Young Jane Young(75)

“Perfecting my eating disorder,” you reply.

“That’s a repulsive thing to say,” your mother says.

“Sorry,” you say. “I think I am getting sick.”

Your mother brings you soup, and you pull the covers over your head.

You’ve seen movies, you’ve read novels, and you have a pretty strong inkling what this might be.

You had been on the Pill, but maybe you’d gotten sloppy with taking the prescription. What was the point? You weren’t having sex.

You take a pregnancy test.

Blue line, but it looks smudged.

You take another pregnancy test, just to make sure you did it right.

Blue line.

You consider having an abortion. Of course you do. You know there is no earthly reason you should bring a child into this mess you call your life. You have no job, no prospects, no partner. You are profoundly lonely. You know that this is not a reason to have a child.

You believe in a woman’s right to choose. You would never vote for someone who didn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose.





136


If you decide to have an abortion, turn to page 138.



If you continue with the pregnancy, turn to page 141.





141


Your last semester of college, you took an advanced political science seminar called Gender and Politics. The seminar was led by a silver-haired woman in her late forties, who had recently had a baby. She would bring the baby – a boy – to class in a papoose. Despite the fact that he was the only male in the seminar and the discussions sometimes got quite heated, the baby never cried and almost seemed soothed by the discussion. You were jealous of that baby. You wished you might be brand-new, male, and in a papoose on a political scientist’s back.

The class, however, was something of a wash. Maybe it wasn’t the class but the mood you were in at the time. The scandal had passed, but you were filled with bile and rage. Around the middle of the semester, the professor stopped you after class.

“Don’t give up on us feminists,” the professor said.

“I haven’t,” you said.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here. Your paper – ‘Why I’ll Never Be a Feminist: A Gender-free Approach to Public Policy’ – perhaps that suggests otherwise?” She looked at you with kind but mirthful eyes.

“It’s Swiftian,” you said. “It’s satire.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“Why should I be a feminist? When everything happened, none of you exactly rushed to my defense,” you said.

“No,” she said. “We probably should have. The power imbalance between you and Levin was obscene. I think, on some level, it was in the greater public interest to not defend you. He’s a good congressman. He’s good on women’s issues, too. It’s not perfect.”





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“The Miami Herald wrote that I had set the feminist cause back fifty years. How exactly did I do that?”

“You didn’t.”

“She stood by him. Didn’t she set feminism back more than me? Isn’t it more feminist to leave your cheating spouse? Honestly, I’ve been sitting in this class for five whole weeks – not to mention, I’ve been a woman my whole life – and I don’t even know what a feminist is,” you say. “What the hell is it?”

“From my point of view as a political science professor, it’s the belief that all sexes should be treated equally before the law.”

“Obviously I know that,” you said. “So what’s wrong with my paper?”

“The problem with it is that gender exists,” she said. “Differences exist, and the law must acknowledge that or the law isn’t fair.”

“Fine,” you say. “You held me after class. Is there something you want?”

“You didn’t ask me the next logical question,” she said. “What is feminism from my point of view as a woman and as a human being?”

Who fucking cares? you thought.

“It’s the right every woman has to make her own choices. People don’t have to like your choices, Aviva, but you have a right to make them. Embeth Levin has a right to make them, too. Don’t expect a parade.”

You tried not to roll your eyes.





143


“I’d like you to give that paper another think,” she said.

The next week, you chose to drop the seminar.



You want this baby, even though it defies logic.

You do not expect a parade.

You must change your life.

The clock is ticking. You have seven months to change your life.

You need to find employment, but you are Internet infamous. There is nowhere you can move that is far enough away.

You could stay home and let your parents support you and the baby. But the baby would still be the daughter of “Aviva Grossman,” and who wants to do that to a kid?

You could go back to school, but what would that solve? As you told Jorge, you would still be “Aviva Grossman” at the end of it.

The problem is your name.



If you stay home, turn to page 144.