Cutting Teeth: A Novel (11 page)

“Exactly,” Michael said, and nodded knowingly. As if, Rip thought, it was just the two of them on some mountaintop. Two guys dishing the meaning of life.

“I say the same thing at playgroup,” Rip said. “But the moms, you know. They think I’m crazy.”

He laughed to hide the truth—their giggles at his earnestness made him burn with humiliation.

“They’re just jealous,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” Rip said, nodding, as if it was a revelation. And it was. He felt taller, and there was a sharpening in his vision, like he could see all the way across the Long Island Sound. He was the one who deserved the status (the honor, he corrected) of main caregiver. He was the one running around the playground while a kid clung to his back, he was the one rolling across the blacktop while Wyatt, Dash, and Levi piled on top of him, while the neighborhood mommies (
those jaded bitches
, he thought, surprising himself) sat on a bench, watching their kid show off his or her monkey bar skills—
watch me, Mommy!
But the mommies weren’t really watching, Rip thought. Sure, their pretty little heads were turned to watch, and maybe the kids were fooled, but the women continued to yap away—Yadda, yadda,
the cost of living in Brooklyn was outrageous!
Yadda yadda,
another preschool rejection came in the mail!
Yadda, yadda,
did you hear how little Milo bit little Celeste at Toddler Tom-Toms class—better get that kid evaluated!
—remembering to pause once in a while to yell, “Way to go, Wyatt!” or “Super job, Dash!” with half-hearted interest.

He was a professional, full-time, stay-at-home parent. And he was awesome at his job.

He was ready to tell Michael. Normally, he waited a while to dish it all out. Most guys weren’t comfortable—TMI and all that—but Michael felt different.

“You wouldn’t think it,” he whispered to Michael, “but she and I have a lot in common.”

He pointed his beer at Allie, Susanna’s partner/wife/whatever, who was curled up on a chaise lounge at the far end of the deck, where she’d been hiding out with her iPhone ever since the lesbians, twins in tow, had arrived. With her chin resting on bony knees, her sweatshirt hood slung over her head, and her face barely an inch from the screen of her phone, she looked more like a teenager than a mommy, Rip thought.

“You both like to have sex with women?” Michael said, straight-faced.

“Heh. Well, yeah”—Rip smiled—“there’s that.”

The men shared a laugh, and Rip took a leap of faith and clinked his bottle against Michael’s.

“Me and her,” Rip said, looking back to Allie, “we’re both nonbio parents.”

The difference is, Rip thought, she’s about to get her own kid. A surge of resentment wormed through his gut.

Michael gave him “the look.” People paused, their mouths fell open, and their gaze moved just a bit off center. It was always the same when he came out to people, when he revealed he wasn’t Hank’s biological father. Frankly, Rip thought, it was a stupid look, but as soon as they got it, the intelligent light returned to their face, and they practically beamed at their aha moment. Like they were freaking geniuses or something.

“That’s right. I’m not Hank’s biological father. We used an anonymous donor. Donor #1332.” Rip sang the combination of numbers, as he often found himself doing. As if the absurdity of it—the fact Hank’s real father was nothing more than a jumble of symbols—called for a song and dance.

“Wow,” Michael said.

“Yeah,” Rip turned to look over the concrete seawall. The sun loomed large and red, a corona of gold simmering around its rim. “My sperm is kind of slow.”

Rip knew, from experience, that guys didn’t dig sperm talk and it was better to avoid eye contact. He wasn’t out to make anyone uncomfortable, and he sure as hell didn’t want pity. He was happy to tell the tale, to perform it even, if it made for a smoother delivery.

“Yep,” Rip said. “At first, the doctors thought we’d be able to do it. That the boys would rally.”

Michael laughed, and Rip was able to turn around and face him again.

“So we,” he looked over at the kids, “you know … A lot. Then we did it less. Because, apparently, too
much
depletes the sperm. So then we did it on a schedule. Two years later—after hormone therapy, artificial insemination.” He stopped short and lifted his beer. “To turkey basters!”

Michael answered with his own raised bottle and “Here, here.”

“We picked a donor. One who had my coloring and height. A good old Ashkenazy Jew-boy. And after the third in vitro try.” Rip pointed at Hank, who was huddled in the corner of the deck, his tee shirt pulled over his knees. “Voila! Henry Elijah Cho-Stein.”

“Bravo,” Michael said, and this time it was he who reached out and clinked Rip’s beer with his own. “We’re glad you guys made Hank. Harper adores him.” Michael paused, then continued in a half whisper. “And it’s tough sometimes. For Harp to make friends. She prefers to lead. If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, well, Hank prefers to follow,” Rip said, finding it impossible to hide the disappointment in his tone, a tone he’d found himself using lately when talking about Hank. Hank who was so sensitive. Hank who cried over everything. Hank who wanted a princess dress.

“So,” Rip continued, “Harper’s devoted to her followers. That’s a good thing.”

“I worry about her,” Michael said, looking out into the sea, where a shimmering corridor shot out from the falling sun. “Charles Manson was devoted to his followers, too.”

There was a pause, filled by the screech of a gull, then they laughed. The laugh of friends, Rip thought, who make you feel better about how fucking ludicrous life can be, who remind you how, all of a sudden, joy can fill a deflated heart.

He knew he could hang with this guy.

The sun was ready to drop into the sea. There was a sense in the air, Rip thought, like surrender.

A flock of geese flew overhead in perfect V formation, honking as if saluting them.

Rip watched as Michael, as if he had read Rip’s mind, saluted up to the sky.

“Hey,” Rip said, “Tiff tells me you knit. We should get a beer or something and you can teach me how.”

“Man,” Michael said with a quick wink, “I can knit the shit out of a baby sweater.”

tit for tat

Tiffany

Tiffany was grateful
for the break when the children, along with Tenzin and a terrified-looking Josh, marched upstairs for their baths, their squeals dulled by the closed bathroom door.

Of course,
Tiffany thought (in defense of her good mommyhood), she wasn’t as grateful for the children’s absence as some of the mommies. Leigh’s face had grown chalk white with exhaustion as the night neared, and Tiffany had noticed an agitated tremor in Nicole’s hands all afternoon. Maybe Nicole had run out of her secret pink pills.

Tiffany watched as Grace stood up from the sofa and moved toward the kitchen.

“I guess I’ll go ahead and make the kids’ bedtime snacks,” Grace said.

Clearly a passive-aggressive ploy, Tiffany thought. Grace wanted someone to say,
No! Sit down and relax. We’ll take care of it.

Tiffany jumped up from her seat. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Grace froze. For a moment, Tiffany wondered if they were going to have it out right then and there. But as quickly as Grace’s eyes had dulled with suspicion, she smiled.

“Would you rather do it?” Grace said. “I know I’m just the visitor here.”

“Don’t be silly!” Tiffany said. For fucksake, she thought.

“I’m sure you don’t need me.”

Tiffany sighed. “Grace,” she said, “let’s do this.”

As she and Grace moved toward the kitchen, Rip hurried over. Like some kind of servant,
Tiffany thought.

“I’ll help out,” he said, his hand flat against Grace’s wide back, as if he were pushing both Grace and himself through the kitchen doors.

“No, no, no,” Tiffany said, turning him toward the main room and giving him a shove. “I know you have some important stuff you wanted to discuss with Michael.” She looked at Grace and winked. “Guy stuff,” she added in a dramatic whisper.

Rip slunk back to his chair, staring back at them and reminding Tiffany of the mangy shepherd-mix mutt they’d had for a while when she was a kid. The same hurt it wore when her shithead stepbrother gave it a kick.

“We’ll be fine, sweetie,” Tiffany soothed, fluttering her fingers at him. She felt Grace stiffen at her side.
Sweetie.
Tiffany stopped herself from blowing Rip a kiss.

Not only had Grace humiliated Tiffany when she’d been trying to help calm a hysterical Hank. Not only had the woman cut her down in front of the whole playgroup. Tiffany’s playgroup. She had then heard Grace ask the room, as if Tiffany and Harper (there was her little girl’s feelings to think of) were invisible, “What’s the normal age for kids to stop breast-feeding?”

Normal. A declaration of war.

Tiffany had waited for the perfect opportunity to enact revenge.

Which was now.

Of course, Tiffany thought, how could Grace know breast-feeding was a sore topic between Tiffany and Michael? That Michael had made a request (it felt more like a command) just last week that she quit nursing, which had boiled over into a three-day battle?
Please stop,
Michael had pleaded. Even if only (her jaw tightened at the memory) to return her breasts to him. He’d claimed it was having a negative effect on their intimacy. Simplistic psychobabble that sounded nothing like Michael. As if he’d googled “wife won’t stop nursing” and copied some pediatrician’s misogynistic advice verbatim.

She had admitted to the few times she’d accidentally sprayed him during sex, but that had been when Harper was a baby, Tiffany’s breasts engorged, the flow out of her control. And wasn’t there, she had pointed out, like a whole online-porn fetish based on lactating women?

Secretly, part of her was grateful to Michael. She knew nursing a preschooler was unnecessary. She wouldn’t call it “ridiculous” (Michael’s choice), but she’d wanted to wean for a few months—tired of Harper’s fingers pulling and tugging, trying to squeeze a few more drops from breasts that held little more than a few ounces each. Tiffany knew that if she’d made the decision herself, she’d have come to regret it, come to label it selfish, an abandonment of her baby, a failure at mothering. She knew she’d think,
you are just like your goddamn mother.
Michael had given her permission by demanding she stop. So she would play out her anger for a few more days—she couldn’t let him catch wind of her gratitude—and then she would quit, cold turkey, when they returned to Brooklyn. Or at least she told herself she would.

Now, in the small kitchen of the beach house, Tiffany stood a few feet away from Grace, whose breasts—Tiffany was sure of it—had never been put to their intended use. Rip had told Tiffany that Hank was a formula baby.
Maybe,
Tiffany allowed, Grace had nursed for a few weeks after Hank’s birth, until the nipple blisters and engorgement and performance anxiety had grown too challenging, then a plastic nipple replaced flesh, synthetic formula replaced mama-milk.

“How about you do the apples, and I’ll do the carrots?” Tiffany suggested, her voice bright and friendly as she unpacked the fruit and veggies that would accompany the small bowls of yogurt for the children’s prebedtime snack. As if they were two women in a television commercial advertising organic toddler snacks.

“Sure,” Grace said.

“Mmm,” Tiffany said with exaggerated pleasure (she still had the TV commercial in mind) as she pressed the bunch of carrots to her nose, her eyes squeezed shut. “Nothing better than fresh CSA veggies!”

“What’s CSA?” Grace asked casually as she sawed into an apple, straining to break the skin with the dull knife Tiffany had chosen for her.

“You’re kidding, right?” Tiffany stared at Grace with what she hoped would translate as shock.

She held the expression until Grace was forced to look at her and ask, “What?” with a catty little wave of her head.

“I thought you knew Rip was a member. You know? Of the Community Supported Agriculture group? That he, like, picks up a huge crate of ultrafresh locally grown food each week?”

“I do know,” Grace said, interrupting her. “I just didn’t know what it was called.”

“CSA,” Tiffany repeated.

“Yeah, CSA.”

“I’m sure you know how lucky you are,” Tiffany said over the swish of the faucet as she scrubbed the carrots with the EcoClean Bamboo Brush she’d brought from home, whose bristles were guaranteed to absorb 50 percent more of the toxins that lay in wait on the seemingly clean skin of a carrot or an apple. “Rip really, truly cares about what goes into his son’s body. Michael would feed Harper Cheetos and Kool-Aid if he had his way!”

“Oh, I sure am lucky all right,” Grace mumbled before letting out a long sigh, so full of quivering self-pity that Tiffany almost felt sorry for her.

As Tiffany sliced the carrots into neat two-inch-long sticks, she wondered if Grace’s sigh was meant as a surrender of sorts. Maybe Grace wasn’t a bitch after all but only wore a bitchy armor, as so many insecure mommies did. Maybe Tiffany had pierced its iron girdle, and they could even grow to be friends, brainstorm over the issue that consumed Rip day in and day out. And, Tiffany thought, surely drove Grace mad. If Michael started nagging Tiffany to have another baby before she was ready …

She imagined Rip, back in the living room, talking to Michael, nodding in that overeager way of his, all the while imagining how he’d love to siphon Michael’s sperm. The way Tiffany and her friends had stolen gas from their daddies’ pickups for the four-wheelers they took off-roading in the woods. She could still remember sucking on the thick plastic tube until golden gas sputtered up, gagging and growing dizzy as she stuffed the tube into the dented plastic milk jug they used as a gas canister.

Tiffany was about to introduce the topic of Rip’s bomblike biological tick—maybe she’d even be able to help Grace talk through it—when Grace’s voice cracked the silence.