Do we really need ovens? How did our ancestors survive without them?
Just as I was pondering those questions, Gabriella stepped back into the kitchen, wringing her hands nervously. “Can I speak to you?”
I shook my hands dry. “What’s going on?”
The kitchen had seen better days—an old linoleum floor with worn spots, faded cabinets that had once been white but now bore the stains of decades of meals, and the faint smell of grease that no amount of scrubbing could fully get rid of.
“My eighth- and ninth-grade homemaking teacher, Mrs. Maine, is in the competition. She was mean. Some of our parents asked for conferences with her, and she made up lies about our classroom behavior. She almost kicked me out of her class once for accidentally breaking a mixing bowl. I didn’t know teachers could veto you because of a mistake!”
Gabriella’s glassy eyes said there was a great deal of pain behind her long-held grudge with Mrs. Maine. “She humiliated me in front of the whole class. She named me ‘the kitchen klutz.’ I didn’t even know what the wordklutzmeant until I took her class. People teased me about it for years. I almost lost my dignity andmy confidence after two years in her class. So…ummm…yeah. I really,reallyneed to practice my recipes before the competition because even if I don’t win, I must score higher than her. She is my personal Mount Everest.”
Dang.
It broke my heart to hear Gabriella’s story, being a retired teacher. “I’m so sorry you had a bad experience with her. Teachers are people, too.”
Gabriella shook her head. “True that. But some teachers shouldn’t be around children. She hated us. One time, there was a new girl in class who went off completely on Mrs. Maine. And we started cheering. Then Mrs. Maine told us that we were all ingrates—another new vocabulary word—and the only reason she kept teaching was because her husband’s medication was too expensive to afford without insurance benefits.”
I tried compassion. “Sounds like she was going through a lot. Naturally, it impacted her attitude.”
“Not my problem. If you’re in a bad situation, you should strategize. Find a way to get out of it. Don’t take out your frustrations on poor, innocent children, right?”
She had a point.
“How soon is the oven getting replaced?”
“When is the competition?”
“Next weekend. But I’ve already lost practice time since the broiler coil blew out, you know?”
Of course I knew. “I wish I could say it will be ready in time, but I can’t. I just got the information from Wardell. How well do you know him, by the way?”
She tipped her head casually. “Not well.”
“Good. Anyway, he sent the estimate for removal of the stove,getting a new stove, and reinstallation. But I have to get everything rewired by a certified electrician before he can put a new one in. None of it is cheap.”
Gabriella squinted. “You probably needed him to diagnose the situation, but maybe you don’t need him to remove anelectricoven.” She walked over to the oven. “All we gotta do is cut the power from the breaker, unscrew it, pull it out, and undo the plug. That’ll save a hundred bucks, and probably a day in the process.”
She’d animated her speech with simplistic hand gestures, but I couldn’t imagine doing it ourselves. “Sounds like a job for a professional.”
“I’ve done this more than once. In one of my culinary classes. We learnedeverythingabout the kitchen.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mess around with home repair. Kitchens, toilets, garage doors—none of it.”
“Of course you don’t. You’ve been married almost all your life.Andyou didn’t have YouTube growing up.”
In one smooth move, she grabbed her phone and opened up YouTube. She input the make and model of my stove, and voilà, up popped three different videos showing how to uninstall. By the time we’d finished watching the third one, she and the DIY fanatics had me nearly convinced that we could save ourselves some time and money.
With an enthusiastic chirp, she asked, “You want to give it a try?”
“Now?”
“Yes,now. The contest, remember?”
Goodness. The last thing I needed was to get electrocuted or break my arm trying to catch an oven sliding out from the wall too fast. Not to mention the trauma that Elijah would experiencewhen he came home and found me and Gabriella knocked out on the kitchen floor.
“Let’s at least get help,” I said. “Someone must live to tell the story.”
“Fine.” She tapped her phone. “I’ll call my boyfriend. He’s got tools and should be on break right now.”
