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of time before they got out the torches and pitchforks.
    “Grandma, what does this all mean?” I asked her.
    “Dolly, this means war, and in war someone is going to get hurt.”

Chapter 3

    B OO! Were you scared? Sometimes we don’t know we’re scared of something until we’re scared by it. We can go our whole life thinking we’re not scared of clowns and then one day we go to the circus and BOOM! A man in face paint and floppy shoes hands us a balloon animal, and we’re running for our lives. The same thing happens now and then to a man. He doesn’t think he’s afraid of women. Then BOOM! One gets under his skin, and he’s running for his life. This is a touchy situation for a matchmaker. The man is not ready for commitment. But we’re in the love business! We don’t care about being scared. We don’t care about balloon animals. Slap him silly and get him back on the treasure path of love. No one is allowed to be afraid of love. Send him to the circus. Let him see what real fear is all about
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    Lesson 58,
    Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda
    GRANDMA’S HOUSE cleared out quickly. The movers and shakers stormed out like angry villagers on a mission, shouting about pagans and wackos and aliens. I might have also heard something about yurts and kerosene, but it could have been the dental pain distorting my hearing.
    Bridget stuck around to help me clean up the paper cups and hoagie wrappers. Grandma was napping inher room after refusing Jocelyn Porkish’s request to be set up with the mayor. “I just couldn’t do it to Jocelyn,” Grandma explained to me. Saying no to a potential client was more than Grandma could bear, and it sent her straight to bed.
    The front door opened, and my other best friend, Lucy Smythe, stomped in in a swirl of peach organza. “Did I miss it? Did I miss it? Oh, please tell me I didn’t miss the alien apocalypse meeting!” she drawled, her accent dripping with Mississippi Delta.
    She spun around in the entranceway, her dress billowing up in a feminine wave, just like Scarlett O’Hara. I popped my head out of the parlor, a trash bag in my hand.
    “You missed it,” I said. “But Bridget and I are in here. We can give you the recap.”
    Lucy stared at me. “Is that you under all that va-va-voom?” she asked.
    “I didn’t recognize her, either,” Bridget said.
    “I only straightened my hair,” I moaned. If I wanted to become a superhero, my disguise was set. I didn’t even need a cape.
    “It’s lovely, darlin’,” Lucy said. “Very straight.”
    Lucy sat on a couch and crossed her legs. “Damn,” she said. “I wanted to make this meeting, but business held me up. I drove up from L.A. as fast as I could.” Lucy was in marketing, whatever that was.
    “The mayor even spoke,” Bridget said.
    “I missed that?” Lucy asked. “Drat. What did he say? Did he talk about his hemorrhoids again?”
    “I remember something about Barbra Streisand,” I said.
    “Shoot! That’s better than hemorrhoids.” Lucy picked up one of Frances Farian’s fudge bars and took a big bite.
    “They filed out of here on the warpath. It’s the Episcopalians against the vegan, end-of-worlder, New Ageyalien worshippers. I think this is how the Crusades started,” Bridget said, stuffing cups into a garbage bag.
    “That’s it?” Lucy asked with a mouthful of fudge bar. “You got nothing more? You said more last week when I said ‘God bless you’ after you sneezed.” Bridget was not a fan of religion, and her rants against the “sexist, paternalistic, religious dictatorship” were legendary, though recently we discovered she was a closet Catholic.
    “I’m still battling self-doubt,” she said. “I can’t take sides yet.”
    “Well, you’re the only one,” Lucy said. “On the way here, I saw a group of barefoot hippies with ‘The Arrival’ signs blocking traffic on Main Street, and the Cannes Ladies’ Saturday Sewing Circle was facing them off, shouting ‘God