Chapter 2: Decision

“Mrs. Pierce, I don’t see why we’re spending so much time on foreign exchange. Money is money, isn’t it?”

“No, Henry,” Carolyn responded, “in foreign trade, money isn’t money. At least, it’s not what money is in domestic trade. Let’s deal with that first. People keep saying that money can’t buy everything. It can, however, buy everything we deal with in economics. Do you want a candy bar, a magazine, or a ride on the EL? Well, when you want anything, money stands for everything else. What something costs is what economists call its ‘alternative cost.’ It’s what you could buy with the money you spend on it. Okay? Clear on that? That’s domestic money. For you, that’s a dollar.”

“Yeah.” Henry looked confused, but Henry always looked confused. Most of the rest of the class looked like they got this.

“Well, a shilling is something much less universal to you. Even to people in foreign trade, a shilling -- that’s a British coin -- is only worth what they can get from England for a shilling. They don’t buy wheat from England; it’s cheaper here. So, the Americans in foreign trade buy what they want from England in shillings and the English in foreign trade buy what they want from America in dollars. That means that those English foreign traders want dollars and the American foreign traders want shillings. So, they sell them back and forth, exchange them.

“And that creates another supply-and-demand situation. Which, in turn, determines what we want to import from England and what they want to import from us. Because the price of wheat or coal in this country in dollars has little to do with the price of shillings in dollars. And, I would point out, by ‘little’ I don’t mean ‘nothing.’ So, the price of American wheat in shillings represents the price of American wheat in dollars times the price of dollars in shillings.”

“It sounds complicated.” That, at least, came from Deborah, who got most things.

“It is complicated, Deborah, if you look at all the influences. If you just look at any particular market with supply and demand what they are, it’s much simpler. If the guy selling hot dogs in the ball park asks how many he can sell for one price and how many he can sell for a quarter more, he gets -- or guesses at -- an answer. If he asks how many of the customers could eat hot dogs before coming to the park if they wanted to, and how much that would influence their appetites, he’s lost.”

“So, the exchange rate...” Barbara asked again.

“Is yesterday’s exchange rate with a few adjustments for what has happened over the past day. If you wanted to calculate it from scratch, you’d give yourself a headache.” And, of course, she’d deliberately ignored interest rates and inflation. But the class had learned something about money from Henry’s question, and she had also managed to cover the section of the book Professor Delgado had last lectured on. She’d learned that a teaching assistant, at least sometimes, was really an assistant. (Assistant) Professor Delgado delivered the lecture, which she was careful to attend, and she handled one discussion group.

This being “normal time,” neither a break for her nor a crunch for her, she would cook dinner tonight. She stopped on the way home to get a pot roast and put in the pressure cooker. She recorded the discussion grades before preparing the rest of the meal. Bill got home before 6:30. After their kiss, he washed his hands and set the table.

“Delicious,” he said at the end of the meal.

“Glad you like it. You’ll see some left-overs this week.”

“That’s fair. I like left-overs of good cooking. You have something else you want to talk about?”

“Is it that clear?” She needed to get this out. “Remember we said that we’d delay a baby until it didn’t interfere with my employment?”

“Yes.” He was being cooperative, if not helpful.

“And it’s still clear for me to take next year for dissertation without working?”

“Sure. Could you get a job this late?”

“It would be hard. But ... Look, if I don’t teach next year, if I’m not employed, then there is no employer to object if I go into the hospital next year to have a baby.”

“Are you suggesting getting pregnant now?”

“We could ... I could. Oh, you know what I mean. Still, it’s damned early. And, then too, it’s a lot more outgo than you budgeted.”

“Yeah. It would be a stretch.” He thought that the budget would be stretched? How about her belly? Well, it was what she’d brought up. The pregnancy would be a greater stress on their marriage this early, but it would be a lesser stress on her body than any time later. And she had agreed to that stress.

“Do you think we should?” she asked.

“Well, we can. Do you think that you should? Are you telling me you’ve gone off the Pill?”

“Not yet. That’s a family decision.”

“Well, as a family decision, I vote yes. But, it’s also a decision about your body. Are you sure?”

“Well, it might not take. People go years without children. And we only have so long. If you say a year from July is the last possible date for delivery -- I’d have to be ready to start teaching a year from September, after all, and have to be available for things like interviews before then -- then we could cut out the Pill from now until September.”

“Sure. It might not work, but we’re deciding whether it would be better or worse. How likely doesn’t enter in to the decision.”

“One thing is that my periods lasted longer before I was on the Pill.”

“I’ll accept that.” And he really hated her periods. Well, he hated being cut off during her periods.

“You really want kids, don’t you?” Silly question. Ask anyone who knew him whether Bill liked kids.

“Well, yes. The idea of a kid of my own is damned attractive. On the other hand, it’s also scary. Other people’s kids are fun, but they aren’t much of a responsibility.”

“Scares you?” It had better. It damned-well scared her.

“A little.”

But he wanted it, scare him or not. He made no complaint when she came to bed for nearly a week in her nightie. When she woke one Friday morning and found that her tampon was dry, she planned carefully. She had no Saturday classes, so she could easily take the evening off. She shopped when she came home from class and bought strip steak and roasting potatoes. After dinner, she ignored her class work to watch TV beside him. Bill kept an arm around her, even though he paid more attention to the shows than she did. She got up from the sofa when the news came on. She turned on the heater in the bedroom before taking her bathroom time. When she came out in just her robe and slippers, she waited for a commercial break.

“When it’s over, want to come in and brush my hair?” Bill, as she had expected, turned off the TV. While he brushed her hair, she sat looking in the mirror on her dresser. The man was thorough, and enjoyed the task, As the room got warmer, she loosened her robe. She could watch his eyes in the mirror as he ogled her breasts. He’d seen her stark-naked many times, but he really seemed to enjoy these sneak peeks more.

“I think that’s it,” he said finally. Usually, she stopped him before he was satisfied with his results.

“Thanks. Wake me when you come to bed.” She dropped her robe on the chair and got into bed naked. Actually, she hadn’t planned on going to sleep, and he didn’t give her a chance. He was stripped, in and out of the bathroom, and on his way to bed in what seemed like a minute.

“Turn off the heater, will you?” she asked. The temperature comfortable for sitting still practically naked getting your hair brushed was too warm for sleeping under a blanket. She didn’t even have the blanket turned on that night. And Bill, who wanted less heat than she did, didn’t turn the heater off until she asked him to. He complied and slid into the bed on his side.

“Darling,” he said. He leaned over her for a deep kiss.

“I’m definitely not fertile yet,” she reminded him when they broke the kiss.

“Well, probably not. Maybe we should try just in case.” As if Bill hadn’t wanted sex when they were taking precautions that it didn’t result in pregnancy. She grinned.

“Well, just in case.” He kissed the smile off her face while stroking her breasts. Then he kissed all over her face and licked her ears. Bill always remembered that she was a person with breasts and vagina attached, not a vagina and two breasts with a person attached as excess baggage. She’d been thinking about this evening for most of the day, planning it even before the cuddling on the couch. She was probably readier than he was. Even so, she didn’t hint at that. Mr. Foreplay was always a welcome persona.

As his kisses trailed down her throat and towards her breast, his hand trailed down across her stomach. He played with the hair on her delta for a moment. Then he caressed the insides of her thighs as she spread them. His kisses up her right breast were nearly at her nipple when he raised his head to look at her.