I'd like to start out with a couple of public-service messages. First, every home should have a computer and access to this wonderful new invention called the Internet. After several days back home with the family, I can't tell you how much I missed being connected. Secondly, make sure you all party responsibly as you ring in the new year -- I want to see each and every one of you back here in 2001.
When the show opens, we find ourselves in the kitchen of Manning Manor (cheers, Wing!), where the camera pans over strewn newspaper, poster paints, and a tiny mountain rising out of the kitchen table. Zoe tells Lily that she needs red food coloring, "too -- for the eruption." "Before I went to the store would have been an excellent time to mention this," Lily snots as she pulls groceries out of a paper bag. Grace comes in the back door, drops her stuff on the floor, and starts rifling frantically through the mail on the counter. "Yes!" she shouts after a few seconds, startling the bejeesus out of lily and Zoe. She informs them that she got her learner's permit. "Great!" Lily phonies, and her eyes glaze over slightly. ["She got it in the mail? I got it the day I took my test. Illinois is weird." -- Wing Chun]
A black Explorer comes hurtling around the corner of a quiet suburban street. I expect five guys in ski masks to pile out the back, but instead we hear Lily squawk, "Careful!" In a stunning show of support, Lily has her legs braced against the dashboard, and her white knuckles are clutching the Holy Shit Bar like it's the Rick Stick. Grace sensibly pulls the truck to a stop and informs her mother that she's "making that sound." Lily pleads ignorance. Grace gives her a sample by drawing in a sharp, hissing breath. Lily's voice is almost swallowed by fear as she chokes that she's not trying to make Grace nervous, "it's just that there's a lot --" A horn honks in the distance, and Lily looks like one of her vital organs just deposited itself on the (one hopes, rubberized) car mat. Grace again applies the brakes. She points out that Lily isn't wearing her seatbelt. Lily is horrified and launches into a lecture on how wearing one is the most important thing in driving, blah blah she should have been a crash test dummy. Grace stares straight ahead, smiling patronizingly and shaking her head slightly. She reminds Lily that they'll be "doing this" for the six months and pleads, "Can you please try to act like a normal human being?" I bite my tongue so hard I think I might need stitches. Grace rolls her eyes, likely because she realizes what a hopelessly ridiculous request she just made, while Lily clutches her pearls and looks like she's on the brink of a nervous collapse.
"I can't do this, Jake," we hear Lily whine. She's on the phone, kvetching that she just can't stay detached, so Jake "has to do it." Jake, at the restaurant, smiles and assures Lily that "it's okay -- [he] wants to do it. It's a father-daughter thing." Lily visibly decompresses, unclenches her fist, and tells him how much she appreciates it. Tiffany, meanwhile, has moved into the restaurant shot, eavesdropping and waiting for Jake to hang up. She asks, "What's a father-daughter thing?" Jake proudly relates that Grace got her learner's permit and he's going to teach her how to drive. Tiffany's mind races all the way back -- like a year or two -- to when she was fifteen, and she starts blathering on about all the trouble she and her girlfriend got into when her friend got her permit. There's mention of a stolen car and two quarts of vodka. Just what a father wants to hear. Jake peers over Tiffany's shoulder as she continues her babble, and spots a crowd at the entrance. "Howard!" he calls, walking away from Tiffany just as she's in the midst of describing her delinquent friend's energy blocks. Her voice trails off and her face clouds.
Jake, having safely made his getaway, slides into his best impression of a Smooth Operator. He schmoozes Howard and the two women accompanying him, while Tiffany watches from a distance and looks decidedly unimpressed. As Jake starts flirting with the blonde (whom I'm sure is wearing way too much sweet and powdery perfume), black-and-white Jake pops up to tell us that, for him, people are like booze or drugs. They're his "thing." Especially when they're female, vacuous, and wearing too much makeup like this suburban nightmare of a woman. Back at the restaurant, Howard officially introduces Jake to the blonde and the brunette accompanying him. Jake and the blonde commence another round of flirting, and over his shoulder, we can see Tiffany watching, still unimpressed and, I'd imagine, suddenly realizing what it must have felt like to be Lily.
"And, if they happen to be female -- so much the better," Jake smirks from the Soliloquy Stool. See? I knew it.
Howard slaps a bill into Jake's palm and jokingly growls for him to get them a better table. Jake walks back toward Tiffany, and The Blonde -- who's wearing LAVENDER, by the way -- makes a very obvious display of sliding her cheesy eyeballs up and down Jake's backside. I'll be back in ten, everyone. I just need to take the hottest shower I can and scrub myself with a brillo pad...
Anyway, Jake starts muttering to Tiffany about this "putz" named Howard, saying he always drops a couple hundred dollars at the restaurant. And since Jake would be a ho for free...well, you can do the math. Tiffany stares at Jake like he's suddenly become a greasy, wart-ridden reptile -- in other words, like she's seeing him clearly for the first time -- and shakes her head. Her mouth's open, but she can't seem to force the words out. Jake doesn't know what her problem is.
Cut to the high-school hallway. A couple of doofuses shove each other along it, while Grace watches. They stop when they pass her, turn around, and come to talk to her.
Grace steps up for her turn on the Soliloquy Stool. Except it's not a stool. She grabs a chair, spins it around, and straddles it. Grace, it seems, has been watching too many reruns of Happy Days on some crappy cable network, and has copied a move à la that mislabeled purveyor of cool, Arthur Fonzarelli. "Pace and Spencer," she says, all business, and explains that they were all in a car together for Driver's Ed in the summer. If she just got her learner's permit, what was she doing in a car over the summer? Whatever. Anyway, Grace basically makes it clear that the situation is now 'Eli Who?' She has a raging case of the hots for Pace (who, I think it warrants mentioning, bears more than a striking resemblance to Eli. And while I'm on an aside here, who would ever name their kid that, anyway? Isn't Pace like some kind of salsa?). She likens her feelings for Pace to a fever. Insert your own bad '70s lyric here. We see Grace greet Pace and Spencer in the hallway. Suddenly, Soliloquy Grace is all uncertain and grasping at love straws, explaining that her name rhymes with Pace's -- "not that that necessarily means..." -- and "plus, he, like, talks to" her. She looks at the camera and then grudgingly admits, "But...he talks to everyone."
Spencer and Pace ("Eli Light") chit-chat with Grace about learner's permits and driving with mothers. Spencer makes the requisite mothers-and-driving joke. He chews his gum in such a way that I feel I'm sharing the experience, and dude, I really don't want to. He screws up his face, leans in close to Grace, and asks what's wrong with her shirt -- "Is that sweat?" Luckily, Wannabe Jolie sidles to the rescue, telling him to shut up. (On a side note, it looks like she's caught the dreaded barrette disease that afflicted Grace for all those months.) Pace makes a couple more jokes about driving, Grace smiles gamely, and Carla maintains that bored expression of which she's so fond. The guys rough-house a little and then head off down the hallway. Grace complains to Carla that she hates it when guys "do that -- like, humiliate each other right in front of you." "So you like Pace?" is Carla's reply. Grace asks if it's that obvious. "To me, but I'm really perceptive," Wannabe intones. "I scare myself." I'm afraid, too, Wannabe. I'm afraid you're not Angelina, and darling, you never will be. Carla observes that "the loud one" seems "kind of obsessed" with Grace. Grace isn't exactly over the moon to hear it, and wonders why it couldn't be Pace. Nice going Grace. You just opened the door for Wannabe to drag in her tired old Wise in the Ways of the World routine. ["She should look out, or Jen Lindley will sue her for stealing her bit." -- Wing Chun] Carla advises Grace to go out with the "annoyingly loud" friend to get Pace's attention. Which is a good plan, really, if you're into working your way through friends. Because in high school, people are never too quick to call you a slut or anything, and most people are willing to trash their best friend's feelings for a crack at his girlfriend. Grace isn't totally convinced, so Carla puts it all in perspective for her: "Guys can either think or feel, but never both at once." Grace, sadly, isn't experienced enough to tell Wannabe where to cram her insight, and actually thinks that it "explains a lot."
Cut to Manning Manor, where Rick is showing Lily how to access her PagesAlive files from her work computer. So it looks like she got her job back, I guess. Either that, or she's going to wreak her revenge by hacking the site. Lily makes some lame-ass joke about getting Crusty's bagels from home, too. Grace, mercifully, interrupts them by barging though the front door. She says hi to Lily as she runs past the living room, realizes Rick's there too, and actually comes back to give him a big friendly hi before tearing off to answer the phone. "It's a done deal," Wannabe's voice says through the receiver. "He totally likes you." She tells Grace that she called "him" -- Spencer, I'm assuming -- and Grace isn't thrilled by the news. Lily and Rick wander into the kitchen for a snack and catch Grace's reaction. Because they're parents, they have no idea what Grace is talking about, and Rick assumes it's something to do with school. He opines that it's ridiculous how much "they're" stressing kids out these days with homework. Grace leaves the room, and Carla fills her in on the details: "Tomorrow, by the tree by the trash can, to the library." And they say romance is dead.
Cut to said tree by said trash can to said library. Grace is meeting her destiny and doing her best to shirk it by informing Spencer that they don't have to go to a movie or anything. He, naturally, won't even consider not going through with it, since "it's public knowledge" by now that they've been set up for it. It has nothing to do with the fact that he lurrrves her, of course. He suggests that they make up a story about an "incident" that happens on their date and then circulate it. Grace thinks he's an idiot. She makes another weak stab at psychological manipulation, feebly suggesting that he's trying to get out of it. No such luck. Spencer starts babbling about high-school sociological phenomena, and mentions that they're both people who don't date or socialize very much. He loses two more points with Grace, who looks around self-consciously and tells him to speak for himself. Grace tries to remain patient while he continues prattling on about animal sacrifices, but she finally interrupts him to suggest that they just look at the situation for what it is: they're "going to the movies," not participating in some Desmond Morris special. Spencer agrees with a big ol' doofie grin.
Cut to Grace driving with Jake. He's calmly describing the philosophy of driving -- there's only twenty square inches between her and the road, and it's best to assume that everyone else out there is either completely incompetent or drunk. Jake looks over his shoulder and then tells Grace to stop. She slams on the brakes in a panic. Lesson one: always check the rearview mirror before stopping like that. Grace seems to appreciate his approach, and he compliments her on her driving. Grace asks if he can leave work long enough the night to give her a ride to the movies. She fibs that a bunch of them are going, and Jake asks who the kids are. Grace admits that there's a guy. Jake asks his name. "Spencer Lewicki," Grace says. "What's his real name?" Jake quips. You know, I have a friend who's due to give birth in just over a month, and she's already decided to name the kid Spencer. Maybe I should leave a copy of this tape in her mailbox? Jake's cell phone interrupts them, and he has a flirtatious little conversation with someone while Grace looks uncomfortable. She asks who it was when Jake hangs up. He lies and says it's "some guy [he's] doing a deal with." She knows he's full of it.
Tiffany finds Grace, Zoe, and Jake at the restaurant, and excitedly informs them that "it's all set." They have no idea what she's talking about. She clarifies: she got Jake an exclusive interview in the Evanston Review. ["Hey! When I went to Chicago last summer, I stayed in Evanston! It's a lovely town -- really great Mexican and soul-food restaurants there." -- Wing Chun] Jake is blown away. Tiffany continues jabbering away about the premise of the article -- the lost tradition of the family restaurant -- and how she called in a bunch of personal favors to arrange the interview. Zoe asks if that means they'll get their picture in the paper. "Uh huh! Isn't that the coolest thing ever?" Tiffany says. Grace smiles at her, but it's a sad world-weary smile, because she knows that Jake's screwing Tiffany over. Tiffany nuzzles up to Jake on his bar stool, saying that she wanted to contribute something, especially now that she's going to be a bartender. Tiffany gets herself all worked up again and then announces that she has to go to the bathroom or she'll die. Grace takes a slug from a bottle of water and watches her leave, expressionless. Zoe asks Jake if he's going to marry Tiffany. Grace pauses mid-slug while Jake half-chuckles/half-chokes. Grace watches him with disappointment in her eyes as he avoids the question by drinking his Coke.
We return from commercials to find Grace preening in her mirror and looking dissatisfied. On the Stool, she informs us that Carla says, "Being pretty can be like a decision that you make." Fighting the urge...to...be...catty.... Grace demonstrates the steps for us, which involve holding your face really still, opening your eyes wide, and then looking blank. Good advice, that. And it makes speaking nearly impossible, which, if you read The Rules, is apparently something boys like. Anyway, Grace actually does look pretty in this sequence -- probably because her hair is actually down and relaxed for a change. Unlike the hair she's sporting for her date, which is clamped in place with -- wait for it -- barrettes. Lily hollers to see if Grace is coming. Lily's heading down the stairs with Zoe, who informs her that Grace has a date. Lily stops dead and looks as though Zoe just dropped a stink bomb. "She does?" she snots. Oh, here we go.
Yep. We cut to Lily on the phone, complaining into the mouthpiece that no one informed her highness about Grace's date. Jake, lounging in his darkened bedroom, informs Lily that he did know about it. Lily is speechless for a minute, and her face sinks. "She told you?" she snots. Jake holds the phone away from himself, looks at it like it's a turd, and then puts it back to his ear. Hah! Lily asks if Jake's met the boy, and Jake promises that he's going to. It seems that sound doesn't travel too well to the center of the universe, as Lily's having trouble hearing him. She says again that one of them should meet the boy. Jake tells her to take it easy and then repeats that he's going to meet the kid. "Okay...thanks," she grudgingly says and then hangs up. Jake takes a second to process the exchange, and then shakes his head, muttering something. "Grace has a date," Tiffany says sagely, propping her naked self on Jake's chest. God, I hope she doesn't launch into a debauched tale of her own first date. Jake confirms and then mockingly says, "Horror of horrors." "Not for you?" Tiffany asks. "No, for her mom," Jake says wearily, dragging his arm across his eyes. "It signals the end of the world, apparently." Hah, again! Tiffany starts revving up Jake, and out of consideration for you, beloved reader, I'm going to leave it at that. Trust me, it's better this way. Jake ultimately insists that he has to get to the restaurant, so Tiffany stiff-upper-lips it and says she'll wait until later that night. Jake begs off, saying he has to meet a guy to do some deal. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? "All night?" Tiffany pouts. "As long as it takes," Jake says. Oh, the double-entendre is killing me. Tiffany's disappointment is palpable.
Jake hops on the Stool to share his wisdom about women. You may want to take notes. He tells us that he was in college when he figured out that "women are always disappointed, no matter what you do. So, finally, it doesn't matter." Hmm, I'm not always disappointed, and my friends aren't always disappointed, which leads me to conclude that if all the women Jake's been with are always disappointed, maybe he should stop for a moment and consider what the constant variable was in his relationships. Namely, him. What a jackass.
Back in the tangled sheets, Tiffany is managing to combine an "I'm okay with it, really" speech with a guilt trip. She lists off his obligations, one of which is an "ex-wife who's still really your wife," and it's clear that she's hovering somewhere near the bottom of his priorities. Jake tiredly says they've talked about this so many times, but Tiffany corrects him: they talk around it. "Well, talk to me," Jake says.
Back on the Stool, Professor Jake is still dispensing his wisdom. He says that if you love a woman, "you exist to make her happy." He says he doesn't have a problem with making other people happy; he's just tired of always failing at it. Then he laughs, but it's pretty humorless.
Tangled sheets. Jake struggles to say the right thing. He says he doesn't know why it's so hard for him to tell Tiffany how he feels, but he finds it really difficult to go back to that place where "you're vulnerable." Somebody pass Tiffany a spoon, or better yet, a shovel. It looks like she can't eat it up fast enough. They get all nuzzly and slurpy and...fast-forward, fast-forward...
Cut to Jake's car puling into the cinema parking lot. Grace goes for the quick getaway, but Jake's onto her. He wants to meet her date, and there's no getting out of it. We get an extreme close-up of Spencer's goofily grinning maw, as he recounts that his "eighth birthday was at this very mall!" The camera pans back as Spencer continues blabbing, summing up with, "And that's why I drink coffee!" He lifts his glass for emphasis. Jake's parental concerns about this guy putting his hands on his daughter are, understandably, laid to rest. Jake extricates himself, and Grace almost looks sorry to see him go. "Your dad is like Lee Van Cleef," Spencer grins. Apparently, he's read the IMDB's mini-biography on the guy, but Grace has no idea who he's talking about, and Spencer is horrified. As they wander off toward the cinema, he repeats the name Lee Van Cleef eight hundred and six more times, but Grace assures him that she still doesn't know who the guy is. She's already ready for the date to end.
Cut to a movie screen, where some astronaut sci-fi thing is rolling. I'm sure many of you recognized the film. I did not. Anyway, the camera pans back from the screen, and we can see that the theater isn't exactly filled to capacity. One of the only other couples there is busily making out while Spencer talks very loudly about his taste in movies. Grace leans away from him in her seat, looking uncomfortable and agitated, and drowning her misery with popcorn. She misses some conversational cue from Spencer who barks "Manning!" and snaps her to attention. He's talking so loudly that he manages to distract the groping couple in front of them. Spencer is shocked that Grace is actually watching the movie, and throws up his hands incredulously. One of them lands on Grace's thigh. I'm still not sure if it was one of those rehearsed things, like the big yawn-stretch-arm-across-the-shoulders move or the patented Seinfeld short stop. Outwardly, Grace keeps her cool, but internally she's freaking out. We know this because her Soliloquy Self says, "Um, excuse me? Your hand is on my thigh?" before jumping off the Stool with waving arms and shouting "WHY IS YOUR HAND ON MY THIGH?" Spencer reaches across her for some popcorn, which causes Grace to jump. The Make-out King tells Spencer to shut up. Spencer laughs it off. Make-out King stands up menacingly.
Cut to the sidewalk, where Spencer is complaining about being thrown out, while Grace is totally mortified that they were asked to leave. While Spencer rants, Grace loudly informs him that she thought "that manager was, like, amazingly polite." Spencer actually shuts up. Grace repeats that she's never been asked to leave a movie theater before. Spencer says that he hates movies anyway -- especially the good ones. "I know!" Grace says. Suddenly, they're totally on the same wavelength as Spencer explains that movies set people up for disappointment -- especially the good ones -- because real life is never that good. For the first time, Grace looks like she's really appreciating what Spencer is saying. It's a short-lived moment, though, because Spencer is immediately off on a tangent about Japanese animation and various cartoons, and you can see Grace's mental door closing again. As he yammers, Spencer slowly moves closer and closer to Grace until he's practically on top of her. Then he leans in and abruptly kisses her. Grace's eyes open halfway through the kiss, and she looks pained. "Just turn your head away! Just turn!" her Soliloquy Self advises, but it doesn't help. Grace is paralyzed. When Spencer finally removes his lips, Grace says, "I'm really thirsty." His smile falters for a second, but then comes beaming back, and he says he knows where they can go for a drink.
They enter a place called How U Bean ["to me it looked rather like a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf I've patronized in Burbank" -- Wing Chun], and Grace spots Jake sitting there with a woman who most certainly is not Tiffany. It's the "guy" he had to do business with -- you remember, the chick in LAVENDER from the restaurant. Grace stops dead when she sees him, and her smile vanishes. Jake knows he's busted, but he tries to play it off legit. He checks his watch and wonders why she's out of the movie so early. He recovers quickly enough to introduce Grace and her friend to Ronnie, "a friend from the restaurant." "A very loyal customer," Ronnie adds. Grace's smile could shred bullets.
Cut to Grace looking out the passenger window of Jake's car. Her jaw is set and she looks disgusted. Jake asks if she's sure she doesn't want to drive. He gets a terse reply. A few seconds pass. "Sooo," he girlfriends, looking for the skinny on her date. Grace says Spencer was "okay." "You like him as a friend. Uh-oh," Jake jokes. Grace stares at her lap. Jake wants to know if something happened. Grace says that "boys are just weird." "In my experience, they're matched only by the weirdness of girls," Jake opines. Grace thinks he's insane. After a few seconds, she nonchalantly asks, "So, where's Tiffany tonight?" Jake hems and haws and lies out his ass, but Grace isn't buying a word of it. She looks pained to realize what an jerk her father is, and that he's continuing his cheating ways.
We return from commercials to find ourselves in Lily's kitchen, where Zoe is preparing a demonstration of her volcano erupting. Lily asks Grace about her date. "Mom, just because I tell you about something, doesn't mean I want to talk about it all the time," Grace informs her. Zoe chimes in that Grace talked about it all night on the phone with Jolie. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to eavesdrop, miniature person?" Grace snipes. "Dork," Zoe retorts. Grace says that Zoe doesn't even know what a dork is. "Yes I do. It's a whale anus," Zoe says matter-of-factly. Now, I don't know what the actual, literal definition is for dork, either, but I'm totally willing to adopt Zoe's version. Lily directs Zoe's attention back to the volcano, and Zoe sets the eruption in motion. Red goo burbles and gurgles out of its top as Zoe squeals excitedly and Lily examines her floor in speechless horror. Zoe is thrilled until she realizes that the "lava" has oozed onto her shirt. She runs from the room to deal with it. Lily takes another stab at talking about Grace's date. She eagerly asks if he was nice, and says that Jake liked him. Grace asks what Jake said, and where he said he saw them, then gets cagey when Lily asks why.
Cut to the restaurant bar, where Zoe's ordering a Shirley Temple from Tiffany. As the camera pans around, we see that camera equipment is being set up, and there's a particularly shaggy man seated to Jake at the bar, taking notes. Right! The interview. I almost forgot. Jake and the reporter move to a table to talk more, and the reporter observes that Tiffany is great with kids. Grace, seated at a nearby table, eavesdrops as the guy asks how long Jake and Tiffany have been going out. Jake asks if that's going to be in the article. "Only if you want it to be," the reporter says. Tiffany sidles up and starts singing Jake's praises to the reporter, giving a speech that sounds remarkably like the one she gave Judy a few episodes ago. She mentions Jake's vision, blah de New Age crap blah, and Jake looks just as embarrassed as he did in front of Judy. The reporter asks Jake to tell him about all the changes he's made to the restaurant, but Jake can't get in a word because Tiffany's too excited and answers for him, describing how bad the place used to be. Jake interrupts and gets rid of Tiffany by sending her to the kitchen to check on something. He tells the reporter that the place has always been a great restaurant, and his loyalty to Phil comes shining through. Jake actually scores a couple points with me for that one. "All set," the photographer announces, and they all get ready to be photographed by the bar. The reporter starts arranging them around the bar, and spots Tiffany lurking in the background. "You want to be in this, don't you?" he asks rhetorically, and Tiffany bounds up to the bar. "Oh," Jake says pointedly, as he sees her approaching. "Well, maybe we could do a couple different versions," Jake says. Tiffany's getting the message loud and clear, and backs away with a hurt look. She tries to put on a brave front, but you can tell she's really disappointed. Grace seems to feel bad for her, and glances uncomfortably at Tiffany while the pictures are being snapped.
Later on, we see Tiffany coming out of a room at Jake's place, begging Zoe to go to sleep "sometime this century." She joins Grace in the living room, saying that it's a good thing she's "not officially baby-sitting here, because [she] lacks a certain moral authority with [Zoe]." Grace assures her that the kid is like that with everybody. They chat about school and driving and are interrupted by the phone. It's Jake calling to blow off Tiffany one more time with excuses about too much work. He says she can take off, but Tiffany insists that it's okay; she wants to talk to him when he gets home, so she'll wait. She's guarded in front of Grace, but you can see that she's not too happy with Jake. When she hangs up, Tiffany explains to Grace that Jake's hung up at work, and then she goes on about what a good guy and hard worker he is. She's a bigger person than I, that Tiffany. The phone rings again, and this time it's Pace. He wants to know if Grace can hang out for a bit, and Grace tries hard to maintain an iota of cool. She tells him to hang on a second then looks pleadingly at Tiffany on the couch. "I guess I am baby-sitting," Tiffany says like a good sport. Grace tells Pace she can go, and then races to her room to apply lipstick. Tiffany follows and leans against the doorway, asking if it's the same guy as the night before. "Way to go, Grace!" she says when she learns that it isn't. Grace says the guys are friends and that she doesn't know if she should do this. "What? Go outside and talk to somebody? It's a free country," Tiffany encourages. Grace doesn't need much convincing.
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.
We return from commercials to find Grace driving a convertible with Pace by her side. Suddenly the car --which is pink -- leaves the ground and we see clouds blowing by them. Grace and Pace smile happily, and the whole thing is too cheesy for words. It's all very Disney, and that's never a good thing. ["Or very Grease, and really, it's up to the viewer whether that's a good or a bad thing. -- Wing Chun] Anyway, it doesn't last long, thank god, and we realize -- surprise surprise -- that it was all a dream, as Zoe wakes Grace with a start. Zoe singsongs that Grace is in trouble before skipping out of her room.
Tiffany walks deliberately into the restaurant, and slowly closes the door behind her. She shoves her hands in her pockets to draw her coat around her as she approaches Jake, who's sitting at a table with his product-placed iBook. She notes that Jake looks tired and wonders if there was more of a scene after she left the night before. He tells her she got the highlights and then invites her to sit down. She tells him that she can't stay and stares at her feet for second while she tries to find the words. Jake starts to say that he knows he's been really busy lately, but Tiffany cuts him off to say that it doesn't have anything to do with him being busy. She hesitates for a second then blurts, "Gah! Why does it feel like I've been breaking up with you since we met?" Jake looks stunned. "Is that what you're doing?" he asks quietly. She looks at him for a moment, then looks down, saying that she "got it in the beginning" -- how she was the exact opposite of his wife, and she didn't want anything from him, and she still doesn't, but she might someday. "Whu...just not from me?" Jake says with a sad laugh. "It's sort of been up to you," Tiffany tells him. He takes a close look at her, and his eyes soften. "I'm sorry," he says, and for once, I really believe him. I think he realizes that Tiffany's not going to be easy to blame for this one. She tells him that it's mot necessary, and he insists that it is. "You're agreeing with me," she says softly. Jake sees his chance to redeem the situation and tries to grab it, but Tiffany won't let him. She says that things were fine in the beginning, when it was just about sex, "but unfortunately, this has become a relationship, and you don't like being in relationships." "You're just doing this?" Jake asks, seeming a little dazed. "Yeah, I am," she says. She gives him a goodbye kiss and then leaves him there, shell-shocked.
Grace is at Jake's place, pacing around and looking at some book. Tiffany opens the door and is surprised to find Grace there. Grace asks if Jake isn't at the restaurant. Tiffany starts to say she just came from there, but stops herself. Grace asks what's wrong. Tiffany shuffles a few steps into the apartment and says, "Hi, Grace. I just...I just broke up with your father." She explains that she just came by to get some of her stuff while Jake's not there. Grace tells her to help herself. She hangs in the doorway while Tiffany packs her bag and admits that she doesn't know what she's supposed to say. Tiffany says that she's sweet, and that she knows it's been kind of hard for Grace to see Jake with someone who isn't Lily. She adds that Jake is an attractive man, and that's part of the problem -- women just want to be around him and it makes it hard to be his girlfriend. "I love your dad. I really do," Tiffany says. "I'm just not sure he ever saw me." Tiffany talks about reaching a point with a guy when you realize that it's not about you or even how he sees you -- it's all about him and his dream of the ideal. She says that guys are just using you, to make themselves feel more attractive, and it's not a very nice thing to do.
Grace sighs guiltily from the Soliloquy Stool. Then she tries to convince herself that she did not do that to Spencer.
We see Grace in school the day as the bell rings. Wannabe's in the seat to her, asking what Grace is going to do. Grace says she'll tell Spencer the truth. Wannabe says that guys expect rejection -- "it's part of their genetic code." Then she very thoughtfully says, "So, Pace likes me, huh?" Spencer comes bounding into the classroom, yammering excitedly about some tape he wants Grace to watch. Wannabe watches for a second, then leaves. Grace tries to interrupt him a couple of times with no luck. Spencer is in mid-babble about some chick in the movie whom he thinks Grace should model herself after, because she'd get a lot more attention. "Excuse me?" Grace says. Spencer explains that if she styled herself like this character, she wouldn't have to worry about whether guys like her. He says he knows what goes on inside Grace's head, and she says that's a joke. He gives her a for-instance to prove his point: that Grace wonders how she'll ever get a cool boyfriend if a dork like Spencer is her boyfriend. Grace looks stricken. "Am I wrong?" he asks. Grace scrambles and says, "You're not my boyfriend." "I know I'm not," he laughs. "Then what are you talking about?" She tells him that she doesn't want a boyfriend right now. "Who's asking?" he says. Laughing, he facetiously tells her that he just wanted to use her and discard her, and then he asks if she's going to watch the video with him or not. He tells her to broaden her horizons and then keeps challenging her taste in movies as they leave the classroom.
Cut to an Audi parallel-parking between two cars. Grace is at the wheel while Jake coaches her. So, just so everyone's clear: Grace's choice of practice vehicles are an Explorer and an Audi. Wow, that's pretty rough. She parks the car perfectly, and Jake is thrilled. "So, you and Tiffany broke up," Grace says. When he looks surprised, she tells him that Tiffany told her. With some difficulty, Jake expresses his fear that what happened between him and Tiffany and between him and Lily may give Grace the wrong idea about how men and women relate to each other. He doesn't need to worry though, because Grace has Wannabe to give her the wrong ideas about that.
Jake hops on the Stool and admits that he'd like to fall in love again. "Course, with my track record, if I had to guess I'd have to say 'fat chance.'" He tells Grace that falling in love is the best feeling in the world -- way better than driving. On the Stool, Jake confesses that the problem is, he's not sure he's ever really been in love, and he's not sure he's capable of feeling anything even remotely like it. Grace asks whether he'd mind if they just drove for a while. Jake can take a hint, unlike some people I could mention, and shuts up with the heavy talk. He watches Grace with intense affection as she wheels the car away from the curb. On the Stool, Jake catches himself and says that he knows he's been in love -- "real love" -- twice in his life, and "it never went away, and it was never questioned." He mists up and wonders, "Why, if I'm capable of it, why can't I let anyone touch me the way my two daughters have? I think about that, that they're women just like the ones I can't deal with." Jake looks lovingly at Grace and brushes a stray hair from her eyes. Soliloquy Jake continues, "I mean, if this is what my life is going to be like, then what's the point of that?" Teary Soliloquy Jake is again contrasted with happy Jake, sitting to Grace and watching her with an intense mix of love and pride.
And on that melancholy note, we're out until the new year. Have a safe and excellent one!