Zipped by Laura McNeal

Author:Laura McNeal
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307434135
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sunday Drive

When Maurice and Janice pulled away from Home Park Gardens, Janice did what she always did when she was nervous. She fingered the smooth blunt ends of her long hair, separating the strands and rolling them slightly between her fingertips. Then she pressed the edges against her lips. Finally Maurice said, “So does Doyle live with you, or what?”

Janice made an awkward laugh. “Sometimes it seems like it.”

Maurice didn’t say anything, which made Janice feel as if she had to. “There’s a Mormonoid missionary who lives across the street from me. Brother Keester, I call him. Brother Keester kayoed Lisa with his smoldering eyes and keen Bible knowledge.” She hoped Maurice might smile at this. He didn’t. “Anyway, that’s why we were baking chocolate chip cookies. I guess cookies are for Mormons what making out is for normal people.”

Another silence stretched out, and then Janice heard something strange. A cat, she was pretty sure of it—the gravelly stretched-out yowww of a cat. She turned to a cardboard box on the backseat. “That a cat?”

Maurice smiled. “Definitely sounded like one.”

“Whose is it?”

“Belongs to a lady I know.”

Janice had the feeling this was a signal to stop asking questions, but she couldn’t help herself. “What are you doing with it?”

Maurice’s smile turned mysterious. “You’ll see.”

Janice glanced again at the box. “What’s its name?”

“Harriet.”

Who would name a cat Harriet? Janice thought, and then she said it.

Maurice paused. “A lady named Lillian Kinderman,” he said. Then, “She used to live in Village Greens.”

So when he’d said lady, he meant old lady. Janice felt a strange slackening of apprehension and stared out at the passing street. It was almost four o’clock, the late and laziest part of a spring Sunday afternoon so beautiful it made the people on stoops and bicycles look richer, happier, younger, almost. On the wider streets, Maurice kept the Honda in the right-hand lane, moving along at a crawl. He sat back in his seat with exaggerated relaxation, one arm stretched over the back of her seat without touching her. Janice thought to say, “I like your car.”

Maurice nodded with evident pleasure, and words began to flow. “Yeah, well, first thing I did was slam it, then the limo tint—I wanted to do it all around but the cops are on that like flies on shitowski—and then the sixteen-inch rims.”

“What’s slamming it mean?”

“Lowering it.” Maurice grinned. “What planet you been living on?”

Janice would’ve said Planet Earth, and that’s confirmed whereas with you the jury’s out, but she hadn’t figured out Maurice’s sense of humor yet. Maybe he didn’t have one. She said, “What’s that yellow stuff on the side?”

“Body kit. Whattaya think of the offset color?”

She wasn’t sure which was the offset color, but she said, “I like it a lot.” Maurice seemed pleased. “Then I replaced the taillights with clear corners and put on the loud exhaust. That’s a seven-inch tip.”

Janice nodded. She had no idea what he was talking about. She’d heard guys talk about trunk woofers, so she said, “How big are the trunk woofers?”

“Twelve inch,” Maurice said proudly.

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