Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

“Oh,” Susanna gushed, “it’s amazing. Should we stop? Look, we can pull over right there and look at the water.”

“Wait. The boys.” Allie sprang forward. “They’ll wake if we stop.”

When the boys had simultaneously fallen asleep in Queens after thirty minutes of gridlock, it had felt like a gift from who-knows-who-or-what. Allie was an atheist, like most of the artists, filmmakers, and designers who made up her and Susanna’s elite New York City circle. Still, she thought, they should wring every drop from the blessing.

“Please,” Allie pleaded softly, “sweetheart. Let’s keep going. I have to pee, and my head is killing me.”

Silently, Susanna accelerated, the eight-month-sized globe of her belly bumping the steering wheel. Allie could see, in the tightness under Susanna’s jaw, that she had, once again, said the wrong thing.

“Maybe the pregnant woman carrying your baby is the one who has to pee,” Susanna said. With the quick-fire anger of a woman in her last term, Allie thought.

“I’m sorry,” Allie said. “That was selfish.”

She couldn’t help adding, “It’s not a competition, you know.” She knew that this, in Susanna’s mind, negated the apology, but Susanna’s tone irked her, the “you-owe-me-big-time” tone Susanna used more and more as she neared the end of her pregnancy.

Our pregnancy, Allie thought, correcting herself, though she preferred to call the pregnancy “the egg swap.” She found levity worked best when describing their situation to her childless friends, all immersed in a world of unscheduled and unbridled creation, and who she bumped into at the few SoHo gallery shows she could get to these days.

Susanna, my partner, is carrying my egg, fertilized with the sperm of our twins’ father, aka, our homo best friend. Ba dum bump! Like a punch line.

Some of these friends, like Allie, had been Susanna’s teachers years ago when she was a student at the Parsons School of Design, and they relished in teasing Allie. You knocked up your student, did ya? This made Allie smile and remember that other Susanna — Susie, she’d corrected Allie (Professor Strong) on that first day of class over a decade ago, her high ponytail swinging.

The sleek European station wagon (Susanna had wanted a minivan of all things, but Allie had prevailed) wound around the curved road. The sun flickered through the canopy of trees, some already splashed with autumn gold, and Allie imagined herself in her studio, painting, mixing colors until she found a match for the green-gold that unfurled like silk streamers above. Hot coffee. Lou Reed. Guilt-free smokes. But the fantasy dissipated as Susanna began to talk about her new business, a rental stroller franchise, Babes-on-the-Go!™.

When Allie had first heard the name of the franchise, she’d responded with another instance of zero self-control.

“You realize, hon,” she’d said, “some yuppie folk might confuse this stroller company with a traveling stripper show. You know? Babes-on-the-Go?”

She had yanked her gray tee up (she’d been braless since college, since coming out) and jiggled her small breasts.

Susanna had said, “not funny,” but when Allie repeated the joke (sans flashing) at a dinner with their art friends, Susanna had laughed the loudest.

Since Babes-on-the-Go! had entered their lives, Allie was expected to watch Dash and Levi on weekends while Susanna descended into the co-op building basement now overrun with the monstrous double strollers and stacks of car seats Susanna rented to desperate Brooklyn parents. Susanna spent hours down there, repairing tires, adjusting alignment, and scrubbing the child travel systems, which is how Allie had heard Susanna describe them when on the phone with a rental customer. Allie was left in charge (Susanna’s favorite phrase these days), and when the boys’ play inevitably turned to roughhousing, she put on a movie. Something a tad too mature, like Spider-Man or Iron Man, guaranteed to keep them subdued in terror. When Allie heard the creak of the stairs, she quickly turned off the TV and gave the boys a double wink before Susanna rose from the basement — her hair curled with sweat, her hands kneading her lower back, her newly popped belly jutting forth. Allie was pretty sure most part-time parents, like herself, used the secret-TV trick when their parenting partners had their backs turned.

They drove by the entrance to a lush overgrown park — Caumsett State Historic Park, the sign read. They were way out in the middle of nowhere, Allie thought, and she’d be screwed if there were crap wireless at the beach house. Her agent was shopping her next book of photography around, the deadline for the Danish cover was in just a few hours, and there was also the panel she was hosting at the upcoming Parsons School of Design Fall Symposium.

“Did I tell you I found a Phil and Ted double stroller?” Susanna said, with an excitement that jolted Allie.

“That’s great,” Allie said, feigning enthusiasm.

Her phone buzzed. Speak of the devil. A message from her agent. A gig shooting female comedians for a magazine layout. Hot, she typed back.

“It’s not just great. It’s really great,” Susanna said, and although Allie could hear the growing annoyance in Susanna’s voice, she continued to text. $?

“You think you could stop that and listen to me?” Susanna asked. “Please? Remember the promise you made? Email-checking, texting, tweeting. Limited this weekend. Okay?”

“Sorry. It’s a work thing,” Allie said, stuffing the phone into the back pocket of her skinny black Rag & Bone jeans.

“You’ll get cancer if you keep carrying that phone on your body,” Susanna said. “Didn’t you read that article I forwarded you? This isn’t just me. This is science talking.”

Allie tossed her phone onto the dashboard, where it slid with a clatter against the windshield. Both women sucked in their breath, shooting glances at the boys in the back. Their collective fear made them smile.

“What pussies we are,” Allie whispered.

She reached over and squeezed Susanna’s hand. Susanna’s face had grown fuller each week and now, with the scheduled C-section only a month away, she looked younger. Her nose was dotted with summer freckles like an apple-cheeked farm girl, and for a moment, with the backdrop of the leaves and overgrown grass on the side of the road, Allie felt a humming desire. She imagined a girlish Susanna (without the belly bump) stretched out on dewy grass, Susanna’s hips bucking against Allie’s face. She was about to dip her fingers under Susanna’s thin cotton maternity skirt when Susanna spoke.

“We need the extra Babes-on-the-Go money,” Susanna said. “For your adoption fees.”

Allie sighed. “I know.”

Susanna was always reminding her that Allie would have to adopt the baby once it was born. As if what Susanna really wanted to say was, Sure, it’s your egg, but it’s still my baby .

“And so you can take off work,” Susanna added, and Allie felt Susanna waiting for a response.

She wasn’t going to talk about that again. She couldn’t take more than two weeks off, and that was final.

She pulled her hand out of Susanna’s.

“Your hands are like mini freaking heat pads,” she said.

A pregnant woman’s body temperature rises ten degrees above normal, she remembered. Just one of the pregnancy facts Susanna shared daily.

“I know you think the stroller business is duller than dull,” Susanna said.

“You’re not dull,” Allie said, sighing.

“I didn’t say I was dull,” Susanna said.

Allie thought she heard a small indignant huh . As in, so that’s what you think of me .