovely lady who is sharing her home with us. Amen.”

  “Everything looks great; the table, the food … you.”