"Is this where the well-bred feminists eat?" Jane

whispered to Shelley, who stopped dead and looked around.

Shelley looked genuinely surprised. "I didn't notice that there were so few men when I was here before. I guess they can't legally disallow them."

Jane made a muffled groaning sound, and they plowed along in the wake of the hostess, who had a long, fierce stride.

Two women were already seated at the table. Bitsy Burnside was almost unrecognizable. She'd cropped her hair short and must have had a great deal of plastic surgery since Jane had last seen her. Her eyes used to crinkle in a really cute way when she smiled. Now there was no sign of a line on her face as she rose, smiling, to greet them.

"I'm so glad you came. I can't wait to tell you all about my project." It was a banquette table, and Bitsy gestured for Jane and Shelley to sit in the middle between her and the other woman.

We're being trapped, Jane thought.

"This is Ms. Sandra Anderson," Bitsy said when the other woman also stepped out to shake hands. "Formerly Mrs. Somebody." Bitsy and her companion both laughed at this. "She took her mother's maiden name as her own when she divorced him. She's my contractor."

Jane considered this matrilineal introduction and wished she had the nerve to mention that the woman's mother's maiden name had almost certainly been her father's name all along. But this

wasn't the time to pick a fight. Maybe after lunch had been paid for.

Sandra Anderson, or Sandy, as Bitsy called her, was a very tall woman wearing a knockoff Armani suit in gray and taupe. The way the sleeve cuff wrinkled slightly was a tipoff that it wasn't the real thing, Jane assumed. Sandra, like Bitsy, had hair styled as a man would, but her face hadn't been done. She looked tough as nails, with a corrugated forehead and long, sad lines around her lips.