Five Women by Rona Jaffe Read Free Book Online

what’s wrong?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She hoped she wouldn’t throw up.
    â€œDo you have a doctor?”
    â€œIt’s the middle of the night. I’ll be all right. I just need to go home. I’m sorry I spoiled your evening.”
    â€œNo,” Marvin said. “I’m taking you home with me. My father’s a d-doctor. He’ll look at you. You’re very pale.”
    â€œI’m always pale.”
    â€œI’ll take care of you.” At least since she was sick he wouldn’t try to kiss her. She let him lead her to his car and drive her to the suburbs, to his parents, while she half-dozed.
    She hardly knew his parents and was ill at ease. By the time they got there she wasn’t feeling faint anymore. His parents were so tiny—how did they have such a big marshmallow of a son? His mother, who had unreal-looking dyed black hair, glared at her. His father was concerned and kind.
    â€œPolio,” his father said.
    â€œPolio?” That was absolutely ridiculous; she’d had a shot. People didn’t get polio anymore.
    â€œYou never know,” his father said.
    Gara wondered why, if she had such a contagious disease, none of them was avoiding her. She decided that his father would have diagnosed her with the Black Death rather than think that she just didn’t like his son.
    â€œWe’ll take you home now,” his father said, “and tomorrow you get your mother to take you to your own doctor.”
    His father insisted on driving the two of them back to New York so he could keep Marvin company on the return trip, and feeling protected by her “polio” and the presence of his father, she actually had a pleasant time.
    The next day her mother took her to their family doctor, and waited outside while she was being examined. Dr. Spear was a kindly, middle-aged man with thick white hair. He looked like an actor playing a wise doctor on TV. Blood pressure, temperature, heart, lungs, blood. There was a nurse. Then he asked for the speculum and gave Gara the first pelvic examination she’d ever had in her life. Girls had them only if they were going to be married. She wondered if Dr. Spear thought she had fainted because she was pregnant.
    â€œAre you in love with this boy?” he asked.
    â€œIn love? No!” She was insulted that he could even think it. “I’m in love with someone else.”
    â€œSo why were you out with this one?”
    â€œMy mother made me.”
    She got dressed and met him in his office. “There’s nothing wrong with you except that you have low blood pressure,” Dr. Spear said. “Under stress it’s possible to feel faint. Do you often go out with people you don’t like?”
    â€œWhen my mother makes me,” Gara said. She wondered what he must be thinking of a girl so dominated.
    â€œWell, tell her you won’t. Go out in a group if she wants you to go out. You work hard at college, and when you socialize you should have fun.”
    What a nice man he was, and so understanding. She wished she had a father like him. “Thank you, Dr. Spear,” Gara said.
    Her mother was alone in the waiting room, looking anxious. “I’m fine,” Gara told her. “He said I have low blood pressure and I shouldn’t go out with anyone I don’t like.” But she knew the truth was that she had fainted from fear.
    â€œWhat did the doctor do?”
    â€œA complete exam. A gynecological exam, too.”
    â€œHe didn’t break the hymen?” her mother asked, her voice rising with alarm.
    She hated her mother for caring about her virginity more than anything else about her. She felt, again, as if she were for sale.
No, he just pushed it aside, the way the boys do at college
, Gara wanted to say, but instead she said, “No.” She had no idea if she even still had one.
    They went home. “His parents are going to think you’re