Saving Gracie

by Kristen Ethridge

  Chapter Four

  After a full Wednesday in his office with spreadsheets, everything seemed fuzzy on the computer screen in front of Jake, but he’d pressed on. He would know these numbers backward and forward before the board meeting to confirm him as permanent CEO. Jake would not—no, could not—give the board any new excuses for denying him the job.

  He looked down at nothing in particular, enjoying the feel of the muscles in his neck stretching. After a twelve-hour workday, maybe a change of scenery was in order. He could take his laptop home and look over more data tonight after dinner with his grandmother.

  At least the numbers had kept his mind off the situation with El Centro. And Gracie Garcia. Jake allowed in the mental image he’d kept at bay all day. She looked like sweetness itself—with chocolate eyes and soft, cocoa-powder hair, paired with honey-kissed skin. But sugar and spice she was not. More like a personality of jalapeños and salsa. Gracie Garcia was all fire.

  If they hadn’t found themselves on opposite sides of this City Council measure, Jake thought they might have been friends. He liked people with pluck. And Gracie had pluck by the pound. He needed to keep his head on straight and get this project finished, but since he was alone with his thoughts, he didn’t see too much harm in admitting he liked the ESL teacher’s determination and chili-and-pepper sass.

  Pulling his car out of the parking lot, Jake decided to take the long way home. Seeing the waves from Gulfview Boulevard would calm him.

  The cell phone lying on the passenger seat rang loudly. Still deep in thought, Jake picked up the phone and absently connected the call without taking his eyes off the road.

  “Jake Peoples.”

  “Jake, it’s Nana.” A cheerful voice greeted him through the speaker. “Am I interrupting you?”

  “No, not really. Just thinking through some things as I’m heading home. I always have time for you, Nana.” Diana Powell Peoples, chairman emeritus of the board of directors of Peoples Property Group and director of the Peoples Family Foundation, always commanded Jake’s full attention. Not because of her titles. Because of the unconditional love she’d always shown him, even when his own parents treated him like a burden, like a stranger, even though he never knew exactly why.

  “Sweet grandson.” He could almost hear a smile in her words. “Listen, I won’t keep you. I’m sure you’re busy. I just wanted to tell you I’ve had something come up tonight and I can’t make our usual Wednesday night dinner date.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay, Nana.” Jake tried to keep from sounding too disappointed. Since his return to Port Provident, he looked forward to his weekly dinners with Nana. “Next week?”

  “Of course. And I’m sure I’ll see you around before then. You do live behind my house.” She laughed. “You can’t get away from me.”

  “I wouldn’t even think about trying to, Nana.” He meant it. His grandmother’s welcome with open arms had stilled gossiping tongues after Jake moved back. It also had stilled his restless spirit after so many years of wondering what he’d done to reap such distance and cruelty from his father. “I’ll see you soon. Have a good night.”

  “I’ll do my best. Love you.”

  Gracie Garcia’s face kept popping into Jake’s mind as he drove. He remembered the stern look on her face just before she left him in the parking lot and then again as she’d left him alone in her office.

  He knew what she was. His adversary. The stumbling block to his future.

  A beautiful, determined woman who wouldn’t leave him alone. Who wouldn’t leave his thoughts...

  He slowed the car for a red light and looked up.

  Fifty-First Street.

  Gracie Garcia’s church was only a few blocks’ drive away. And now his plans for the evening had been canceled.

  Jake tried not to agree with Juan’s declaration in the parking lot that the ESL teacher was “something else.” But Jake valued honesty, and knew he couldn’t disagree, even if he wanted to.

  Gracie was something else.

  And he needed to do something once and for all about the wrench she and her school had thrown in his business plans—and his thoughts.

  * * *

  Jake found the church easily. He couldn’t see an available space in the parking lot, so he parked in front of a small white house about two blocks down the street. All the houses around the church looked similar in style, probably dating to just after World War II. In spite of the intervening years, every house looked good as new—fresh paint, manicured lawns, sprinkles of flowers in beds lining sidewalks. A group of children played tag in a yard across the street.

  In more than thirty years of living in Port Provident, Jake had avoided coming to this side of town. But now, looking around, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.

  The sound of rapidly spoken Spanish reached Jake before he stepped up to the open front doors of La Iglesia de la Luz del Mundo.

  “Bienvenidos.” A man wearing a starched white guayabera reached out to shake Jake’s hand. “I’m Marco Ruiz, the pastor. Can I help you find someone?”

  “Jake Peoples.” Jake extended his hand. “I’m looking for Juan Calderon or Pablo Morales. Are they here yet?”

  “Mucho gusto, Jake.” Pastor Ruiz gave his hand a hearty shake. He turned to look inside the building. “No, I haven’t seen them tonight. They both have several kids and come together, so I generally hear them when they arrive. You’re welcome to come in and have a seat.”

  Jake walked inside and scanned the small crowd of people already seated in the rows of chairs. He didn’t see any familiar faces. In most rooms in Port Provident, Jake knew everyone and they all knew him. The Peoples family put down roots on this island before Texas became an independent republic, more than a century and a half ago.

  But here at La Iglesia de la Luz del Mundo, he didn’t know the neighborhood. He didn’t speak the language. He didn’t recognize the faces.

  Jake stood completely alone in the middle of his hometown.

  Looking left, then right, Jake didn’t see anyone like him. He squirmed. No one looked his way, but he felt a prickly feeling under his collar as though everyone were staring at him. Maybe he should just go. He’d already done what he’d promised for the City Council. Carter didn’t even know about this invitation from Juan and Pablo, so he wouldn’t care if Jake ducked it. And the men in question didn’t even know he’d come, so it wouldn’t look rude if he left.

  Jake slid behind the back row of chairs and walked around the perimeter of the room to a small door on the left side of the sanctuary that looked like a good, stealthy escape route. The door did not lead outside, as he’d hoped, but instead to a small hallway, lit with yellowed fluorescent light overhead.

  “What are you doing back here?” A woman snapped as she walked down the hall toward him. Jake knew the face, but not the voice. It sounded a shade lower than it should have, and the hair framing the woman’s face was six inches too short. “Can’t you just leave Gracie in peace? Do you have to ruin church for her, too?”

  “Obviously you know who I am, but I don’t believe I’ve met you.” Suddenly the walls around him felt more like a cage, trapping him with a fierce tiger.

  “Gloria Garcia Rodriguez. Gracie’s older sister.”

  Well, that explained everything.

  “I’m not here to ruin anything for Gracie. In fact, I’m trying to leave.”

  “You’re not anywhere near an exit. Shame on you, sneaking around the church, trying to dig up dirt to use against Gracie.” One finger waggled scoldingly at Jake. “You’re wasting your time. This congregation isn’t like your high-and-mighty friends. We don’t sell out for the highest dollar. We take care of our own, Mr. Peoples.”

  In the time-honored battle tradition of advancing across the field to confront the enemy, Gloria took a
measured step closer to Jake.

  Facial features weren’t the only similarities between the two sisters. “Is feistiness some kind of family trait?”

  “What?” Gloria looked askance.

  “Never mind.” Jake shook his head. He’d now received the riot act from two Garcia women this week. He just hoped their mother wasn’t waiting at the exit, because he couldn’t take much more of this. “Show me the door and I’ll get out of your way.”

  “You’ll have to go out through the main sanctuary. Come with me.” Gloria pushed past him, bumping his arm. Jake trailed her down the corridor.

  Gloria opened the sanctuary door. The seated congregation filled the room, and Pastor Ruiz stood behind the cross-shaped pulpit. If he walked quietly, Jake felt certain he could still make a getaway.

  “Gloria—you’ve found our visitor.” The pastor pointed to Jake and his guide. “I’d like everyone to meet Jake Peoples, a friend of the Calderon and Morales families. Please make him feel welcome after the service.”

  Every head turned to the back of the room. Every pair of eyes fixed on Jake.

  Including the one pair of chocolate-brown eyes that had filled Jake’s thoughts all afternoon.

  Gloria stopped and pointed at the seat next to Gracie. “Sit there,” she whispered.

  It felt strange to be ordered around, but he couldn’t see a way out without making a bigger scene. If he left now, it would embarrass two loyal employees. Jake would not become the kind of boss his father had been, even if it cost him a little pride tonight.

  Gracie picked up her purse and a slim copy of the Bible from the chair, then laid them carefully on the floor. Her gaze never wavered from the pastor at the pulpit.

  As in most Texas rooms during the summer, the air-conditioning couldn’t quite overpower the lingering heat inside the church. Jake couldn’t feel the stuffiness, though. Gracie’s cold shoulder gave him a chill.

  “Tonight, amigos, I want to share with you Jesus’s own words from the book of Matthew.” The pastor opened his Bible and adjusted the microphone attached to the top of the lectern. “Last week, we talked about the first part of Jesus’s reply when He was asked about the greatest commandment. First, He told us to love God with everything we have. In the second part of the answer, He says to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

  Jake had heard this one before. Now, stuck uncomfortably next to Gracie, he was going to have to sit through the same old stuff he’d been listening to since he first saw Jesus’s life played out on a flannel board in childhood Sunday school. Different building, same message. The only difference—the unfamiliar faces. Everything else about churches was the same—old, boring.

  Jake looked down at the floor. A lifetime of sitting in the Peoples family pew at First Provident Church had taught him how to zone out just enough to make it through an hour of church. Of course, he’d never had to do so with Gracie Garcia sitting about ten inches from him.

  “I want to challenge all of us tonight to think about this verse in a new way. Who are our neighbors? Just the people who live in our neighborhood? Just the friends we see at school or at work?” The pastor paused a moment, letting the words sink in. “No, amigos. Jesus is calling us to expand our horizons. We all have someone in our lives we need to see from a fresh perspective, someone whose shoes we need to walk in. Who is that person in your life?”

  Paying half attention to the words being preached, Jake’s mind wandered.

  “Getting real with people requires getting out of our comfort zone,” Pastor Ruiz said. “But we must remember, amigos, the most important things in life are not things.”

  Hearing some variant of that phrase for the third time in a matter of days hooked Jake’s attention. Focusing on the man at the front of the room, Jake found that he suddenly wanted to pay attention. Crazy, since he couldn’t remember a time in church when he’d not obsessively checked his watch.

  As Pastor Ruiz began to summarize the evening’s lesson, a rustle to his right broke Jake’s concentration. Gracie shifted in her seat, uncrossing, then recrossing her legs. Jake noticed her pointy little black shoes.

  The pastor invited the congregation to close in prayer. Jake closed his eyes, but Gracie’s feet stayed in his mind.

  “Amen,” Pastor Ruiz concluded. “Vaya con Dios este semana, amigos.”

  Go with God this week, friends. It was a good thing Jake had spent much of his youth on construction sites, where he’d picked up some basic Spanish.

  “Excuse me.” Gracie stood, trying to exit the row. Her words revealed none of the fire and determination from the incident outside the sales office. Jake stood and stepped out into the aisle so she could pass. The little black leather heels tapped as she walked by without saying anything more.

  He didn’t understand Gracie’s hot-and-cold attitude. One minute, she seemed fired up. The next, she acted quiet as a mouse. In the condo office parking lot, she drew a line in the sand and promised to teach him a lesson. And now? Her little feet couldn’t retreat fast enough.

  Once again, Jake knew his initial impression of Gracie had to be correct. She just wasn’t cut out for the tough world of running a business. Like her shoes, Gracie Garcia looked nice, but lacked substance.

  Jake looked at his own leather-soled wingtips, then sneaked one more glance at Gracie’s black heels walking out the door of the sanctuary. He could never walk in such silly little things. He was thankful “walking in someone’s shoes” was, after all, nothing more than a clichéd phrase.

  * * *

  She would trade anything to get away from Jake Peoples.

  “Why, Gloria? Why did he actually come tonight?” Gracie grabbed her older sister by the arm as she fled the sanctuary ahead of Jake. “Isn’t it enough that he wants to demolish my home and my business? How do I get away from him?”

  “I don’t know, hermana.” Gloria put her arm around Gracie’s shoulder as they walked through the parking lot. “We live on an island. You wouldn’t get too far.”

  Setting her Bible, notebook, and a praise and worship CD on the front of the car, she turned to face her sister. “I don’t really want to run away from my problems, Gloria, but I don’t know how to handle him. He makes me so nervous. I couldn’t even listen to Pastor Ruiz tonight. I just kept thinking about what Jake must have thought. I’ll bet he goes to First Provident. We don’t have stained glass here. We don’t have a big fancy pipe organ. He probably sat there the whole time, looking down his nose at us.”

  “Probably so.” Gloria nodded. “And now he’s looking across the parking lot at you.”

  Gracie’s stomach flipped like a tortilla on a griddle. “Well, that’s all he’s going to be able to do. I am not prepared to talk to him tonight. I’m getting in my car and heading home. He can call me tomorrow if he wants to spread more doom and gloom about my future.”

  “Okay. I’m going to have dinner in the Fellowship Hall. I’ll call you later tonight.” Gloria waved as she walked off with a group of other churchgoers.

  Gracie unlocked the door to her little blue Ford and climbed in. When she slid the key in the ignition and turned it, the car rumbled, gave three chugs, then went silent. She tried it again. Same noises, same silence.

  Then someone tapped the driver’s-side window.

  Oh, no. Her eyes began to roll back in her head and her lungs filled with an instinctive deep breath. Why did he always have to be around to witness her humiliating moments? First almost throwing up in the classroom, now car trouble. She could add impeccable timing to the growing list of reasons why she didn’t like the sandy blond businessman.

  “Need some help?” Jake’s words sounded muffled through the glass.

  No, she wanted to say. She’d invited him into her life once, to show him El Centro por las Lenguas, and that night became a total mess. She would not make the same
mistake two days in a row.

  Jake Peoples reminded her of an expression her parents used—un viento malo. A bad wind. Living on an island as long as she had, Gracie had seen plenty of squalls. One moment, everything seemed calm, but in the next minute, everything got blown every which way.

  Jake’s very presence messed with her emotions. One minute she trusted that she could take on the establishment, the next minute, everything came crashing down. In just two days, this battle with Jake had already turned her into a person she didn’t care for.

  But as much as she didn’t like fighting with Jake, fighting her car generally turned her into a dirty, greasy mess—something else she didn’t particularly like.

  Opening the door with great reluctance, Gracie said, “The car’s been acting up lately. I think it might be the battery.”

  “Pop the hood and let me take a look. If it’s the battery, I have some jumper cables in the back of my truck.” She pulled the black latch inside the car. Jake raised the heavy Detroit steel, then propped it up.

  “Do you have a flashlight?” The sun started to slip lower in the sky, and while it wasn’t yet dark, the vertical hood blocked the remaining light from reaching the engine area.

  “In my trunk. Hold on.” Gracie walked around and opened the back of the car, pausing briefly. She felt safe behind the trunk, shielded from Jake. Pulling the flashlight out of the canvas emergency bag she always carried, she steadied herself then carefully stepped back toward Jake.

  Tinkering with the battery, the executive looked completely out of place, still dressed in his office attire. This neighborhood was known more for blue jeans and blue collars. Jake’s crested, collared knit shirt and starched trousers stood out.

  Absently, he reached his hand down and wiped it on the twill. A greasy streak stood out clearly just above the knee. “Oh, no, Jake. Your pants.”

  He looked down and shrugged. “Typical. I get so lost in a project that I forget to keep track of what’s going on around me. Don’t worry about it. That’s what dry cleaners are for.” Jake reached for the flashlight, then shone it around the top of the battery. “Yep, there’s your problem. See that ring?”