Nineteen forty-seven was hell for little bony girls like me who couldn’t wear the New Look. Then again, 1947 was hell for any girl who would rather work calculus problems than read Vogue, any girl who would rather listen to Edith Piaf than Artie Shaw, and any girl with an empty ring finger but a rounding belly.
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: Charlie sums up her unhappy life in which she would rather work math problems than act in the ladylike way her mother wants her to. She believes she has the wrong body type to wear the new fashions that her mother is forcing her to wear. To make matters worse, Charlie was pregnant with no prospects for a husband. For this reason, her mother brought her overseas for an abortion.

I got a copy of the report on Rose,’ I said desperately before I lost her for good, either to disinterest or whiskey...
-- Charlie (chapter 1)