Elizabeth didn’t move. “You want to speak to a chemist? Someone other than ME?” she yelled over Frank.
“Yes,” he answered. And then he softened slightly. “Look, I know it’s not your fault, but they shouldn’t send a secretary up here to do their dirty work. Now I know this might be hard for you to understand, but I’m in the middle of something important. Please. Just tell your boss to call me.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. She did not care for people who made assumptions based on what she felt were long-outdated visual clues, and she also didn’t care for men who believed, even if she had been a secretary, that being a secretary meant she was incapable of understanding words beyond “Type this up in triplicate.”
“What a coincidence,” she shouted as she went straight over to a shelf and helped herself to a large box of beakers. “I’m busy too.” Then she marched out.
* * *
—
More than three thousand people worked at Hastings Research Institute—that’s why it took Calvin over a week to track her down—and when he did finally find her, she seemed not to remember him.
“Yes?” she said, turning to see who had entered her lab, a large pair of safety glasses magnifying her eyes, her hands and forearms wrapped in large rubber mitts.
“Hello,” he said. “It’s me.”
“Me?” she asked. “Could you be more specific?” She turned back to her work.
“Me,” Calvin said. “Five floors up? You took my beakers?”
“You might want to stand back behind that curtain,” she said, tossing her head to the left. “We had a little accident in here last week.”
“You’re hard to track down.”
“Do you mind?” she asked. “Now I’m in the middle of something important.”
He waited patiently while she finished her measurements, made notations in her book, reexamined yesterday’s test results, and went to the restroom.
“You’re still here?” she asked, coming back. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Tons.”
“You can’t have your beakers back.”
“So, you do remember me.”
“Yes. But not fondly.”
“I came to apologize.”
“No need.”
“How about lunch?”
“No.”
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“Coffee?”
“Listen,” Elizabeth said, her large mitts resting on her hipbones, “you should know you’re starting to annoy me.”
Calvin looked away, embarrassed. “I sincerely beg your pardon,” he said. “I’ll go.”
* * *
—
“Was that Calvin Evans?” a lab tech asked as he watched Calvin weave his way through fifteen scientists working elbow to elbow in a space a quarter the size of Calvin’s private lab. “What was he doing down here?”
“Minor beaker ownership issue,” Elizabeth said.
“Beakers?” He hesitated. “Wait.” He picked up one of the new beakers. “That big box of beakers you said you found last week. They were his?”
“I never said I found beakers. I said I acquired beakers.”
“From Calvin Evans?” he said. “Are you crazy?”
“Not technically.”
“Did he say you could take his beakers?”
“Not technically. But I had a form.”
“What form? You know you have to go through me. You know ordering supplies is my job.”
“I understand. But I’ve been waiting for more than three months. I’ve asked you four times, I’ve filled out five requisition orders, I’ve spoken to Dr. Donatti about it. Honestly, I didn’t know what else to do. My research depends on getting these supplies. They’re just beakers.”
The lab tech closed his eyes. “Listen,” he said, slowly reopening them as if to dramatize her stupidity. “I’ve been here a lot longer than you and I know things. You know what Calvin Evans is famous for, don’t you? Besides chemistry?”
“Yes. Having an excess of equipment.”
“No,” he said. “He’s famous for holding a grudge. A grudge!”
“Really?” she said taking interest.
* * *
—
Elizabeth Zott held grudges too. Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive. A society that believed men went to work and did important things—discovered planets, developed products, created laws—and women stayed at home and raised children. She didn’t want children—she knew this about herself—but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career. And what was wrong with that? Nothing. It was exactly what men got.