Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

In the last three-plus years, Rip had logged hundreds of hours at playgrounds, playspaces, and playgroups, and every playdate was a lesson in the new boundaryless definition of gender. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to enjoying the more obvious perks for a hetero (very hetero, he liked to think) guy living the stay-at-home-dad life. Mommies smelled nice and served delicious snacks. Never was there a bottle of vino under $13 at the playgroup. Each day held umpteen chances he’d catch a glimpse of cleavage, or the curve of a butt cheek winking at him through those tight jean leggings the mommies loved to wear.

Rip often felt as if he were living a kind of fantasy, the setting for a clichéd porn. Like when Tiffany, the extreme-domestic goddess in the group and (let’s face it, Rip thought) the hottest mommy, had invited Rip and Hank over so Rip could help her can the blueberries they’d picked upstate. While Billy Holiday had crooned, and Hank and Harper built snowmen with homemade playdough, Rip held the mason jars as Tiffany poured the jam that slid, almost seductively, into each hot glass container. He had watched Tiffany’s braless breasts quiver through the thin cotton tank top, smelled the nectar covering her hands, her slender forearms, staining her puffy lips. He’d felt a compulsion to taste her, and felt certain, in the way she let her tongue slide over her bottom lip, the way she let her long hair tickle his cheek as she bent to screw on the jar tops, that she too wanted him to slip his hand over the breasts he had seen so often.

Breasts, breasts, and more breasts, it had been four years of nipples, all shades of pink and brown, erect and glistening, fresh from a satiated baby’s mouth. Only Leigh was so modest as to breast-feed with a swaddle blanket shielding her. He’d known Susanna’s breasts (small but perfectly shaped), Nicole’s breasts (large with wide, purplish nipples) and Tiffany’s, his favorite, full and white, almost translucent, a network of blue-green veins radiating from her petal pink areolae. Tiffany had zero qualms about unleashing her breasts for Harper to nurse anywhere and anytime, and Rip had seen them enough to memorize them, to think of them as old friends. These weren’t women to hide themselves. These were the daughters of the daughters of the feminist revolution, after all. They’d taken monthlong prenatal breast-feeding classes, they’d given up trying to hide a wriggling baby under their fifty-dollar hooter-hider nursing covers, and Rip could see in their eyes and in their relaxed smiles, a gratitude toward him, for giving them permission to let their breasts roam free.

The mommies thought of him as Mama Rip. Diaper-changer, boo-boo kisser, nose-wiper, playground pal. A sensitive shoulder to cry on when the monotony of motherhood felt like just too much. How little they knew about how grateful he was for their breasts.

The room hummedwith the business of children. After a glass of white wine, Leigh felt as if the noise in the room had elevated. The revving of toy cars and the clatter of plastic blocks. The jabber of half-formed language and shrieks of fury in the never-ending battle of toy sharing. The giggling chatter of the mommies and the sobbing that followed a boo-boo; all of it plucked at the growing pain behind her eyes. Mommy! Mama! Mommy! Mama! Mommeee!

Wine was poured, Brie and crackers nibbled. Leigh smiled and nodded appropriately as the mothers alternated between admiring the children in the moments they behaved ( Look at them. They’re so cute! ), and critiquing them when they fussed ( It’s a good thing they’re cute ).

Hank was crying again, rubbing at his swollen eyes with fleshy fists.

“There’s still sand in my eyes.”

Grace looked around the room, caught Leigh’s eye, and said, “He has a hard time at the beach. Everything’s so intense.”

Leigh nodded; there was a hint of a question in the woman’s stiff voice, a silent plea for commiseration.

“Yes,” Leigh said. “It is a very sunny day.”

Then she caught sight of Chase creeping closer to Hank. Chase’s head was tilted, as if mesmerized by Hank’s despair. Leigh started to stand, to intervene, but the weight of the baby in her arms pulled her back, and just as she was about to call for Tenzin, Chase backed away.

“Yip, yip, yip!” he sounded off as he galloped around the room.

“Give people their space, Chase. Honey,” Leigh said.

Chase continued to race around the room, skirting the other children. It was a game he played, to see how close he could get without bumping someone. He sounded off as he galloped, yips and tongue-clucks and fluttering of his lips.

The soundtrack of Chase, she had once joked with his speech therapist, who assured Leigh her son did not have a tic. Still, Leigh feared a Tourette’s diagnosis down the road. She had always been proud of how still she could hold herself, even as a child. In the polished pews of Saint John’s Episcopal Church on Sunday mornings. At the barre in Miss Posey’s ballet studio. In cotillion class, her white-gloved hand sweating in the viselike grasp of a pimply thirteen-year-old boy.

Grace wiped the tears from Hank’s reddened cheeks with the corner of a towel, and said, “Chase just wanted to cheer you up, Henry.”

Hank summoned the breath for an even louder wail. “My name is Hank!”

“If you don’t calm down,” Grace said, pausing to search the room, “I’m going to have to get Daddy.”

“I want Daddy!”

“Okay, that’s it.” Grace’s lips were a thin white line. “You’re getting a time-out.”

“Daddy!” Hank screamed, raw and phlegmy. Leigh covered Charlotte’s little ears with her fingertips.

“Actually,” Tiffany began as she knelt in front of Hank and rubbed his back.

Leigh saw Nicole’s eyes flicking to catch Susanna’s, a here she goes look passing between them. The air in the room fell flat, the same tense silence that always accompanied Tiffany’s lectures on child development.

Tiffany continued, sweetly. As if talking to the children during music class, Leigh thought. “Studies show time-outs don’t work as effectively as we might think they do.”

“Oh. Really?” Grace said. A skeptic’s wrinkle creased her forehead, and Leigh could see she was a woman unused to criticism, trigger-quick to bat down any challenge. “Where did you hear that?”

“Well,” Tiffany said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Waldorf philosophy? It focuses on imitation. It suggests you guide the child to more appropriate behavior. In a gentle way.” Tiffany gestured toward Harper. “Harp goes to a Waldorf school.”

As if to say, Leigh thought, look at this perfect specimen.

Tiffany took Hank’s free hand, and the little boy, his sobs ceasing, looked up at her expectantly. Leigh could see that Grace’s lips had parted. In astonishment, or irritation.

“I’ll start on the kids’ dinner,” Nicole called out before vanishing into the kitchen.

“Let me give you a hand,” Susanna said, waddling after Nicole.

The fear Tiffany inspired in the playgroup parents baffled Leigh. Tiffany had been nothing but kind toward her. Even loving.

“For example,” Tiffany continued, “if a child was acting in a disruptive manner, the teacher would redirect. By leading them away with an outstretched hand.” Tiffany mimed the gesture. “Suggesting an alternative activity.”

Tiffany grabbed a beach towel hanging over the back of a chair. She held it out to Hank and smiled. Her voice was soft. Seductive even, Leigh thought.

“Here, Hank. You may help me fold the towel.”

The little boy reached for the towel, but his mother jerked him away and, for a moment, there was an absurd tug-of-war.