"Might be," Evaline said, glancing at the rearview mirror. "I think her car is a darker blue. But about a million people have a car like that. Come to think of it, half a million have a truck exactly like mine. The first day I parked this baby," she said, patting the front dash, "I came back out and got in the wrong one and said to myself, 'Who in the hell left this crummy coffee cup in my brand-new truck?' before I realized it wasn't mine. That's why I have that tinsel bow on the hood ornament."
"I'd love for that to happen to me. I drive the
rattiest old station wagon still on the road," Jane said with a laugh. "And I've never seen one remotely like it."
"I wish we had the time to celebrate in style, but we both need to get back. Maybe a beer after work and some really good pretzels," Evaline said.
"You're on. But only if Shelley doesn't kill me first."
"Why would she?"
"Because I was supposed to stand by and be supportive when she told Bitsy what was wrong with the contract she was offering us."
Evaline grinned. "One of Sandy's contracts, huh? I got one, too. I rewrote it."
"Did that work?" Jane asked.
"Pretty much so. At least I went from being slave labor to contract labor."
"I'm afraid Shelley's is too far from realistic. Maybe that's a good thing."
"I could tell you two weren't nutcases the minute I met you," Evaline said as they arrived back at the house under construction. "I bet neither of you let her call you by a man's name. Shelley would be Shel, no doubt, but it's hard to make Jane sound butch enough."
Eleven
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."