Episode 1194: Respect

“He took his sweet time. It isn’t as if you don’t have anything better to do than wait around for him, Hope. He should show you more respect than that.”

Hope looked uncomfortable, like she didn’t know how to respond. Jenny linked her elbow through her best friend’s trying to support her as best she could but it just seemed to be getting trickier and trickier to navigate, to the point where earlier Jenny felt like she’d needed to speak out, point out that maybe Hope shouldn’t keep turning herself inside out to accommodate her dads’ feelings, maybe the adults should be the ones accommodating her.

To Jenny’s relief, Hope hadn’t gotten mad at her for overstepping, but she also hadn’t said much since.

“Eleven minutes isn’t disrespectful, Cur,” Mrs. Gable said as the doorbell rang. “He probably hit traffic.”

“That’s why you leave early so you can be respectful and show up on time,” Mr. Gable countered.

“Well, it’s perfect timing that you’re in such a respectful mood,” Mrs Gable said on her way to the door, “since this is the person you could stand to treat with more decency for your daughter’s sake.”

“I treat him exactly as I should for my daughter’s sake.”

“We’ll talk about this later, Curran, again. As for now, be civil,” Mrs. Gable instructed before opening the door. “Hi, there, Paul. How are you doing on this lovely day?”

“Not the best at the moment. I’m so sorry I kept you waiting, Hope. Traffic was more backed up than I thought it would be.”

“That’s the thing about being a parent, you do have to put thought into it,” Mr. Gable said. “If you’re not prepared to do that-”

“Oh, you mean like the kind of thought you put into offering to ship Hope out to the country all so I won’t see her,” Paul said. “That’s some first rate scheming, have her grateful to daddy for showering her with a dream summer while at the same time cutting the competition out of the picture.”

Jenny couldn’t stand it any longer. “This isn’t actually a competition,” she said. “You two need to work on figuring that out. Meantime, Hope is coming to my house for a couple days. She needs a vacation from you guys and from you pressuring her to decide about how she’s spending her summer. She’s going to have an ulcer or whatever if you keep this up.”

Episode 1195: Rock Star