Episode Report Card Niki: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Disoriented
By Niki | Season 3 | Episode 14 | Aired on 03.10.2002
Inside Manning Manor, Lily's flipping through mail in the kitchen. Jessie breezes in, and Lily comments that she's never seen her in the mauve sweater before. Jessie smiles that it's Katie's. Grace wanders in the back door, smiling absently. Lily asks where Grace has been, jolting her back to reality. Grace stammers that they're reviving the Gay/Straight Alliance at school. "The Gay/Straight what?" Lily asks, snapping a letter out of its envelope. Grace repeats herself and adds that she's helping to get it started again. "You are?" Jessie asks, surprised. Grace barks, "It happens to be a very important organization." Lily looks at her questioningly. "To build understanding between gay kids and straight kids," Grace explains. "And between mop-haired English teachers and their adoring students," she adds silently. "I didn't know you had such strong feelings about --" Lily starts to say. Grace tugs at her collar and wonders why it's so hot in there all of a sudden. She snaps, "People should be able to fall in love with whoever they want." Even if it is with rumpled authority figures who are twice your age, right? Lily stares at her, unblinking, as her stomach clenches and her visions of grandchildren evaporate. She's relieved when the phone rings. Whoever's on the other end sends Lily flying out of the kitchen. Jessie (eating a yogurt!) idly asks who was there besides Grace and Creepitri. Grace looks guilty and snipes, "What's your point?" Grace realizes the question wasn't as loaded as she'd thought, and changes the subject, saying that a lot of the people you'd expect to join probably won't. "Like your friend Katie," Grace adds. The yogurt curdles in Jessie's mouth. "What?" she spits, stunned. "Oh, come on!" Grace scoffs. "'Come on,' what?" Jessie challenges. Grace says simply that Katie's gay. Jessie is agape. "No, she's not," she insists, wide-eyed. Grace assures Jessie that it's not a big deal. Jessie sweats that she knows it isn't a big deal "because [Katie's] not gay." Grace whips out her atlas and tries to show Jessie that famous river in Egypt. She recounts Katie's history with Sarah Grasser, saying they were "madly in love." Jessie gapes. "You don't know this?" Grace demands, incredulous. She adds that Katie "completely broke [Sarah's] heart." Jessie refuses to believe it. Grace confidently tells her to ask anyone. Jessie, shaken, insists that she doesn't have to because she knows Katie. It sounds like she's trying to convince herself more than Grace at this point. Grace heads for the door, turning to smile and surveying the shards of Jessie's world.