Europe to solve the crisis. Everyone seemed to think he would sort it all out.
I sent the breakfast dishes down in the dumbwaiter and decided to take a bath. Perhaps soaking in the tub would ease my pains. While removing my belt and unpinning the sanitary pad,I tried not to breathe in the sour odor of my blood. Then I made good use of that depressing newspaper by wrapping the soiled pad inside. Hoping not to be seen, I scurried down the hallway and tossed it in the chute. An ingenious invention, that garbage chute—something even Aunt Ida might appreciate. She used to burn our sanitary pads in the fireplace so they wouldn’t stink up the house.
While undressing for the bath, I caught a look at myself in the mirror and, as usual, looked away. I couldn’t fathom overcoming my modesty to do whatever it was husbands and wives did alone together in bed. What a relief it was to stretch out in the tub and let the warm water envelop my skin. Perhaps proper women kept their nightgowns on during the sex act.
If only I knew exactly what the sex act was.
All I did know was the man’s private part went inside the woman’s opening to insert the seed. I’d learned that ghastly piece of information from one of Father’s countergirls when I was a young girl. Her name was Tessie, and sometimes, if it was slow in the store, I’d get her talking about all sorts of things. Tessie was not the prettiest girl—stout, with reddish hair and freckles. But she did have a lovely deep voice, and I enjoyed listening to her talk about growing up on a prairie in Montana. She considered no subject out of bounds. Once she even told me about helping her mother give birth.
“You see, I had to. Papa was away, and there was a beastly snowstorm.”
“Wasn’t it scary?”
“Mama knew the routine—she already had three of us.”
“Did you actually see it come out of her?”
“Sure, I caught him with my own hands, slippery little devil. Almost dropped him on the floor.”
I didn’t understand why she’d need to catch it. “Don’t mothers give birth lying down?”
Tessie shrugged. “If they do, no one ever told Mama; she made it up as she went along. Stand, sit, squat . . . the only thing she didn’t do was stay still.”
“Wasn’t it dreadful seeing her in all that pain?”
“By the fourth one, she said the opening was all stretched out like a rubber band.” Tessie laughed and then leaned toward me, lowering her voice. “She told me it was like having a crap.”
I flushed at the vulgar word. “I don’t believe you.”
“Just squat and . . . you know . . . out it comes.”
Father cut my education short by firing her a few weeks later. He told me she talked too much behind the counter. I suspected her true crime wasn’t the quantity of words so much as her free use of them. I tried convincing him it was my fault for peppering her with questions, but he refused to reconsider.
Now here I was, twenty years old and still as ignorant about my body as a virgin could be.
After finishing with my bath, instead of immediately wrapping myself in a towel, I decided to look at my naked body in the mirror. Perhaps having the apartment to myself gave me the courage.
I stood before the glass and forced myself to take inventory: long torso, slim hips, small breasts, and that disconcerting triangular patch of hair. Even though I hadn’t the most curvaceous figure, there was no denying that the person reflected back was a grown woman.
October 25, 1907
Today I’m going to Wanamaker’s. They’re said to have the largest selection of books anywhere. I should like to see if they have some sort of medical book about female physiology. Since the store is off the beaten path, I’ll have the advantage of feeling anonymous if I do gather my courage to actually buy such a book.
It was astonishing how the red-haired doorman always seemed to be at his post; one would think he slept there at night standing up.
“Taxi,
I sent the breakfast dishes down in the dumbwaiter and decided to take a bath. Perhaps soaking in the tub would ease my pains. While removing my belt and unpinning the sanitary pad,I tried not to breathe in the sour odor of my blood. Then I made good use of that depressing newspaper by wrapping the soiled pad inside. Hoping not to be seen, I scurried down the hallway and tossed it in the chute. An ingenious invention, that garbage chute—something even Aunt Ida might appreciate. She used to burn our sanitary pads in the fireplace so they wouldn’t stink up the house.
While undressing for the bath, I caught a look at myself in the mirror and, as usual, looked away. I couldn’t fathom overcoming my modesty to do whatever it was husbands and wives did alone together in bed. What a relief it was to stretch out in the tub and let the warm water envelop my skin. Perhaps proper women kept their nightgowns on during the sex act.
If only I knew exactly what the sex act was.
All I did know was the man’s private part went inside the woman’s opening to insert the seed. I’d learned that ghastly piece of information from one of Father’s countergirls when I was a young girl. Her name was Tessie, and sometimes, if it was slow in the store, I’d get her talking about all sorts of things. Tessie was not the prettiest girl—stout, with reddish hair and freckles. But she did have a lovely deep voice, and I enjoyed listening to her talk about growing up on a prairie in Montana. She considered no subject out of bounds. Once she even told me about helping her mother give birth.
“You see, I had to. Papa was away, and there was a beastly snowstorm.”
“Wasn’t it scary?”
“Mama knew the routine—she already had three of us.”
“Did you actually see it come out of her?”
“Sure, I caught him with my own hands, slippery little devil. Almost dropped him on the floor.”
I didn’t understand why she’d need to catch it. “Don’t mothers give birth lying down?”
Tessie shrugged. “If they do, no one ever told Mama; she made it up as she went along. Stand, sit, squat . . . the only thing she didn’t do was stay still.”
“Wasn’t it dreadful seeing her in all that pain?”
“By the fourth one, she said the opening was all stretched out like a rubber band.” Tessie laughed and then leaned toward me, lowering her voice. “She told me it was like having a crap.”
I flushed at the vulgar word. “I don’t believe you.”
“Just squat and . . . you know . . . out it comes.”
Father cut my education short by firing her a few weeks later. He told me she talked too much behind the counter. I suspected her true crime wasn’t the quantity of words so much as her free use of them. I tried convincing him it was my fault for peppering her with questions, but he refused to reconsider.
Now here I was, twenty years old and still as ignorant about my body as a virgin could be.
After finishing with my bath, instead of immediately wrapping myself in a towel, I decided to look at my naked body in the mirror. Perhaps having the apartment to myself gave me the courage.
I stood before the glass and forced myself to take inventory: long torso, slim hips, small breasts, and that disconcerting triangular patch of hair. Even though I hadn’t the most curvaceous figure, there was no denying that the person reflected back was a grown woman.
October 25, 1907
Today I’m going to Wanamaker’s. They’re said to have the largest selection of books anywhere. I should like to see if they have some sort of medical book about female physiology. Since the store is off the beaten path, I’ll have the advantage of feeling anonymous if I do gather my courage to actually buy such a book.
It was astonishing how the red-haired doorman always seemed to be at his post; one would think he slept there at night standing up.
“Taxi,
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