Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Now, as the candlelight stretched their shadows up the walls, Tenzin watched Tiffany as she sashayed from one group to the next, like a princess in one of the Disney movies, greeting the guests at her great big party. It was as if all the mommies and daddies were dancing in celebration of the children’s absence. Tenzin understood the adult mind needed a rest from the busy-ness of children. She had three of her own. And, as the Dalai Lama himself says, Love is the absence of judgment .

The mommies’ and daddies’ voices reminded Tenzin of glass bells, ringing loudest when someone made a joke. Startled, they froze — peering up the stairs. On pins and needles. Then, the dance resumed. The rhythm of the mommies’ chitchat was the music of Tenzin’s American life.

This was the first thing she had learned. The Americans, especially the wealthy, educated ones, it pleased them to talk. About the things they loved and the things they did not love, the people they knew, and the people they dreamed of knowing. They very much liked to talk about what they imagined the people they knew (and even those they did not know) were thinking and feeling. As if they could read the mind, as the ancient Tibetan shamans had read dreams to reveal past lives. Tenzin saw how the mommies and daddies delighted in the stories they told, especially the stories about before. Before Chase, before Hank, before Wyatt, before Levi and Dash and Harper.

Tenzin circled the room slowly, smiling at each drink-flushed face that looked at her kindly but without invitation. She knew how to appear as if she understood. She lifted her chin and gave a soft nod when a pause cued. She was able to grab a phrase here and there, peeling the shell away until the translation was clear. Like the thin skin that wrapped a piece of tangerine.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” a pink-cheeked Susanna said, and the circle of mommies and daddies giggled. As if pleased with their naughtiness, Tenzin thought as she smiled along.

“I know I’m not supposed to say this,” Nicole half whispered. “But the foie gras there is to die for.” Nicole’s eyes lifted to the ceiling. As if in prayer, Tenzin thought.

What could this mean? It sounded essential.

To die for. Tenzin thought of that morning’s news — the two monks who had self-immolated in protest at the Chinese embassy in Qinghai Province. She had just finished packing the children’s things for the trip to the beach and had asked Leigh if she could check her e-mail on the family’s home computer. When the images appeared on the Tibetan news site, the computer monitor even bigger than the TV she shared with her roommates, Tenzin had recoiled. It was as if the flames would leap from the screen and wrap around her. But as she had sat there, fingering her prayer beads, asking for Buddha to bless those brave souls, the longer she stared at the men ablaze, the more they seemed like two wax statues aflame.

Those monks had desired so little. Taken so little. Suddenly, the ringing of the mommies’ and daddies’ laughter made Tenzin feel tired.

She rubbed the prayer beads she kept tucked in her pocket, passing the wooden balls under sea-softened fingertips until her skin burned. She imagined the Dalai Lama’s face, his ever-laughing eyes.

Hatred is like a fisherman’s hook. We must not be caught by it.

Leigh appeared from the kitchen, a plate balanced in each hand.

Poor Leigh. Leigh played the part of the sad princess, the one who did not know she was a princess. Not until her glass shoe was returned. Not until the good-looking golden-haired prince unlocked the tower door. Despite the smile on the pale woman’s face, Tenzin could see the Cinderella-sadness pooling behind her good employer’s damp blue eyes.

“I’m so relieved,” Leigh said, handing Tenzin a plate. “There’s food for you. I forgot to tell Nicole you were a vegetarian.”

“No worries,” Tenzin said, and patted Leigh’s bony knee.

“I hope this is okay,” Leigh said. “I mean, I don’t know if it will be enough. You might still be hungry. But tomorrow you can take the car and go to the supermarket.” Leigh spoke quickly. Tenzin could see she was nearly out of breath. “Oh, wait. Shoot. I forgot. You can’t drive.”

“There now,” Tenzin said, as if she were hushing a frightened Chase. It was a phrase she’d heard the mommies use to comfort the babies. She put an arm around Leigh’s shoulders and felt the woman’s slight frame bend under her own thick arm.

Leigh laughed. “Yes, no worries. You like that. It’s your favorite thing to say.”

There was a slight quiver in Leigh’s chin, and Tenzin was certain the mommy felt a near-bursting terror, like a river pushing against a dam.

“No worries,” Leigh said. “I’ll try.”

How different the mommies were from the little children, Tenzin thought. When the children fell, skinning a knee or scraping the meaty part of their palms, they hopped to their feet, eager to rejoin the game.

Tiffany slid into the seat next to Leigh, curling her legs under her. Like a little girl playing shy, Tenzin thought. Tiffany was the mommy the other mommies liked to complain about the most. Tiffany was too this, they said, Tiffany was so that.

Tiffany leaned over Leigh and linked her long white fingers in Tenzin’s. The woman’s rings, one on every other finger, were warm against Tenzin’s skin. Tiffany gave off heat like an infant.

Tiffany sighed, and said, “I love you, Tenzin. Like, really. We’re so lucky to have you. Aren’t we, Leigh?”

There was a blurriness in Tiffany’s voice that made Tenzin think of one of her old employers, the mother of an excitable two-year-old, who’d had cases of alcohol delivered to the family’s town house each month, the glass bottles a brilliant blue.

“Of course we’re lucky,” Leigh said.

Leigh pointed to the two pools of creamy puree resting next to a piece of triangle-shaped bread. “That’s hummus,” she said, “I think. And the bread is gluten-free.”

Free, Tenzin thought, as in freedom, which was what she had left her family to seek.

“This no meat? You sure?” Tenzin asked.

“Yes,” Leigh said. “I promise. Vegetarian.”

She was relieved when Leigh understood, as she so often did, without explanation.

She scooped some of the hummus with the bread. The tangy paste stuck to her tongue.

“Mmmm,” she said, nodding, not wanting to insult.

Leigh’s relieved smile was worth the lie.

Tiffany stroked the long braid hanging down Tenzin’s back.

“I think it’s so wonderful that you’ve given up meat. You know, in sacrifice for asylum?” Tiffany said. “But can I just say, personally? I think you’ve sacrificed enough.” Tiffany’s voice fell to a whisper, “And if you do get asylum at the next hearing, and you do end up eating meat again, I wouldn’t beat yourself up if I were you. Life’s no picnic.”

Beat yourself up. No picnic.

Leigh interrupted with a quick bark of laughter. “Well, you’re not her, Tiffany. And it’s probably … I mean I’m just guessing”—her eyes searched Tenzin’s face—“it’s probably impossible for us to imagine what Tenzin feels.”

Tenzin interrupted, “No, I am all done with meat. Okeydokey with no meat.”

How could you feel anger, she thought, when Tiffany was so much like a child?

“So,” Tiffany asked slowly, “no meat? None? Forever and ever after?”

“I think that’s what she said, Tiff,” Leigh said, eyes lifting up. Making a joke out of it, Tenzin thought.

“Happily ever after,” Tenzin said.

“Every. Day,” Tiffany said, leaning close, her breath warm and spicy, “I think about what an amazing woman you are, Tenzin. A true earth mother. A pinnacle of revolutionary woman-ness!”