Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Tiffany’s cocktail glass clinked against Leigh’s bottle, and beer splashed onto Leigh’s white shorts.

“Sorry about that, babe,” Tiffany said, easing down on the end of Leigh’s lounge chair, and leaning in toward her. “You didn’t hear us last night, did you?”

“Hear what?”

“Liar!” Tiffany’s eyes danced as she tried to suppress her grin. “Shit. I knew it. The whole house must’ve heard.” She bounced on the chair and its rusted springs groaned.

“Careful,” Leigh said. “This patio furniture might be older than Nicole’s parents.”

“Well, honestly, I don’t care if Michael and I pissed everyone off. It was totally worth it.”

“Good,” Leigh said, as matter-of-factly as she could.

Tiffany lowered her voice. “It was hot, Leigh-Leigh,” she said. “I mean, it’s always hotter in someone else’s bed, right? But that mattress Nic put us on is about a thousand years old and disgusting. I was thinking I’d never sleep on the thing, let alone fuck around on it, but Michael wanted a BJ the second we turned off the light. We didn’t have sex-sex. Just oral. But he wouldn’t quit! It was like he was on E or something. I think spending all day with mommies in bathing suits worked him up. He hardly ever goes down on me like that, but—”

“You can’t get me!” Tenzin’s melodic voice rang out from the beach below. “I’m too fast!”

Tiffany paused, and Leigh took the opportunity to escape from Tiffany’s porny story, hopping up from the chaise and striding over to the seawall.

“Hey, Tenzin!” Leigh called out, marveling at her nanny’s typical perfect timing. Just when she’d been prickling with discomfort from Tiffany’s oversharing.

“Hel-LO, Leigh!” Tenzin sang back.

Leigh turned back to Tiffany, who had stretched out completely in the chaise, like a sleek jungle cat basking in the sun.

“God, I love Tenzin,” Leigh said, impulsively.

“I love her, too,” Tiffany said, her eyes half-closed. “Though I wish she’d come down a dollar an hour. I keep asking, but she’s not budging.”

“Really? I’d pay her twenty dollars an hour if I had to.”

“Well,” Tiffany said, “you have money.” She paused to detangle her hair from the sunglasses atop her head, then lowered them over her eyes. She smiled up at the sky dreamily. “Hell, I’ll watch Chasey for twenty bucks an hour. I love that kid.”

“You do?” Leigh said.

“Of course I do,” Tiffany said, as if Leigh had asked an obvious question.

Leigh felt teary with gratitude. Tiffany had never expressed affection for Chase so plainly. No one had. She took another small sip of the beer Tiffany had forced on her. Less than a third of the bottle was gone, but under the hot sun, it had gone straight to her head.

Squeals from the children collided with screeches from the gulls.

“Let’s get ’em!” a boy yelled.

“Um, while we’re on the topic.” Leigh began, her pulse quickening, the way it did when she knew she was about to confess something to Tiffany. Usually, these confessions were via text. In person, she was blushing. “I wanted to ask you something about Chase. And school for next year.”

“Shoot,” said Tiffany, crooking her elbow over her forehead. “Damn, it’s hot. I need another drink and half a cigarette.”

“Well,” Leigh said, “you know I respect Chase’s therapists. They’ve changed our lives immeasurably. But”—she paused—“they’re saying he needs a closed classroom next year. One of the small ones for special-needs kids.”

Tiffany nodded solemnly, “Okay. Well, there were twenty-nine in the gen-ed pre-K classes last year.”

“Jesus,” Leigh whispered.

“I know. It’s fucking tragic.”

“I mean, I just thought he was doing so much better,” Leigh said. “There’s been more listening. Less hitting. He’s even telling stories. Like little fantasies he has in his head. It’s so sweet. And age-appropriate! It just seems”—she paused—“I mean, have you seen those kids? The kids in the closed classrooms? They’re just so delayed. I mean … there are kids with Down’s.”

“You don’t have to whisper the word.” Tiffany laughed. “It’s not like they have cancer.”

Before Leigh could defend herself, explain that she certainly did not mean that, Tiffany spoke again. “Chase has been regressing in music class.” She squinted, as if it hurt to be the bearer of bad news. “And he did bite Harper last week.”

Leigh felt as if time had slowed. A shift occurred. Hadn’t Tiffany just said she adored Chase?

“I guess,” Leigh said slowly. “But they were both bugging each other. You know how they are? Harper kind of nags at him.”

She wanted to say, Harper incessantly criticizes him, picks at him. Tells him he’s too loud, too messy, too this, and too that.

“She is going through a bit of a bossy phase,” Tiffany whispered, as if Harper were nearby.

You mean an oppositional defiant phase, Leigh thought, plucking a term from Tiffany’s own early child development — speak.

“It’s hard for Chase.” Leigh knew she was defending him. Worse, she was defending herself. “Harper is so”—she searched for a safe word—“ attached to her toys.”

Your little girl was breaking the cardinal rule of playgroups, Leigh thought. Harper wasn’t sharing. She was torturing Chase, taking away toy after toy, every single pony (and there were a dozen at least) and hiding them in her bedroom. Tiffany, as usual, had done nothing, ignoring Harper’s cruel game until Leigh had worried she couldn’t trust her own interpretation, that maybe she was just falling prey to her dislike of the little girl.

“Like you say in music class,” Leigh forced herself to say, “sharing is caring.”

Tiffany picked at the peeling green polish on her toenails.

“I don’t know, Leigh. A contained class might be the best fit for Chase.”

How could she say that? That Chase would be better off with the kids who had behavior issues so severe they were destined never to be mainstreamed? Her Chase didn’t even have a diagnosis. He was just a little slow at developing. Wasn’t it Tiffany herself who had reassured Leigh that most boys like Chase caught up by age four?

“There’s a difference,” Leigh said, “between biting and being stuffed in a class with retarded children.”

As the R-word — absolutely forbidden from the lexicon of a sancti-mommy like Tiffany — flew from Leigh’s mouth, she knew there was no turning back. She had crossed the line.

Tiffany pushed herself off the chaise lounge with a dancer’s grace, keeping her back to Leigh.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Tiffany said, pressing both hands onto the seawall and lifting up onto her toes to stretch. “I mean, come on, Leigh. What century are you living in?”

“Sorry,” Leigh said, reclaiming her spot on the chaise lounge, emboldened and fearful at the same time. “I’m just so stressed out about this. On top of potentially losing Tenzin on Thursdays…” She trailed off intentionally.

Tiffany whirled around, hair flaring. “Not potentially, Leigh. It’s a done deal. Tenzin is with Harp on Thursdays. Period.”

“You misunderstood me. I didn’t say yes. I still need to talk to Brad about it. I need a few more days. I’m sure Shabbat Tots will understand. Or maybe you can teach another afternoon? Or bring Harper with you. You can just…”

Tiffany interrupted her. “No, I already accepted the job.”

Leigh was at a loss. “Oh-kay,” she said with a huff of a laugh. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Please don’t be mad, Leigh-Leigh.” Tiffany sashayed back to the chaise and ruffled Leigh’s hair. “I’m sorry.”