Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Allie dipped her hand into the cool water and scooped up a shell, resting it in the center of her palm. She waited, breath held, and miniscule claws appeared, then two glistening eyes.

For the first time in a long time, she remembered how nature trumped art and how easy it was to forget this in the city, where all beauty seemed man-made. She thought of her baby and looked to Susanna, who stood with her round face turned to the sun, her eyes closed.

I should be more grateful for her, Allie thought.

There was a tickle on Allie’s palm as the shell scuttled across her hand. She shrieked and dropped the crab.

Then there was a hand on her shoulder. It was Tiffany, an arm outstretched, the brown dot of a shell crawling up her arm.

“Don’t be scared, silly,” Tiffany said with the hint of an intentional lisp, as though the tip of her tongue were caught between her teeth.

Tiffany moved her arm to accommodate the crab’s path, an undulating dance that reminded Allie of the curvaceous Odissi dancers she and Susanna had seen perform in India on one of their preparenthood trips. Although it was a religious dance, Allie had felt there was something delightfully impure about their wide, painted eyes and come-hither looks, their bare midriffs and gyrating hips, the way they cocked their heads left and right, beckoning, come closer. And wasn’t that what Tiffany was saying now as she let the crab crawl across the sand-dusted hills of her breasts? As she giggled like a schoolgirl?

The children returned to the rock Harper had claimed as her throne and emptied their buckets onto the smooth shelf at the base of the boulder. Josh pointed out hermit crabs, humped sand crabs, sea snails, and even an orange-speckled Lady Crab. It was a pile of flailing legs, searching antennae, and twitching, googly eyes. Allie pitied the slow-moving sea snails, their slimy tongues stretching out into the sunlight to see what the fuck was going on.

The children whooped and jumped and did a little dance around the rock, kicking mud-dark sand in the air. Harper watched with a satisfied smile stretched across sun-rouged cheeks.

“Now what?” Allie asked, looking to Josh and Rip, who stood in a daze, eyes trained on the wiggling mass.

Josh shrugged. Rip took a swig of beer.

“Okay,” Susanna sang. “Time to put the creatures back in the sea.”

“No way!” Harper shouted. “Now we make soup for our big feast.”

Tiffany laughed. “Harper loves playing pretend. Should we have a picnic? That’s one of our favorite play activities at home. Right, hon?”

“Soup!” The boys shouted, in a perfect unison that creeped Allie out.

“Rocks! We need rocks for our stew!” Harper commanded, and the boys scattered again, each returning with an armful of stones. Poor Hank’s short arms shook under the weight of the rock he chose, one almost as big as his head.

“Not that big, Hank,” Harper said. “You’ll get a boo-boo. And we don’t like to hear you cry.” She rolled her eyes. In perfect mommy replication, Allie thought.

“Now,” Harper instructed calmly, “when I count to three, use the rock to mash my food.”

“Harper,” Susanna warned, tottering forward to the base of the rock, an arm stretched up toward the little girl. For a moment, Allie thought Susanna might pull the girl-queen off her throne.

Harper counted slowly, “One…”

“Harper, sweetie,” Tiffany said. As if, Allie thought, she were calling the girl to the dinner table. “We don’t hurt animals, now, do we?”

The dads, Allie noticed — even Michael — had stepped back, as if they feared the residual spray of mashed sea life.

Harper continued, a smile skipping across her lips, “Two…”

“Tiffany!” Susanna screamed, a strangled plea that made the hair on Allie’s arms tingle. “Do something!”

The little girl looked the happiest Allie had seen her that weekend. Like she’d eaten something mouthwatering. Like she’d won the biggest prize at the fair.

Harper chirped, almost cutely, “Three!”

The massacre commenced. The children fell upon the sea animals with raised rocks, and there was crunching and cracking and the echo of rock hitting rock and Susanna was screaming— Stop! No! — pulling one and then another boy away, tearing scum-covered rocks from their hands and flinging them to the sand, and Allie heard herself say something dumb, like “Okay, I guess they’ve gone a little Lord of the Flies on us,” but no one was laughing.

It was as if they’d landed on some foreign planet and were surrounded by a clan of small, bloodthirsty aliens.

She hurried to Susanna, who stared at her hands flecked with brown-and-black goo. Susanna gagged, her chin jutting forward in the prevomit, chickenlike movement Allie knew so well.

“Come on, baby,” Allie soothed, nudging Susanna toward the open sea, a hand on Susanna’s lower back.

“The smell,” Susanna croaked between heaves.

“Let’s wash off in the water,” Allie said.

Puke was coming. Better to get Susanna as far from the others as possible.

“Mama?” Levi whimpered behind them. “Mommy?”

Allie looked over her shoulder. Levi’s nostrils flared. Dash’s hands were balled at his side. What was he so angry about?

“Don’t worry, guys,” Susanna said, her voice wavering. “Mama’s okay.” She turned to Allie, “Tell them.”

“Tell them what ?”

“Tell them I’m okay!” Susanna commanded. “Comfort them, dammit. Comfort them!”

“Everything’s fine, boys,” Allie said. “Mommy and Mama are cool.”

They didn’t make it to the water. Ten feet from the rock, Susanna leaned over and puked into the sea snail — dotted sand. A foul fountain of half-digested eggs. Allie stroked Susanna’s shuddering back as the mother of her children heaved again and again.

Leigh woke in the deck chair, her mouth dry and face sweaty from the blazing sun overhead. She had indulged in a rare Charlotte-free nap, since Tenzin had offered to put the baby down for a nap in the house.

Tiffany stood at the foot of Leigh’s chaise, toweling her trim legs. Her tan breasts were dusted with flecks of sand, and seawater dripped from the curled ends of her hair.

“Why, hello there, Sleeping Beauty,” Tiffany said. “Oopsy, did I get you wet?”

Leigh looked up, shielding her eyes, but all she could see were the curves of Tiffany’s silhouette, black against the dazzling blue sky.

“Don’t you wear sunblock?” Tiffany asked. “You’ll be one of those wrinkly old ladies playing bridge at the country club.”

“Very funny,” Leigh said.

“Oh my God, Susanna just puked her guts out on the beach.”

“Oh no,” Leigh said. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah. She just got worked up over the kids. You know how she is,” Tiffany said, one eyebrow raised.

Tiffany plucked a beer from the cooler by the seawall. She wrenched the cap off with her back teeth, her purplish lips spread wide, big square teeth bared.

“Jeez!” Leigh said, forcing a laugh. “You’re going to break a tooth.”

“That’s what they teach you at community college,” Tiffany said. “Here, live a little.”

She pushed the beer toward Leigh in a gesture that implied a command, and although Leigh didn’t want it, she took it, figuring she could dump it out later.

She leaned forward and playfully slapped Tiffany’s leg.

“Michael’s such a cutie! That’s awesome that he came out this weekend. I think Nicole’s got a crush,” Leigh said, and lifted her beer in a toast, knowing Tiffany would like the idea of someone’s desiring her man.