What happened after the door was closed? Answers were elusive. Her mother, naturally, was no help. If forced to speak of certain body parts—for instance, when toilet-training a foster—Deb resorted to euphemism. A girl’s private area was called her princess. This caused a comical confusion in the summer of 1981, when Deb, who loved weddings, woke the whole family at dawn to watch the British royals get married. When Prince Charles made Lady Diana Spencer his princess, the fosters couldn’t control themselves. Their giggling could not be contained.
Her mother loved weddings.
Given the quality of her education, Claudia has done reasonably well in life. Given the quality of her education, she should have ten unwanted children and be riddled with syphilis.
Her afternoon with the Modess rep did nothing to enlighten her, and yet, for some reason, she’d needed a parent’s permission to attend the session. Deb had signed the form without comment. They’d never had a conversation about sex and never would. The following year, when Claudia started bleeding, she saw no reason to mention it. She simply swiped a maxi pad from the box under the sink.
NAOMI AND CLAUDIA WERE WORKING THE HOTLINE.
The caller gave her name, Brittany, and asked how Claudia’s day was going. Never underestimate the politeness of mannerly young women! Even those who’d been date-raped or infected with chlamydia were happy to observe the conventions, reflexively eager to please.
Brittany sounded anxious. Four days earlier, she’d had unprotected sex. She was scared to death she might be pregnant.
“It just happened,” she said—apologetically, as though she had wronged Claudia personally. “It was all my fault.”
Over the years, Claudia had heard the same words from teenagers and middle-aged women; from nurses and teachers, cops and soldiers; sex workers and rape victims and survivors of incest. It was a lesson they’d been taught from birth, swallowed and digested: at all times, in all circumstances, the woman was to blame. Claudia resisted the urge to correct them. If you’re pregnant, you had help.
Brittany said, “What can I do?”
It was a simple question with a confusing answer. Most pharmacies in Massachusetts dispensed emergency contraception without a prescription. The morning-after pill could be taken within five days of unprotected sex, but its effectiveness diminished with each passing day. To complicate matters, it was less effective in overweight women. Explaining this to a caller was delicate.
“This is a little personal,” Claudia said, “but how much do you weigh?”
Silence on the line. Of all the prying questions she asked the callers （Does it burn when you urinate? Is the lesion red, or crusted over? Is your husband circumcised?）， this one incited the most outrage. She’d been called a nosy bitch, a body Nazi. Occasionally a caller hung up in disgust, but no one ever said I don’t know. Claudia had yet to encounter a woman who didn’t know her own body weight. （Her mother—a woman who could polish off a can of buttercream frosting in a single sitting—had known her weight to the ounce.）
Grudgingly, Brittany named a number.
Claudia explained that for a woman her size, the safest bet was an IUD, which prevented implantation. The insertion took just a few minutes. Dr. Gurvitch had an opening in her schedule and could see Brittany that afternoon.
But there was a complication: Brittany lived in rural western Massachusetts, far from public transportation, and didn’t own a car.
There was always a complication.
In Brittany’s case, the answer was clear. She lived half a mile from a CVS drugstore, which dispensed the morning-after pill without a prescription. After four days it would be less effective than an IUD, but far more effective than doing nothing at all.
“I’ll go tonight,” Brittany promised.
Claudia said, “Go now.”