When customers asked why Betheen's baking was better than anyone else's, she forced herself to blush and say her kitchen was downwind from Prater Grove; everything had a little orange blossom in it. She did not say, 'Because I'm a chemist, asshole,' though the words always threatened to escape. Women from the Society House wanted folksy comfort. Chemistry - though it kept them alive with their heart pills, made their food sweet, and held their dentures in their mouths - was not desired, not from her.
