Apparently Shelley hadn't needed backup and wasn't angry with Jane for running off.
"So how did it go?" Jane screwed up the courage to ask.
"Wonderfully/' Shelley said. "I showed Bitsy the errors and conditions of the contract. She started apologizing, saying she shouldn't have turned that over to Sandra to do. Bitsy said she didn't know much about contracts, but at least she did know good English from bad. She was truly indignant about the grammatical errors and misplaced apostrophes."
"And then?" Jane prodded.
"I showed her the house plans," Shelley said. "I was surprised that she realized for the first time without my even saying it that there was no indication of who had done them. Then she asked who'd penciled those other numbers in for the dimensions. I told her it was I. And didn't she remember how annoyingly thorough we were when we took the exact measurements?"
Shelley couldn't have looked more pleased if she'd singlehandedly conquered a whole country.
"I presume you suggested that she fire Sandra?"
Shelley grabbed Jane's hands as if they were girls. "I didn't even get the chance. Can you believe it? She said straight out that Sandra would be gone by tomorrow."
"And how is this job to proceed?" Jane asked. "Bitsy doesn't know enough to be a contractor."
"She said she'd consulted someone else first. A man, though. Sandra heard about it at one of their empowerment meetings."
"Empowerment meetings?" Jane exclaimed.
"You don't want to know," Shelley assured her, releasing Jane's hands as she spoke. "Anyway, Sandra knew about her considering this man, someone named Joe, and said a lot of bad things about him. So Sandra drags Bitsy aside for dinner after the empowerment meeting and does her own cheerleading. Talks about all her own credentials, which may or may not have been true, according to Bitsy."
"She didn't even check them out?" Jane asked.
"She checked one thing and it was wrong because the college Sandra said she graduated from had no record of her. Bitsy even gave them her married name and they still came up blank, but she put it down to a fouled-up computer program at the college. Bitsy said she got so busy with the plans that she forgot to go back and check any more of the references."
Jane plunged her fingers into her hair in pure frustration at Bitsy's naivete. "I can't believe it!"
"Quit interrupting or I'll lose the thread. Sandy gave her the feminist pitch. It must have turned Bitsy's brains to mush. It was odd, though. Bitsy repeated some of what Sandra said."
"Like what?"
"The domestic angle, apparently. How no matter what the law said, Sandy told her, homes were always women's. They set the schedule, made the meals, hired what help they needed, raised the children, knew instinctively when the dishwasher was making a noise it shouldn't, so the best people to restore the house would be women.
"She surely knew how to play on Bitsy. I could almost sympathize with her for falling for that. But it's so inconsistent with what I believe Sandra really thinks. Isn't that exactly what the far left fringe of feminism wants to get away from? I'd guess that she's never even run a dishwasher because it's a girly thing. Not the least empowering."
Now that Shelley had outlined the gist of the conversation, she returned, as Jane had feared, to another matter. "And just where were you when I was pointing this all out to her?"
"At a patent lawyer's office with Evaline."
Shelley's jaw dropped. "What?"
"She's applying for a patent for her gunk she uses on the Sheetrock. She said she had no close
friends to go with her as a witness and since you were obviously busy, would I come along? It was really sort of touching. How could I have turned down a plea like that?"
"I'll accept this. Marginally/' Shelley said.
"And we're going to have a beer with her after work."
"What kind of bar? Not one of those peculiar ones, I hope. Bald women bikers with pierced parts?"
"No, it's that neighborhood place that serves barbecue."
They were early, and Jane mentioned that Eva-line would most likely want to thank Jane herself by buying the first round of drinks.
"We're not having beer, are we? I have to stagger home and cook dinner," Shelley said.
"I think any drink is fine," Jane said. "Since I'm doing the driving, I'll have a soft drink. It might make the ride home a little mellower."
Evaline waved at them from the door and approached. "This is on me. What do you ladies want?"
"Do they have cold bottled water here?" Shelley asked.
With a laugh, Evaline said, "I'll ask. What for you, Jane?"
Jane said, "An RC if they have it. Otherwise, whatever you think."
Evaline was back a few minutes later carrying their drinks on a tray. A can of RC Cola for Jane, a bottle of cold water for Shelley, and a root beer foaming in a frosty mug for herself.
"You're not a part-time waitress here, are you?" Shelley asked.
"No, but I've waited my share of tables."
"Jane said you're relatively new to Chicago," Shelley prodded.
"I've been here about nine months. But too busy to get to know much of anyone. I inadvertently chose an apartment where most of the others are elderly women who eye my boots, jeans, and truck with deep suspicion. Haven't had time to find a more congenial space to live."
"Where did you grow up?" Jane asked.
"All over Michigan," Evaline said. "In foster homes."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to pry," Jane said.
Evaline pushed back her curly hair with an immaculately clean hand with practical short nails and said, "It's not prying. Most of it wasn't as bad as you hear. I was very lucky to spend several years with good people. The man was an English professor and the woman taught high school chemistry. They were in their forties and had no children, so they took me in. I was about eleven then. My mother had died of drink. And no one knew who my other relatives were. This couple
treated me well. I learned good English and had chemistry forced on me. Luckily, I came to find it interesting."
"Did you spend a long time with them?" Shelley asked.
"Almost three years. Then the thing they most wanted in the world finally happened. The wife got pregnant long after they'd given up on ever having children of their own. I stuck around until the baby, a cute, fat little boy, was born. But it was obvious that they'd lost all interest in me. Understandable, of course. After six months I was just an unpaid babysitter, so I was moved around to lots of other people."
"Nice people, I hope," Jane said.
Evaline shrugged. "Not many of them were. They were just in the game to make a little money, most of them. But because of the people I'd been with first, I realized I was tons smarter than most of the foster parents and the mobs of kids they kept. I was able to buffalo them. I think I downright scared some of them. When I got out of the welfare system, I decided I didn't much want to be surrounded by kids and housewives cashing in on the social services. So with the money I'd saved from waiting tables, babysitting, and doing chemistry papers for the high school kids — that was really profitable — I went to trade school to learn a craft.