Free Zipped by Laura McNeal

turned to Lisa. “The momster’s got the big ears.”
    â€œIt’s evolutionary,” Mrs. Bledsoe said. “You’ll develop them, too, when you have a teenage daughter.” She smiled at Janice. “Now who was checking you out?”
    â€œNed,” Janice said. “An impeccably moral, college-bound Ned who works at Village Greens.”
    Mrs. Bledsoe peered over her bifocals. “So the pastures really are greener at Village Greens.”
    â€œNot necessarily,” Lisa said. She was thinking of Maurice Gritz leering at her and saying, “The hats are like me. One size fits all.” Calling Lizette “Gomez.” Giving the girls too-small T-shirts.
    â€œWe’re on separate crews,” Janice explained. “I got a bunch of cool guys, but Lisa thinks she got mostly creeps and dinks.”
    â€œWell,” Mrs. Bledsoe said, turning her smile on Lisa, “creeps and dinks is what the male persuasion mostly is. You might as well get used to it.” After the second divorce Genevieve Bledsoe had needlepointed a sampler that said NEVER AGAIN, BETSY. It hung over the fake fireplace of their third-floor apartment.
    Now Mrs. Bledsoe ate her piece of pizza standing up and washed it down with mineral water before picking up her fax and scrolling through it. “Okay, gals, tell me what you think of this. ‘Coronary care patients who receive prayers without their knowledge’ ”—here she peered up meaningfully—“ ‘fare better than those not receiving prayers.’ ” She looked over her glasses at Lisa and Janice. “That can’t be possible. Can that be possible? That somebody can get better faster because, unbeknownst to him, a stranger is praying for him?”
    Lisa wanted to say yes, but she didn’t know what she could say after that that wouldn’t sound like Sister Watts, who got up in fast and testimony meeting every single month and said, “I want to share with you, brothers and sisters, that the Lord hears and answers prayers.”
    Mrs. Bledsoe shook her head a final time and went back to her office.
    â€œShe’s doing this long article on health and spirituality,” Janice explained. “Which makes absolutely no sense because she’s like a practicing atheist or something. Once when she was asked to do the blessing at my aunt’s house, she said, ‘Hubba hubba, thanks for the grubba.’ ”
    Lisa chuckled.
    Janice said, “You laugh, but my aunt didn’t. It was pretty awful.”
    From Mrs. Bledsoe’s office came the muted sounds of choral music, which Lisa recognized as Handel’s
Messiah.
Without thinking, Lisa said, “I like your mom.”
    â€œBut then you don’t have to live with her,” Janice said, laughing, and Lisa laughed, too, but sometimes she wondered if Janice’s mom wasn’t one reason she and Janice were still friends. They’d been friends forever, since grade school, when they liked exactly the same things: blue Otter Pops, Quick Curl Barbie, and a day-camp counselor named Booth Spinelli. Now it seemed like Janice wanted to try all the things Lisa wasn’t even supposed to think about. She was probably becoming what the church would call a bad influence. But she was still Janice, and Mrs. Bledsoe felt almost like an aunt—an exotic, friendly, world-wise aunt. A few weeks ago, when her father had for the umpteenth time asked Lisa what she might want to do with her life, Lisa had surprised herself by saying, “I was thinking about freelance writing.” Her father had considered it (approvingly, it seemed to Lisa) and said, “Like Janice’s mom,” and Lisa had nodded and said, “Yeah, like Janice’s mom.”
    â€œOkay, check this out,” Janice said now, and she slipped out a book hidden under the stack of newspapers on the table.
The
Nancy Drew Cookbook.
On the cover was a ham steak topped