In a small town like Normal, Valentine’s Day was a perfect babysitting storm. Everyone with kids needed one and most of the older teens wanted to go out on dates themselves. Kevin and Jill compared notes with some of the other young parents at the church. Audra Park, a single mother who had just started dating the choir director, Shane Reed, hadn’t found a babysitter for her six-year-old son Tyler either.
Carrie and Carlos Lopez smiled sympathetically. They knew who they were going to have watch their baby – Carrie’s mother, Karen Winslow, who also happened to be a Sunday school teacher at the church.
“I wonder if your mother would be willing to babysit all the children,” Audra mused. Kevin and Jill immediately perked up.
“I don’t know,” Carrie said. “I mean, she might if it were for a church event or something, but otherwise…”
“Maybe it could be a church event,” Kevin suggested. “Maybe the church should hold a Valentine’s Day dance.” Kevin was finding it as difficult to get a dinner reservation as it was to get a babysitter and this sounded like killing two birds with one stone. Carrie and Carlos agreed it was a good idea. They had moved in with Carrie’s parents, Karen and Del, after the company they worked for went bankrupt. A church dance would be a nice yet economical date.
It was kind of last minute to put something like that together, of course, but when they proposed it to Senior Pastor Henry O’Donnell he was surprisingly enthusiastic. It turned out he was having trouble getting dinner reservations as well.
Henry rushed over to twenty-eight-year-old Associate Pastor Michelle Tellum and her boyfriend, Ian Wells, who was a jazz guitarist. “We’re thinking about having a Valentine’s Day dance,” Henry said. “Ian, do you think your band would like to perform? We could pay you, say, $200.”
“Absolutely!” Ian replied. His band usually played in clubs for free drinks.
Michelle frowned. This was the first time since college that she had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day and she was kind of hoping for a romantic evening alone with Ian. Spending it at the church felt a little too much like work. She didn’t want to come off as selfish, though, so she tried to be subtle. “Won’t that mess up the plans you made for us?” she asked, hoping Ian had actually made some plans.
“Nah,” Ian said. “I was only able to get an early reservation at the restaurant anyway. We’ll have plenty of time to eat before the dance.”
“It’s settled then,” Henry declared.
“Great,” Michelle sighed.
The first major wrinkle in the plan came when Henry talked to Karen about handling childcare. “Absolutely not,” Karen said. It turned out Carrie and Carlos had just assumed she would babysit for them. They’d never actually asked her. “Del and I are going out to dinner,” Karen sniffed. “He made the reservations a month ago.” Henry decided Del could be pretty annoying sometimes.
The organizers were in a bind. The childcare was a key reason for the event in the first place. Without it, many of them wouldn’t be able to attend. It was looking like they would need a miracle to save the dance.
And then Katie’s boyfriend dumped her.
It was all Henry could do not to jump for joy. Alex was two years older than Katie, and Henry had never approved of their relationship. He forced himself to wait a decent amount of time before broaching the subject of childcare at the church dance. He figured half an hour was a suitable mourning period for a teenage romance.
Henry obviously didn’t know much about teenage romances. Katie burst into tears when he proposed she spend Valentine’s Day watching little kids. Henry, never particularly skilled at handling crying females, quickly offered to pay her double her regular babysitting rate. Katie stopped crying. There was a pair of shoes she really wanted and the gig would just about cover them. She agreed.
The dance was on.
Valentine’s Day evening started out pretty good for Michelle. Ian gave her an appropriately lascivious compliment on the sheer white dress she wore. The restaurant he’d chosen was quite romantic, though the candlelight might have had more impact if the sun wasn’t still shining in around the curtains while they ate.
After they’d finished a juicy prime rib for two, the waiter asked if they’d like to see the desert cart. He mentioned a special Valentine’s chocolate fudge cake and assured them it was quite decadent.
“We better not,” Ian said. “I’ve got to get over to the church to set up for the show.”
Michelle looked at her watch. It wasn’t even seven and it looked like the Valentine’s Day romance was over. She’d spend the rest of the evening sitting alone watching Ian perform on stage. And she wouldn’t even have the aftertaste of chocolate fudge cake to tide her over. She sighed.
Little did she know her evening was destined to get better. Of course it was also destined to get a lot worse, first.
To be continued…
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