BooksBarbecue
Back Grace Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Colophon
  3. ALSO BY RICHARD PAUL EVANS
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. Dedication
  8. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  9. Epigraph
  10. Grace
  11. THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL
  12. CHAPTER One
  13. CHAPTER Two
  14. CHAPTER Three
  15. CHAPTER Four
  16. CHAPTER Five
  17. CHAPTER Six
  18. CHAPTER Seven
  19. CHAPTER Eight
  20. CHAPTER Nine
  21. CHAPTER Ten
  22. CHAPTER Eleven
  23. CHAPTER Twelve
  24. CHAPTER Thirteen
  25. CHAPTER Fourteen
  26. CHAPTER Fifteen
  27. CHAPTER Sixteen
  28. CHAPTER Seventeen
  29. CHAPTER Eighteen
  30. CHAPTER Nineteen
  31. CHAPTER Twenty
  32. CHAPTER Twenty-one
  33. CHAPTER Twenty-two
  34. CHAPTER Twenty-three
  35. CHAPTER Twenty-four
  36. CHAPTER Twenty-five
  37. CHAPTER Twenty-six
  38. CHAPTER Twenty-seven
  39. CHAPTER Twenty-eight
  40. CHAPTER Twenty-nine
  41. CHAPTER Thirty
  42. CHAPTER Thirty-one
  43. CHAPTER Thirty-two
  44. CHAPTER Thirty-three
  45. CHAPTER Thirty-four
  46. CHAPTER Thirty-five
  47. CHAPTER Thirty-six
  48. CHAPTER Thirty-seven
  49. CHAPTER Thirty-eight
  50. CHAPTER Thirty-nine
  51. EPILOGUE
  52. A LETTER FROM RICHARD PAUL EVANS
  53. JOIN THE RICHARD PAUL EVANS MAILING LIST, GET A FREE GIFT AND HELP A CHILD
  54. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

She cocked her head. “Bye, Eric.”

“See ya later.”

For the first time in my life I was smitten, dashed on the rocks of femininity. I had just been given permission to kiss the most beautiful girl in the world. It was better than winning the lottery.

CHAPTER Eighteen

There are times I feel like shouting my feelings to the entire world.
But I think they’d only close their windows.

GRACE’S DIARY

One Sunday a minister in a small, pious community decided to play hooky from church and go golfing instead. He was afraid of being caught, so he changed out of his Sunday clothes, put on sunglasses and a hat, and quietly slipped out the back door of the church.

As he drove to the golf course, the voice of God spoke to him. God warned the minister that if he played golf on the Sabbath he’d be cursed. But the minister had made up his mind and went anyway.

The minister got to his first hole and hit the ball. It sailed all the way to the green and bounced in for a hole-in-one.

“Incredible!” shouted the minister.

He went to the next hole and hit another hole-in-one.

“Fantastic!” cried the minister.

The exact same thing happened on all eighteen holes. “A perfect game!” the minister shouted. As he carried his clubs back to his car he looked to heaven and said, “God, I thought you said you were going to curse me. Instead I shot the best game in history!”

“Yes,” replied God. “But who are you going to tell?”

That’s exactly how I felt about having Grace as a girlfriend.

CHAPTER Nineteen

The newspaper said that we need to inspect our Halloween
candy because some people have put razor blades and
something called LSD inside. I can’t figure out why
someone would do that. They must hate themselves.

GRACE’S DIARY

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31

Every Halloween my mother made an enormous cauldron of chili and a couple pans of hot Parker House rolls that Joel and I would consume smothered in butter and honey. Those were good times. Part of that tradition was my mother saying, “Where are you boys putting all that?” and her favorite, “You must have hollow legs.” We were never quite sure what that meant.

After dinner my parents retired to the living room for television and candy bowl duty, while Joel and I suited up in our Halloween costumes.

Oddly enough, Halloween costumes were the one thing we had plenty of. My mother liked to sew and back when she stayed home she made us new costumes every year. She even once helped make costumes for a school play I was in. We saved them all.