Independence Day
T he glorious Fourth dawned sunny and hot. In Michigan, the Fourth always seemed to be the hottest day of the year. It wasn’t as hot as California, but it made up for that by being humid.
Grace had been so excited about the float and the parade and the store flyers that she had almost forgotten about Lucas coming—until she got a text from him. “Excited to see you in the parade this morning!” the text read. “See you soon!”
She should have thought of a way to convince him not to come. Today would be hectic enough, and now that she knew for sure she wasn’t interested in Lucas, she felt bad about letting him visit. But it was too late now. She’d have to be kind and friendly—but just friendly—to him when he came.
Well, she didn’t have to worry about Lucas until later. It was time to get ready for the parade.
Grace had never been in the parade before, and she hadn’t realized how early everyone had to get there and how long they had to wait on a side street for the parade to start. The sheriff and his deputies had blocked off Main Street for the parade and were directing traffic.
Sam was driving the farm truck with the float attached. The girls had decorated the truck with streamers and written “Murray’s Grocery” on the windows with soap. The helpers from yesterday were hanging around in the vicinity of the float, joking with each other.
Doc was the only one missing—he was helping Hannah take videos. It was too bad he couldn’t be part of their group after he had worked so hard on the float, but maybe he preferred helping Hannah. Like Grace had told Alex, Doc was a helpful guy who went out of his way for people. It didn’t mean anything special that he’d helped Grace with the shopping and the float.
Since Grace and her friends were too far away to see the goings-on in the center of town, Grace had asked Mom to text her updates. The parade started at eleven with the mayor reading the Declaration of Independence. Following the reading, the mayor gave a speech.
The parade finally began inching along. The sun beat down. Grace had forgotten to wear a hat. She’d be red as a lobster tomorrow.
But when the parade got into town, it became fun. People crowded at the sides of the road, some in lawn chairs, some standing. Some little kids rode on their parents’ shoulders to see better. Other kids were out in the road scrambling for thrown candy.
The Murray’s Grocery team was throwing flyers with candy taped onto them, which had been Grace’s idea. The candy helped weight the flyers so they could be thrown. Charlie had suggested making the flyers into paper airplanes, but Grace and Alex shouted that idea down.
Somewhere ahead of them, a band played. Fraser’s Mill didn’t have a regular band, but in the weeks leading up to the Fourth the mayor had gone around recruiting anybody who played a band instrument to participate in the parade.
The delectable smell of hot cinnamon sugar wafted over to the float from a roadside cart selling candied nuts.
Hannah stood in front of the firehouse, holding up her phone, videotaping. Her sundress, with a blue top and a red-and-white striped skirt, looked patriotic. Doc was nowhere in sight.
No, there he was, farther down the street, in front of the bank with his own phone. Good, he could get some video footage of their float. He was wearing a red-and-white striped shirt that matched Hannah’s outfit, cargo shorts, and sunglasses.
She’d better stop looking around and focus on throwing flyers and candy. Some little kids stood farther from the road, kept safe by parents who didn’t feel comfortable with them in the road. Grace tossed candy farther back for them.
“It looks like the whole town is out,” she called to Alex.
Alex laughed and threw a handful of flyers. “On a ninety-degree day, too!”
Mom and Dad were waving from their front porch. They liked to sit in the shade and watch the parade in comfort instead of getting hot and sunburned near the road. The grocery store was closed during the parade, although it would be open later in the day.
The parade went down Main Street as far as the church and the sawmill. Then everyone turned down side streets. They had to find alternate routes to get back, since the rest of the parade was still coming down Main Street.
Sam pulled over on the side of the road and stuck his head out the truck window. “Hey, boss,” he called, “where do you wanna go now? Want me to drop you guys off and take the truck back to the farm?”
“If that’s convenient for you,” Grace called to him. “Otherwise I can take it over there.”
“Then you’d have to walk all the way back. I’ll take it.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
Grace scrambled off the float. They’d have to figure out about taking it apart later.
“So, what are you up to now?” Alex asked Grace. “Charlie and I are gonna go down to the hall for lunch.”
“Do they have anything gluten-free you can eat?” Charlie asked, hovering behind Alex.
“I’ll get a hamburger without a bun,” Alex told him. “You coming, Grace?”
“No, I’ve got to meet somebody,” Grace said. Now she had to spend the afternoon showing Lucas around. Hannah and Doc would probably have a fun afternoon videotaping without her.
Alex lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Is it who I think it is?”
If only! Grace shook her head. “Nope. It’s Lucas. The guy from California I told you about. He’s visiting his grandma in Michigan and wanted to stop by while he was here.”
Alex’s face fell. “Oh. Well, I hope you have a good time. We’d better get going. Come on, Charlie.”
“See you, Grace,” Charlie called over his shoulder as the pair walked off.
Now where was Lucas? Grace hadn’t seen him during the parade. She must have missed him in the crowd. People were milling around everywhere.
She checked her phone and saw Lucas had texted: “Meet me at the park on Main Street when you’re done with the parade?”
“Sure,” Grace responded. “I’m heading over there right now.”
She found Lucas in the park, sitting on a bench and checking his phone. He looked much the same as he had in California, except he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with loafers instead of his usual suit.
“Grace!” Lucas jumped up from the park bench. “There you are. Did you see me from the float?”
Grace shook her head. “No, I didn’t. Too busy throwing flyers, I guess.”
“Let’s find a place indoors to sit and catch up,” Lucas said. “I forgot how hot and humid it gets in Michigan. Any coffee shops in town?”
Grace laughed. “Not one, not even one of the big coffee chains. Which is just as well, because some of the big chains are terrible companies. The only restaurants in town are the diner and the tavern.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “This really is a small town.”
“There’s a lunch at the fire hall for the Fourth of July,” Grace said. “Right across the street. They’ve got hamburgers and hot dogs and potato salad and all kinds of pies.”
Lucas squinted across the sunny street and shook his head. “It looks crowded. And the food’s never good at those things. Why don’t we try the tavern? Maybe they’ve got some decent beer on tap.”
She might have known he wouldn’t want to eat at the fire hall. Grace tried to forget the burger, fries, and coconut cream pie that had been in the back of her head all morning. “ The food’s never good at those things ,” indeed! Murray’s Grocery had provided most of it. But Lucas wouldn’t know that.
“Sure, we could go to the tavern,” Grace said. “They’ve got a bunch of good beers.” If there was one thing Michigan did well, it was brewing beer. Even Lucas would have to agree about that.
Grace and Lucas passed the fire hall as Doc came up to it, wearing his sunglasses. Grace couldn’t tell if he saw them.
She and Lucas went into the dim tavern. Bars and restaurants always had to be so dark, and after coming in from the sun it was especially hard to see. But she’d been there enough times to be familiar with the menu and semi-familiar with the beer list.
“Want to sit at the bar?” Grace asked.
“How about a booth?” Lucas said.
“Fine, then we’ll have to wait for the waitress to seat us.”
Grace kept thinking of the fun she was missing at the fire hall. Even if Doc was still tied up taking videos for Hannah, he had probably stopped for lunch. And it would have been fun third- wheeling with Alex and Charlie, even if Doc wasn’t there.
The waitress led Grace and Lucas to a booth.
“Finally,” Lucas said, sliding into his side of the booth. “As a local, what do you recommend from this place? Any good appetizers?”
Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to let Lucas pick out food for her. She was surprised he hadn’t looked up the restaurants in Fraser’s Mill before getting here. Grace slid into the booth, which was sticky. “I actually haven’t tried any appetizers from here,” she told him. “Honestly, I don’t usually get appetizers. You can go ahead and get one if you want, of course.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” Lucas opened his menu. “Where’s their beer list? What do they have on tap?”
When the waitress came back, Grace ordered a beer and a hamburger with fries. Lucas ordered a beer and a plate of ribs. He must not be worried about sauce on his clothes.
“How was your grandma’s birthday?” Grace asked.
“It was great. Most of my extended family was there,” Lucas said. “She turned eighty-five, so they had a party with eighty-five guests.”
“Wow, that’s a big party! That must have been really nice for your grandma.”
Lucas nodded. “She had a great time. There was a big tent set up in the backyard, and my uncle was giving people rides around the lake in the pontoon.”
“Nice!”
“So tell me,” Lucas said, “what have you been doing with yourself these days? Do you get out of town much?”
“No, not really,” Grace said. “But there’s been a lot to do around here. Especially getting ready for the Fourth of July.”
The waitress came back with their beers.
Lucas’s forehead creased as he tasted his.
“That’s surprisingly good.”
“See, I told you they had good beer,” Grace said.
Lucas laughed. “No offense, but I don’t usually take women’s advice about beer.”
Grace wouldn’t take Lucas’s advice about drinks either—or food, for that matter—but to each his own.
Grace’s burger tasted good, and Lucas proclaimed the ribs to be all right. He managed to eat them without getting anything on his shirt. It must be nice not to be klutzy.
“So how’s your summer going so far?” Grace asked.
Lucas launched into a description of his travels. He had been up and down California, visiting different places, doing a lot of surfing and frisbee. He had been to a few amusement parks.
“Well, that’s enough about my summer,” Lucas said at last. “I don’t want to make you jealous, when you’ve been stuck here in a grocery store all summer.”
Grace shook her head. “Actually, it’s been surprisingly fun here. I wouldn’t have traded it for a summer in California.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Really! You’re enjoying working in the grocery store, then?”
“Well, it’s not always easy, but it’s good,” Grace said. “Right now the main thing is that we have to improve our business. We just got a dollar store in town that’s competing with us.”
She filled Lucas in about the dollar store. He listened, his forehead creased.
“If you ask me,” he said, “this is a good time for your parents to sell the store and retire. They must be close to retirement age anyway.” He leaned back in his seat. “My dad retired early last year, and he’s loving it. He and my mom can travel any time they want now.”
“I’m sure my parents don’t want to sell the store,” Grace said. “Besides, it’s the only grocery store in town. If somebody doesn’t fight to keep it in business, Fraser’s Mill will turn into a food desert. All we’ll have is the dollar store. People will have to drive to Cadillac to buy groceries.”
Lucas shrugged. “Somebody else could run the store,” he said. “Anyway, if your parents sold the store it wouldn’t be your family’s problem at that point.”
“But it would still be the town’s problem,” Grace said. “You don’t understand, Lucas. This is a big issue, and it’s important to combat it. Dollar stores are taking over the country, especially in the rural areas. Somebody’s got to stand up to them.”
“Sure, of course.” Lucas ran a hand through his hair. “And I’m sure some people will. All I’m saying is, it would be better for your parents if they retired now.”
Didn’t he understand what the store meant to her family? “Well, I don’t think they’d agree with you,” Grace said. “They’ve worked hard in this store for thirty years.”
“All the more reason they should get to retire.” Lucas laughed. He leaned forward. “Just trying to be practical, Grace.”
“Sure—thanks.”
It was easy for Lucas to make a quick analysis of the situation; he wasn’t involved in it himself. He didn’t understand family businesses or small towns.
The waitress came by with the bill. Grace tried to pay her portion, but Lucas insisted on paying it himself. “Why don’t we go get ice cream?” he suggested. “It’s a hot day, and that looked like a quaint little ice cream stand down the street.”
Grace hesitated. She didn’t want to prolong this hangout or have Lucas spend more money on her. But refusing to go to the ice cream stand seemed unkind. She could pay for her own ice cream. “All right,” she said. “We can do that.”
At the ice cream stand they had to wait in line in the blazing sun. The line was still long in front of them when Grace’s phone rang. It was her parents’ cell.
“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Grace said. “I’ve gotta take this.”
She stepped away and answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Grace, I’ve got a problem,” Mom’s voice said. “I hate to ask this, because I know you have the day off, but could you possibly man the cash register from five to seven? Natalie asked me if she could get off at five to go into Cadillac with her family. We’ve got a lot of customers and I can’t handle the store all evening by myself. I’m just really overwhelmed, and it’s been a long day. I’m getting too old for this.”
In other circumstances Grace might have been disappointed to get called into work, but this provided her with a legitimate reason to end her hangout with Lucas.
“I can do it,” Grace said.
“I can’t hear you,” Mom said. “The connection’s bad.”
Fraser’s Mill reception could be spotty. Grace walked farther from the ice cream stand. “Is this better?”
“That’s better. Now I can hear you. What were you saying?”
“I said I can come in from five to seven,” Grace said. “I don’t have anything pressing to do in the evening anyway.”
“Is that guy from California still here? The one that took you out to dinner that time?”
“Lucas? He’s still here,” Grace said. “We were in line at the ice cream stand when you called.”
She peered back down the street toward the ice cream stand. Lucas was still in line, talking to a girl in a red, white, and blue sundress. Hannah. Why was Hannah talking to Lucas? Did she always swoop down on any new guy who came to town? Wasn’t it enough that she hung out with Doc all the time?
“Oh, Grace, I don’t want to ruin your hangout,” Mom said. “Maybe I can manage by myself, after all.”
“Huh? No, Mom, it’s all right.” Grace looked over at Lucas again. Now was a great opportunity to spill her feelings about the situation. “I think we’re about done hanging out,” she confessed. “It’s—well, it’s awkward. He’s an okay guy, but he just rubs me the wrong way.”
“Is he the one who likes oysters?”
“Yeah. There’s no way I could see myself dating him. Nothing I like is good enough for him. I don’t know why he even wants to hang out with me. He didn’t want to eat lunch at the fire hall because he didn’t think the food would be good. He doesn’t see the point of trying to save the store, either. He thinks you and Dad should just sell the store and retire.”
“Well, I have to say, on days like today, that idea sounds pretty attractive,” Mom said. “But I’m sorry the two of you don’t get along as well as you’d thought you might. He must like you—he took time out of his family’s vacation to visit you. If you’re not interested, you’d better tell him.”
Grace groaned. “I know, I know. I’ve gotta figure out how to tell him this isn’t going to work out. But I don’t know how to bring it up.”
“Often the best thing is to be direct. Just be honest with him. It’s a lot better than letting him go around thinking you like him.”
She was right. “Thanks, Mom,” Grace said. “Well, I’d better get back before he gets to the front of the line. I can just see him ordering me an ice cream I don’t like.”
Mom laughed. “All right,” she said. “See you at five.”
When Grace got back to the ice cream stand, Hannah was gone and Lucas was near the head of the line.
“Just in time.” He winked at Grace. “I was about to have to order for you.”
“That was my mom,” Grace said. “They need me to help out in the store. I was supposed to have the day off today, but the employee that has tonight’s shift has to leave, so I’ve gotta go to work at five.”
“What?” Lucas shook his head. “Can’t you find anybody to take your place? It’s not right for you to have to come in when you have the day off.”
“Well, it’s my family’s grocery store,” Grace said. “I don’t want some other person to be stuck working when I can do it.”
“When do you get off?”
“Seven.”
They approached the ordering window. “It’s on me,” Lucas said.
“But you paid at the tavern,” Grace said. “I was thinking I could get my own ice cream.”
“As I said, it’s on me.”
Protest was useless. Grace ordered the smallest ice cream cone on the menu. Lucas got a flurry.
All the tables around the ice cream stand were full, so Grace and Lucas went to the park for some shade. Now would be the time to tell Lucas things wouldn’t work between them. Grace still wasn’t sure how to start that conversation.
“I’ve got an idea,” Lucas said. “When you get off work, we can find a restaurant for dinner—there must be some in Cadillac. While we’re there, we can see the fireworks over the lake. It’s not as exciting as I had hoped for our first big holiday together, but that’s okay.”
Their first big holiday together?
“Wait a minute,” Grace said. “You’re talking like you and I are dating.”
His brow furrowed. “We are dating.”
Grace took a step backward. Oh, no. This was bad. He must be confused.
“No,” she said, looking Lucas square in the face. “No—we’re not. What would make you think that?”
“What do you mean? We’ve been going out since May.”
“Since May?” Grace’s volume rose. “We went out to dinner one time.”
No wonder Lucas had been so insistent on coming to Fraser’s Mill and paying for Grace’s food. A sick knot formed in Grace’s stomach.
Lucas frowned. “Right. I took you to dinner at the end of May. We were going to go out again before you left, but you couldn’t make it. We emailed back and forth for a month. Then you agreed to let me visit you in Michigan. I understood we were seeing each other exclusively.”
“Well, I didn’t!” Grace said. Her face was heating up, and it wasn’t because of the weather. “Nobody said anything like that. I went out with you once. One date. Well, two, counting today. That doesn’t mean we’re in a relationship!”
Her ice cream cone was dripping all over her hand. Never hold an ice cream cone during an argument.
“So you don’t want to date me?” Lucas’s face was turning red.
Grace shook her head. “No. I don’t think we’re a good match for each other.”
“Then what were you doing sending all those emails, letting me come to visit you? Just leading me on?” His mouth twisted.
“Leading you on!” Grace exclaimed. “I wasn’t trying to lead you on. We were just starting to get to know each other. I was trying to figure out if we were compatible. But now I’ve figured out that we aren’t.”
Her hands, sticky with ice cream, were shaking. How could she have made such a hash of this? She should have said no to that second date the minute he suggested it. Then there wouldn’t be all this confusion.
“What are you talking about?” Lucas exclaimed. “We would be great for each other. We’re both Catholic, we work at the same school, we both like reading and nerdy things and working out—what’s so incompatible?”
Grace shook her head. “Lucas, you’re a great guy,” she said. “And I know we have a bunch of things in common. But I don’t think our personalities work well together. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“Well, I think you’re delusional,” Lucas scoffed. “If we don’t work well together, who else do you think you’re gonna find? Prince Charming? You’re what, twenty-eight? You don’t have a lot of time left to be that picky.”
That was the last straw. “I’m twenty-seven,” Grace said. “And I’d rather be single forever than be with a guy that tells me I’m too old to be picky. Goodbye.”
She turned and walked away. On the way out of the park she threw the melting ice cream cone into the trash can. She hoped he saw it.