Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Posted 9/4/2010 7:36pm

(7 replies)

— Hi Webbot mommy! Tomorrow night, when all is calm, come on here & say ‘sorry.’ Ok? 7:38pm

— There will be no Internet tomorrow 7:41pm

— LOL 7:43pm

— The Internet will be wiped out??? 7:44pm

—the EARTH will be wiped out 7:45pm

— can’t wait until she’s proven wrong 7:51pm

— Our collective anxiety is overwhelming me 7:53pm

Wyatt was jumpingon Nicole’s parents’ king-size bed. Each time he jumped (look at me, Mommy!) , her mother’s army of dust-covered Madame Alexander dolls quivered on the dresser. Nicole felt the dolls’ fixed eyes watching her. Be careful, they said, Josh knows.

She was waiting for Josh to finish in the bathroom. He had called her upstairs, and she knew what was coming. The knives. He knew. Part of her was relieved, almost looking forward to the release her confession would bring. That she was having an episode. That she had hid the knives and hoarded Go Bag supplies and obsessed over paranoid online rumors of the Apocalypse. That she was fucking up.

She rapped on the bathroom door. Knock wood.

“Josh? You said you wanted me?”

“Yeah, hold on. Five more minutes.”

“All right,” she said. “Everyone’s downstairs. We don’t want to be rude.”

No response from Josh though she was certain she heard the soft click of his fingers against the screen of his phone. She knew he played the Texas Hold ’Em app all that time he spent sitting on the toilet, his pants around his ankles. Hiding.

When he finally left the bathroom, a cloud of baby-powder-scented air freshener trailed him.

He was dressed in shorts and a tee shirt.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Josh answered. “It’s not black tie, is it?”

She was wearing Spanx.

She stood behind him as he scanned himself from head to toe with an appraising look. He could still look in the mirror without looking away, she thought. Without wondering, as she did, where the person she’d once been had run off to. The light-footed, slim-waisted beauty.

“I put the knives back,” he said, without looking at her.

“Okay. Thanks. Sorry. I won’t touch them again.”

He smoothed his hair, tousling it with his fingers.

She had always disliked his neatness. Even in baggy shorts and two-day stubble, he looked prearranged. He’d been able to mask it in college, in the haze of marijuana and the din of jam bands. It wasn’t until years after they were married that she realized it wasn’t just a surface polish but a rigidity fused to his core. Lately, his outward perfection, which led her mommy friends to ooh and aah about Nicole’s incredible luck in finding such a catch, was a reminder that she was the flawed one. Inside and out.

“Josh?” she asked.

She knew he wouldn’t be any help when he answered her with a long sigh and, “What is it now, Nic?”

In a voice she felt certain was calm, she asked, “Did you get a chance to read any of those links I sent you yesterday? You know, about the Web bot thing?”

“Work was busy.”

“Could you just google it? It would only take a second to look at that one site,” she said. “The one that explains everything.

He turned to look at her. His eyebrows lifted in pity.

“Do we have to call Dr. Greenbaum, Nicole?”

Wyatt held up her iPhone, the little muscles in his forearms twitching as the birds flew across the screen.

“Look, Daddy. I made it to the next level!”

“Wyatt,” Nicole snapped, “that’s enough Angry Birds. Give Mommy back her phone.”

Wyatt handed her phone over with a slow roll of his eyes. When did he learn to do that? she thought.

A sizzling sound came from the beach, then a pop and a boom, and Nicole jumped back, bumping the dresser. Marie Antoinette landed on the carpet upside down, her ruffled bloomers exposed.

“They’re just fireworks, Mommy,” Wyatt said. “Don’t be scared.”

The look on his face made her want to nail the windows shut, to weep, but instead she said, “Aw, you’re so good at taking care of your mommy.”

Josh said, “You’re not watching any more of that doom-and-gloom stuff on Netflix, are you? I thought we talked about that.”

“No, no. I’m not, I swear. I know it sounds crazy.” She gripped Josh’s arm to show him she was serious. “But these are intelligent women posting these warnings. The demographic that visits this site is supersmart. And they’re really concerned.”

“That mommy site?” Josh said. “Nic. Please. You’ve got to get a grip.”

He gave her an apologetic smile. Or maybe it was pity again. She had little faith in her ability to read him.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He surprised her by pulling her into his lap. She laughed and jerked a bit. The bedsprings creaked.

Wyatt covered his smile with a cupped hand, and said, “Dah-ad.”

Josh hugged her to his chest, his breath warm on her neck.

“Have you talked to Dr. Greenbaum about raising your meds?”

Now she felt like a child, her feet dangling just above the floor, her skirt hitched too high, her fleshy white thighs flattened against his legs.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She wriggled out of his arms and stood.

“Mom, can I play your phone?” Wyatt begged. He stretched to reach her phone on the dresser.

“You’ve had your half hour of Angry Birds time,” she said.

“Bu-hut,” Wyatt whined. He turned to Josh, “Dad, what’s your favorite angry bird? Mine are the yellow ones. Wait, no, the white ones. You know, that drop the egg bombs. Those are really very really cool.”

“He needs more attention,” Josh said. He was holding her earphones, she had left them on the dresser, and he was winding the cord into a perfect spool with furious care.

“I give him plenty of attention.”

She yanked the headphones from Josh’s hands. His mouth parted in hurt.

“I like my headphones this way,” she said.

“In knots?” Josh asked.

“Wyatt,” she said, “while Daddy finishes dressing, why don’t you go downstairs and tell everyone dinner will be ready soon.”

Wyatt chanted, “Angry Birds! Angry Birds!” He marched in a circle around her. “Play Mommy’s phone!”

“Okay,” she said, “no sticker on your good-listening chart today. And that means you’re one sticker further from getting your Buzz Lightyear costume for Halloween.”

“I don’t think threats are the way to go, Nic. They just don’t work,” Josh said.

“They’re not threats. They’re rewards. Tiffany says they work best with defiant kids like Wyatt.”

“He’s a perfectly normal little boy. But, of course,” Josh said, his voice warbling with sarcasm, “Tiffany’s the expert. And what does Tiffany say about these Web bots?”

Josh smiled. Not unkindly, she thought. She pulsed with the urge to ask him again if he thought they would be okay, if terrorists wouldn’t detonate a bomb with enough force to wipe out the Eastern Seaboard, if a reactor at the Indian Point power plant wouldn’t melt down, if the entire planet wouldn’t crumble with a shattering blast from one of those electromagnetic pulses.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Josh sighed and rubbed her back in warm circles. “It’s okay.”

“But do you think you could just take a peek at the link I sent you?” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together — a sign of the smallness of the request. “I just need you to do a little search for this Web bots thing and then you can tell me there’s nothing to worry about.”