Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

She was sliding down the dunes — the sand once again filling her pants, slipping into the back of her underwear, stinging her eyes — when she saw the cop car pull onto the beach by the park entrance. The hum of a motorboat engine made her look to the sea. Oh God no! she cried aloud when she saw the blue searchlights of the police boats sweeping the water.

Rip ran downthe aisles of Target, the soles of his sneakers squeaking across the gleaming floor. He stopped in front of each aisle, read the sign, and took off running again. Like the sprints he’d done as a kid on the junior varsity basketball team. There were shiny toys in primary colors for infants. A whole aisle of toy cars. Cars that talked, cars that blew bubbles, cars that shot up a track of intersecting circles and into the mouth of a giant, roaring dinosaur.

He almost ran right into a mom in a windbreaker and sweatpants.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He was off and running before he heard her reply.

Sweat stung his eyes. Maybe tears too, he thought. He remembered crying on the drive to the store as he swerved around the sharp turns of the dark road, pushing the car until he was flying at 80 MPH, Red Hot Chili Peppers pumping through the speakers.

He thought of calling Grace, in case she’d woken up in the commotion. Was Hank awake, too, asking for his daddy? Maybe he should head back?

No, he told himself. This mission was more important.

He was nearing the back of the store, only a few more aisles left. Beach toys, no. Scooters and bike helmets, no. Board games, no.

He was there. An aisle of pinkness. Even the boxes that held the erect Barbie dolls were pink. The plastic pretend baby carriages and tubs, all pink. It was a little girl’s fantasy. An aisle sprayed with Pepto-Bismol. There were dolls that talked and walked and pissed and moved their squat arms and legs and closed their eyes when you laid them on their backs. The motion-activated dolls sprang to life, and as he rushed past, he left a wave of mechanical giggles in his wake.

And there it was, at least twelve feet of pink and violet and silver and gold polyester, iridescent tulle and sequins that caught the fluorescent light and dazzled. Princess dress after princess dress, what his Hank had coveted for months. Maybe longer. Who knew how long Hank’s princess-dress dream had percolated inside the boy’s perfect little heart?

There were tiaras, some sprouting pink mesh fountains, like a bride’s wedding veil. There were even tiny pink rubber shoes with miniature heels. Princess in curlicued cursive. On tee shirts. On the bodices of the dresses. On purses and glitter-adorned makeup kits.

He tore through the dresses, letting one after another fall, the hangers clicking against the floor. Which one would make Hank happiest? Which one would be good enough? Enough to forgive Rip for that afternoon, the way he’d scoured Hank’s face with his rough fingertips to wipe away the makeup? Which would forgive him for wanting another child, one who might feel more like his own?

Rip was standing in a pile of pink pouf and puff when he found it. A gown in size XXL. Pink satin bodice and shimmery skirt. A pair of matching shoes with little heels and a tiara were part of the set—$16.99. He gave the outfit a hug, inhaling the tang of the flame-retardant chemicals, and he was off and running again.

He threw the dress on the checkout line conveyor belt and leaned over, hands on his upper thighs, coughing as he caught his breath.

The belt whirred to life.

“Just the dress, sir?” asked the checkout girl in the baggy red tee shirt.

She looked down at him with flat uninterested eyes and snapped her gum.

She had been a little girl once, Rip thought. She had been filled with dreams of pink gowns and glass slippers and sparkling tiaras.

“Just the dress,” he said.

Something bad really was happening, Nicole thought.

Not just bad, the worst.

“What the fuck do you mean I can’t go in there?” Allie shouted, as the rotating lights streaked the silvery white dunes red, blue, red, blue. “Dash!” Allie screamed toward the black woods. “Dash!”

Nicole had her arm wrapped around Allie’s shoulders — to comfort her, but also to keep her locked in the little huddle on the beach — Allie, Nicole, Josh, Michael, and the two town police officers standing at (guarding, it seemed to Nicole) the entrance to the state park. The cops had said, politely, that they’d appreciate it if Allie didn’t go in the woods. When Allie had raged at this — Nicole had seen saliva spray from her mouth as she shouted — the cops had apologized. There was a country charm in their yes, ma’am and no, ma’am and sorry, ma’am , Nicole thought. They had explained that two lost people would stretch their resources thin.

There was a team of state police on their way, the cops said. The search and rescue team was bringing canines. The thought of the drooling, barking dogs lunging on leashes sent a shiver of queasy fear through Nicole’s stomach.

One cop had introduced himself as Officer Morrello — a young guy who couldn’t be more than twenty-five. A spray of zits dotted his chin. He turned to Nicole and Josh, and asked, “Is the boy her son?” As if Allie weren’t there. Or as if she couldn’t be trusted.

“Um, yes.” Nicole said. “Of course he’s her son. His other mother,” she began, then stopped, worrying it would confuse things. Hadn’t she seen that on an ER episode years ago — a boy refused medical care because his biological mother wasn’t there to give permission?

“Yes, he’s my son,” Allie said, pointing to the woods, the veins in her arm tense cords. “I know he is in there. Please, just go. Or let me go. We can’t just stand here!”

“Ma’am, I know it is hard”—the second cop stepped forward and spoke slowly in a nasally Island accent—“but the search team will be here soon. They are on their way. They will get in there and find your boy. We cannot let you go in there, ma’am.”

“Stop calling me that!” Allie yelled.

Michael spoke for the first time. “Hey, man. I was a registered lifeguard. Maybe I can search the shore.” Nicole caught the antiseptic smell of hard alcohol on his breath and almost gagged. She realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch and felt hungover from the Xanax she’d taken on an empty stomach.

“Sir,” Officer Morello said. “You’d help us best by staying right here for now.”

“Gotcha,” Michael said, and stepped back, half falling to sit on the shelf of a rock.

Jesus, Nicole thought, he was wasted. And where was Tiffany? And Rip? At least Tenzin and Susanna, and hopefully Grace, were with the kids. Nicole thought of Wyatt’s being tucked into bed again by Tenzin’s warm hands, then she imagined Dash, barefoot and in thin nightclothes, shivering in the shadowy woods.

“Okay,” Allie said loudly, “Can we focus here? What are you doing to find Dash? Why are we just standing here?”

“The rangers will be here any minute, ma’am. For now, we need to ask you some questions. To get vital info that will help us help the search team once they arrive. Okay?”

“Yes,” Allie said, “Yes, please. Ask me.”

Nicole tightened her grip around Allie’s trembling shoulders. She felt Allie resist, then melt into her arm. The wind picked up, and the cordgrass shivered, the whisper of the stalks a shushing that momentarily drowned out the hum of the cop car’s engine. Nicole and her brother had called the grass sea-hay as kids, and had used it for make-believe magic wands.