Episode Report Card Niki: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Where's That High Road?
By Niki | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 12.18.2000
We see Grace walking along a lighted pathway with Pace, talking about the date with Spencer. "So you like him, right?" Pace asks. Grace stammers and hesitates for a few seconds, while Pace takes a seat on a bench. Pace starts saying that Spencer is "beyond happy" and Grace interrupts to ask why Pace wants to know if she likes Spencer. Pace says he's known Spencer since the second grade and he's seen "him do this a million times." "Do what?" "Fall in love!" Pace says that Spencer usually falls for people who don't even like him, and it devastates him. So Pace wants to know that this time it's different. Grace doesn't say anything. "It is, isn't it?" Pace prods. "I...guess," Grace says reluctantly. "So, that's why you came over?" she says, her voice heavy with disappointment. "Hey, you know what I just realized?" he asks. "Our names rhyme! Grace and Pace! Cool, huh?" Grace acts like the thought had never occurred to her. "So, you're uh, pretty good friends with Carla, right?" Pace asks. Grace says that she is and wants to know why. No, you really don't, Grace. He asks if Carla's ever mentioned him. Oh, that's gotta hurt! Have I mentioned that I hate Carla? Grace looks at Pace then looks away. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever hope for anything," her Soliloquy Self says.
We see Grace walking alone and looking disheartened. Jake returns home in the meantime and finds Tiffany asleep on the couch. He wakes her with a couple of slurpy kisses on the cheek. "I thought you were Grace," she says. Jake puts his hand squarely on her breast and wants to know what she means. Tiffany tells him that Grace went for a walk and then asks what time it is. "It's 11:15 on a school night," Jake informs her and then demands to know where Grace is. Tiffany pulls out her crystal ball, but it doesn't say anything but "Why don't you get your ass home earlier if you're so worried about your kids?" Tiffany says that Grace went out with some guy and it wasn't supposed to be a big deal. "Dammit!" Jake says. Tiffany tells him not to yell at her about his daughter. He gets all self-righteous on her for letting Grace just walk out of there. Tiffany reminds him that she's not the baby-sitter, she was just waiting for him to get home. She starts to say that when she was fifteen, she'd already run away from home twice. "That's exactly my point," Jake snaps. They start getting into it, but Grace walks in and interrupts them. Jake grills her for a minute, and Grace apologizes, saying she thought she'd be home sooner. She heads to the kitchen for a glass of water. Jake starts giving Grace a lecture on how he can't come home from work to find her wandering the streets. Grace interrupts to say that if he came home when he said he would.... "Excuse me!" Jake explodes. He reminds Grace that she had an agreement always to let him or Lily know where she was and whom she was with. "And where were you?" she snides in response. Jake is speechless for a second. "What?" he says, and you can from his tone that Grace is about one second away from major trouble. "Never mind," Grace says, pushing past him and heading for her room. He calls her with an edge in his voice, but Grace just looks at him and keeps walking. She slams the door and leaves Jake and Tiffany staring at each other across the tension.