“This is where you put it, open it, so it lays flat across here. Do you see?”
Debbie nodded. The model fascinated her. The parts appeared to be removable.
“Now, you take this in there.” The woman handed her the rubber disc and pointed her to the bathroom. “You wash it off and put it in. You don’t leave here until you get it right. When you think you have it in right, I’ll check it.”
In the tiny bathroom, Debbie tried, carefully folding the disc as the woman had but when she started to insert it the disc sprang out of her fingers and bounced off a wall. She rushed to retrieve it from behind the toilet.
On the second try, it exploded again and bounced away. Good grief, she asked herself, what kind of woman was she? She couldn’t even do this simple womanly thing.
Quietly, cautiously, she opened the door and peeked into the examination room. She took the smallest diaphragm from the display. She folded it and started to insert it into the plastic vagina. If only she could see how it should work, how it should fit.
Suddenly, the diaphragm snapped open, blowing the model apart. The clear plastic stomach cover flew to the floor, the pink ovaries bounced, the two red fallopian tubes jumped in opposite directions.
She cried out and fell to her knees, scrambling for the pieces. She was wet with sweat. How could she tell this woman she couldn’t do this, didn’t want to do it. She put the pieces she found on the counter.
Back in the bathroom, sweating and shaking, she tried again and this time the diaphragm stayed inside her.
“Perfect,” announced the woman. “Perfect. Feel it.”
Debbie reluctantly inserted a finger.
“Feel that? Do you? Do you remember how you put it in?”
Debbie nodded quickly.
“Remember how it feels once it’s in there. It’s important that it lays flat.”
Debbie nodded again. She had no idea how it felt or how it was supposed to feel. She doubted she would ever put it in the right way again.
“I sort of broke your thing,” she said before she left the room. She nodded toward the counter.
The woman said nothing.
At the pharmacy, while the druggist was finding her size, Debbie did feel some relief. At least she didn’t have to ask for the big one.
“For an elephant,” she whispered to Paige Allen. “I would rather die.”
*
Jason didn’t ask her those first weeks if she was using anything. She knew what she was doing and it was soon obvious she had a diaphragm. He didn’t care what she used. It all felt good to him.
Debbie didn’t want to use the diaphragm. She didn’t like touching it, folding it, putting it in. She felt embarrassed by her trips to the bathroom. She did it for Jason. He was good for her. He held her back from the worry and the tears.
“Stop thinking about it,” he would order when he saw her start to react to a story on the national news.
“Think about something else. Think about how great everything else is. Come on, big ‘un.” He’d pull her close. “You worry too much. What are you going to do, feed all the starving kids? Save all the elephants?”
“It’s not that, Jason. It’s …”
“It’s all hype, Debbie. We call it news but it isn’t. You know that.”
He made sure the movies they saw were funny, that the television they watched, with the exception of national news on the weekends, didn’t include PBS documentaries on war or concentration camps or anything about animals. They watched, when they watched, situation comedies and old movies.
He could watch the documentaries in his own apartment. That was his business, photography and editing. He had to watch, wanted to, but she didn’t. And, he liked being able to keep her from the bad crap. He liked making her happy, making her laugh. He liked everything about these days except for the time he spent wondering when he would be able to make his move to a bigger market.
Debbie knew Jason was taking care of her, keeping her safe. He was smart in a way Michael had never been smart. He had a good job. He had a future. This wasn’t another Michael. No way. She was, Debbie knew, very, very lucky.
“He’s so great,” she told Ellen.
“Right,” was Ellen’s response before she changed the subject.
*
“Afraid there’s no Grand Canyon trip in our immediate future,” Jason told her.
“Oh, no. Why not?” She was looking forward to leaving the city and seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time.
“I’m going to work with Ferguson on the breast cancer series. It’s going to take two weeks of shooting. We may end up going to California or New York, maybe both.”
“I thought Clifford was working with Richard.”
“Not on this one.” He reached to stroke her arm. “I guess we’ll have to put the Canyon on hold for a while.”
“Okay,” she sighed deeply.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. It ain’t going anywhere. Come on, give us a smile.” He chucked her under the chin.
She laughed in spite of herself. They would still be together most of the time.
Brown made the decision that paired Jason and Ferguson.
“I think you should do this one with Jason,” he told the medical reporter.
“Well, okay, but Clifford has been doing some good work with me.”
“He’s a good man, but let’s go with Jason on this one. I think it would be better.” He nodded as though they both agreed on the choice.
Ferguson said nothing until he was back in his cubicle. He leaned out to talk to Jack Benton.
“Says he wants Jason on the breast thing instead of Clifford.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Maybe it’s because he’s black,” said Benton. “You know, white women’s titties and all that.”
“Come on,” laughed Ferguson.
“You never know,” said Benton.
Charles Adkins was in the photographers’ room drinking a can of soda and talking with Steve when Clifford slammed in.
“I hear Jason’s doing the series with Ferguson,” he told
