"He's going to put Mazy in the SHU," Christina said.
"Can't be sure of that."
"Yes, I can. He's threatened her over and over, and he knows her kids are coming. He's putting pressure on her. She's got her whole family coming this Saturday."
"I know." Dora nodded. "But it's too dangerous."
"Call Miss Metzger for me."
"Oh, I don't think-"
"Just do it, Dora."
The heavy woman shuffled down the hallway, and Christina stood next to the door of the supply closet, which was large enough to hold the maternity unit's stock of disposable diapers, stacked in jumbo packs to the ceiling, as well as shelves of pacifiers, boxes of ointment for diaper rash, battery-powered breast pumps, and other necessities, including, she knew, the urine test cups.
"Christina?" came a peevish voice down the hall, followed by an officious jangling of keys-Miss Metzger, the assistant nursing administrator, a stickish woman of forty in red curls who, as far as Christina was concerned, spent too much time with her clipboard and not enough time practicing how babies got made. "Dora says there's a problem with the closet."
"I noticed earlier that you need more diapers," Christina said.
"Mmmn, I don't think so," Miss Metzger answered with friendly condescension, confident of her tastefully lurid makeup, her third-rate nursing degree, and her ability to choose sensible shoes. "We just got them in a few days ago." She put a territorial hand on the doorknob.
This babe looks likes she's been trying to have sex with her lipstick, Christina thought. "I'll show you, okay?"
"Maybe you should finish the hall."
"I will, but let me show you."
Miss Metzger opened the closet door and stood back. Christina had been in the closet dozens of times and quickly studied the diaper supply, noting the two sizes of diapers and counting the packages.
"It looks good to me," Miss Metzger said.
Christina sighed. "We have eight babies in the ward now, after Nushawn is gone?"
"Yes."
"And I heard two are coming Thursday?"
Miss Metzger nodded. "Yes, that's right."
"You have twenty-seven days until the next diaper delivery?"
"Well, I don't-Let's see." Miss Metzger pulled out a pocket calendar scrawled with reminders and appointments. "Yes, it's twenty-seven days. So"-she swept her hand at the immense wall of diapers-"I think we really do have enough, don't you?"
"No, Miss Metzger, I really don't."
"Why?"
"Well, the babies each use about seven diapers a day," Christina began, stepping into the closet, the urine test cups on a shelf near her head. "It averages out to that. Seven diapers a day multiplied by twenty-seven is one hundred and eighty-nine diapers per baby until the next shipment comes. So, for the eight babies, it's one thousand, five hundred and twelve to last them the whole twenty-seven days."
Christina paused. She knew her math was right; it always was.
Miss Metzger nodded importantly. "Okay, I understand."
"But two more babies arrive in two days, and even assuming that they arrive with a few diapers each, you'll need twenty-four days times seven, times two, which is three hundred and thirty-six diapers. Fifteen-twelve plus three-sixteen is eighteen-forty-eight. The jumbo packages of newborn size you have in there have thirty-two diapers in each. To cover your requirements, you need fifty-eight packs of the newborn size. I count only fifty-four."
Miss Metzger stared dully at the wall of diapers.
"But it's more complicated than that. Three of those babies are almost three months old. They're ready to start wearing size small in, say, two weeks. If the diapers are too tight, then it's-it's a rash of diaper rashes. So, for those babies, you need three babies times seven diapers daily times thirteen days, which is two hundred and seventy-three size small diapers. I see you have there eight packets of the smalls, which contain twenty-eight diapers each. Eight times twenty-eight is two hundred and twenty-four. So, if you bump those three babies up in two weeks, then you're forty-nine size small diapers short."
Miss Metzger stepped toward the wall of diapers, frowning to herself, and that was exactly when Christina pocketed one of the urine test cups.
"But if you order more size smalls, we can subtract the two hundred and seventy-three diapers from the original total requirement of eighteen forty-eight newborn size, which leaves fifteen seventy-five newborn. That number divided by thirty-two, the number in each packet, comes out to forty-nine-point-two size newborn packets. You have fifty-four. So, if you reorder size small, you'll definitely have enough size newborn."
"I see," said Miss Metzger uncertainly.
"But if you don't order more size small, then you'll be forced to use size newborn for all the babies all the time. And with the new babies coming, you'll run out. Let's see-you have fifty-four packets and you need fifty-eight. That's four times thirty-two, which is one twenty-eight. At ten babies-three of whom probably have diaper rash because their diapers are now too tight-times seven diapers a day"-Christina glanced at her watch, remembering the problem with Soft T-"seventy diapers every twenty-four hours… and you're one twenty-eight short… it's the early afternoon now, so you'll run out of diapers sometime in the morning of the twenty-sixth day. One day short before the truck comes."
"Oh."
"Of course, you could ration the diapers, Miss Metzger. But you'd have to get all the women to cooperate and agree not to use more than six a day, or, more precisely, thirteen in a two-day period. But if they count wrong, or cheat, or are too sleepy in the morning to remember how many times they changed the baby, then you could still end up with ten babies with no fresh diapers for twelve or fifteen hours twenty-seven days from now. It's close, either way. All this is assuming you don't get a kid or two with diarrhea. You could also ration the diapers so successfully that you run out of them at exactly the time the truck is due, but there's a problem there, too."
"There is?" asked Miss Metzger worriedly.
"Yes. I've noticed that the delivery truck arrives between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, with no real pattern to-"
"So?" Miss Metzger interrupted.
"So let me continue."
"There's no need to be rude."
"My point exactly." Christina switched the mop to her other hand. "Now, it also happens that the truck will be delivering paper napkins in bulk, for the meal room, where they claim they feed us something they call food. The napkins are on a six-week delivery cycle, okay? I know because I've worked in the kitchen. The cycle corresponds to every third diaper delivery. Same provisioning company, same truck, same driver. Sometimes it's diapers, sometimes it's napkins, sometimes both. But the kitchen loading dock is closer to the main gate than we are, here in the nursery, and so that's the first stop. They load the truck that way, too-napkins at the back of the truck, first to unload. The driver of that truck is Puerto Rican and he likes to bullshit with Luis, the guy in the kitchen, about Cuban baseball players, what the best dance clubs in the city are, how nasty their girlfriends are-wait, are you nasty, Miss Metzger?"
"Nasty?" The woman's carefully drawn eyebrows lifted, suspicious of the question. "I suppose I am."
"Oh, Miss Metzger, so am I!" Christina cried. "Or I used to be. I used to be very nasty. And you know what?"
"Tell me, Christina, if you must," the nursing administrator sighed.
Christina bent closer. "I liked it, too." She straightened up. "Anyway, those he-men at the loading dock are, in our high-powered diaper supply analysis, enjoying the kind of intellectual discussion you get with guys who don't understand the importance of diapers, and so, on top of the twenty minutes of slow-motion unloading of kitchen napkins, Miss Metzger, you can add at least thirty minutes of chinga las putas and other learned observations, which, added up, is fifty minutes, minimum. So, if you, Miss Metzger, you, have rationed the diapers perfectly but now are sweating the last diaper or two on that day, the twenty-seventh day from now, and you are using an average of one diaper per baby every three hours when the babies are awake, then, with ten babies, that extra fifty minutes is, from a probability basis, going to require another three diapers. Three more tiny wet behinds while those guys sit on their thumbs."