Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Tiffany had been watching, too, because she sashayed over to Nicole, the toes of her naked feet pointed.

“You love to read, right, Nicole?” Tiffany asked.

A silly question, Tenzin thought. Everyone knew Nicole loved her books very much, so much that she organized them according to subject, instead of by color like some of the other mommies, whose bookcases were rainbows.

Nicole nodded at Tiffany. Her fingers snapped the rubber band faster now.

“What’s that book you just read, babe?” Tiffany asked in the direction of the table, where Michael’s head was bowed over his plate. “You know. The one about the end of the world? They made a movie out of it.”

“ The Road, ” Michael said with a mouthful of food.

“That’s the one!” Tiffany cheered, and she even did a little hop in place. Like one of the dance steps Tenzin had learned in Tiff’s Riffs class. “Come on, that must be like your favorite book, Nic. The end of the world and all that stuff?”

Nicole drew in her breath sharply, as if something hurt. Then she made a choking sound. But she didn’t have any food in her mouth.

The mommies had told Tenzin that she must always be on the lookout for the children’s choking, and Leigh had paid for Tenzin to take a CPR class, where she had pushed with all her weight on the chest of a small child made of plastic.

“Nicole,” Tenzin said as she hurried over, “are you okay?”

She took Nicole’s hands into her own, which, despite the sweat that rolled down the woman’s cheeks, were chilled. She pulled Nicole to the sofa and helped her sit down. She fanned Nicole’s pale face with a magazine from the coffee table.

“Are you sick?” Tenzin asked.

Nicole looked as if she was about to throw up. Like the time Tenzin had spun Chase too fast on his therapy swing, and he had vomited all over the playroom carpet.

Josh appeared beside Nicole.

“Nic,” he said, and Tenzin heard a new sternness in his voice. As if he were talking to an overtired little girl.

Nicole’s hands were clenched together in a tight ball.

“Did you take something?” Josh asked her, loud enough for the others to hear.

Tenzin thought of the many white-capped bottles in Nicole’s bathroom cabinet, bottles of medication with X and Z in their names. She didn’t know many words in English that had an X or a Z and so she had memorized the words that had been typed across the bottle labels. Xanax. Zoloft. Diazepam. Clonazepam.

Nicole did not answer.

Michael cleared his throat from where he sat at the kitchen table. “That book, The Road, was pretty awesome,” he said. “What a rush.”

“A rush?” Leigh said, and Tenzin watched as her good employer straightened her back. Like a shy child working hard to assert herself.

Leigh continued, staring toward Michael, “It’s about the end of humanity,” she said. “There are cannibals in it”—she paused, her voice falling to a whisper as her eyes hurried toward the stairs—“eating little children.”

Michael laughed, and Tenzin watched a piece of food fly from his mouth and land on the pure white tablecloth.

“So,” Michael said, scanning the room, “who here would do away with their own kid, in a doomed world full of cannibals?”

“Well,” Leigh said, “I wouldn’t have let them suffer. Or die some horrible death. Yes,” Leigh said, and Tenzin could see that the woman was holding her chin higher. “I would have put them out of their misery.”

“Not me,” said Susanna. “I’d probably die trying to protect them.”

Allie coughed very quietly, but Tenzin heard. Like Allie was trying to keep something inside.

Nicole made a mewling noise from her seat on the sofa. The way one of the children sounded during a movie’s scary part — like when Ursula, the sea witch in The Little Mermaid , stretched her octopus-legs across the iPad screen.

Josh squatted in front of his wife. “What is it, Nic?”

The room was silent, but Tenzin could hear the whisper of Tiffany’s bare feet slipping over the wood floor as she swayed from side to side.

Nicole spoke. “It’s almost time.”

Tenzin saw Allie creep behind Susanna and start up the stairs.

“Uh-oh,” Tiffany called loudly, so that everyone’s eyes followed hers. “Alert! Someone’s trying to escape. Alert!”

“Al? Where are you going?” Susanna asked, and Tenzin heard fear in the pregnant woman’s voice.

“I’m just going to check on the boys,” Allie called over her shoulder as she took the stairs two steps at a time.

“Wait!” Susanna said. “Let me come with you.” She tried to heave up from her chair, and Tenzin saw her big belly shudder.

“Here, let me help,” said Tiffany, moving over to Susanna and gripping her arm. “You shouldn’t walk up the stairs by yourself in your condition. ” She said it sweetly, but Tenzin knew she was being bad again.

Susanna shook off Tiffany’s hand. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, but you’re not fine, honey,” said Tiffany, her voice sweet as sugar. “Having to live in the dirty nasty city and all. I can see how hard it is on you.”

Tiffany’s lips were puffed out — like in the pretend-sad faces the children wore when they wanted Tenzin or their mommies to pay attention to them. But instead of comforting Tiffany with a gentle pat or hug, Susanna’s round face bloomed red, and with great effort, she pushed herself up out of the chair and toddled toward Tiffany so quickly that Tiffany had to step back.

“You,” Susanna said. “We should never have let you into our playgroup.” She whirled around, her arms out at her sides, and Tenzin stepped forward, fearing the heavily pregnant woman would fall, but Susanna regained her balance and pointed at Rip. Susanna seemed to be possessed. By something bigger than herself, like a sort of god, Tenzin thought. She had never seen this mommy angry before.

“But you, Rip!” Susanna cried. “Mr. Mom. You were the one that made us take her. I told you.”

The baby. Tenzin imagined the anger, flame-hot, inside Susanna’s body. It will hurt the baby, she thought, then saw that Michael had left the table and was now towering over Susanna.

“Don’t talk to my fiancée like that.”

Susanna looked up at him, her hands on her hips, her belly pushed forward so far that Tenzin thought the baby might bump Michael.

“Your fiancée?” Susanna asked, with a fancy accent and Tenzin saw the animal fierceness in the pregnant woman’s eyes. Like a mother protecting her young. “Ha! You should’ve seen your so-called fiancée at the bar a few weeks ago. If it hadn’t been for me…”

Then Leigh was between Susanna and Michael, her arms outstretched, interrupting Susanna with, “Okay now. Maybe it’s time for everyone to eat.”

But Tiffany was pointing at Leigh, her voice rising like a siren above their heads.

“I don’t need you, Miss Debutante.” Tiffany spoke strangely, like when Chase had a lollipop in his mouth and his words had to climb around the candy to get out. “I don’t need you to defend me.”

Leigh turned to Tiffany, and Tenzin saw that her good employer Leigh’s face was as still and pale as Tiffany’s was stirred and feverish.

“My dress looks nice on you, Tiff,” Leigh said, and then to Susanna — but still loud enough that they all heard, Tenzin noticed. “I got it at a sample sale. Paid nothing for it. But the fabric felt so cheap. I never wore it out. Just around the house.”

Tiffany sighed long — ending in a phlegmy laugh that made Tenzin wonder if Tiffany wasn’t getting a cold. Or maybe it was those stinky cigarettes she smoked.

“We need to go to the car,” Nicole said, staring blankly at Josh. “The bags. They’re in the trunk.”