Cutting Teeth: A Novel (25 page)

There were numbers written in Grace’s precise handwriting, an equation of sorts. How did she get those zeros so perfectly round?

41 hours
had been circled twice.

“It’s the number of hours I spend with Hank each week,” she answered casually, turning away to look at herself in the mirror, to adjust her headband and smooth her glossy hair.

“Oh-kay,” he said slowly.

Definitely trouble, he thought.

“Tiffany told me you told the whole playgroup…” Grace said, still looking in the mirror, where he knew she could see him sitting disheveled and puffy-eyed on the bed behind her. “She smells like body odor, you know?”

“
What
did I tell her?”

And what else could Tiffany have told Grace? He knew Tiffany was a little wacky, but not crazy. Not mad enough to tell Grace about the kitchen the day before. Or was she? She’d be risking everything. Their children. Their marriages. Their lifestyles, because when it came down to it—and it hurt him to admit this—he was in the same boat as Tiffany and the mommies. They were all dependent on their partners, their breadwinners. Without Grace, he was nothing. He had nothing. Not even a savings account in his name.

“You told all of them,” Grace said, her voice creaking with restrained emotion. “Tiffany, and your
mommies,
you told them I’m never around. That I’m at work all the time. That I’m not there for Hank.”

“I never said you weren’t there for Hank.”

“Then what
did
you say, Richard?”

What could he say? She really was gone all day every weekday, and on the weekends she had routine errands. Gym at 9
A.M.
on Saturday and Sunday. Lunch with her sister every Saturday at 1
P.M.
“Alone time” in her room where she read a book or crocheted little squares she then stitched into blankets for her friends who were expecting babies. And he understood her need for “me time.” Her job was demanding, the stress of managing so many people who were juggling so many millions of dollars had to be exhausting. Frankly, although he would have had his chest hair waxed before admitting this to Grace, or anyone at the playgroup (even Tiffany), it was easier when Grace wasn’t around. When she
was
home, she was like a shiny object distracting them from their routine, making Hank restless for her attention. Hank didn’t understand why mommy needed her alone time. If Rip didn’t take him to the park (and in winter this was a chore), the boy stood at the closed bedroom door and cried until Grace came out, annoyed with Rip and frustrated with Hank.

“I may have said you worked long hours. Or that there were some days you didn’t see Hank,” he said. “Isn’t it the truth?”

She turned to him, and he saw she was close to tears. The woman his sister had once called The Ice Queen began to sob. A tickling thrill shot from his stomach to his throat. This vulnerability was new, and anything new was better than how things had been—he and Grace arguing in the same dizzying circles until the air in their apartment felt stale and claustrophobic.

“How could you betray me like that? In front of all of…” She paused. “The mommies!”

Then she was kneeling by the side of the bed, her lineless face cracked in tears, her back shuddering with sobs. He hadn’t seen her like this since—he searched his memory—not since she’d given birth to Hank and been struck with what their OB had called the baby blues.

He stroked her hair and tipped her chin so their faces were a few inches apart. She was a teary, snotty mess. But beautiful. Vulnerable, for once.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said.

“I really try,” she said, then a hiccuping sob escaped. “I try to do my best. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a mother.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rip said. “Hank adores you.”

She looked up at him, her eyes squinting in suspicion. “Don’t give me that shit. You don’t really think that. I know it. You have to have it this way. It’s like a sickness. Your martyr complex. You’re like some passive-aggressive housewife!”

“Sure,” Rip said, with a bitter laugh. “That’s right. I
like
your never being home. I
like
having no help. I can’t take a shit by myself, without you or Hank … You’re both demanding in the same way, you know? Always taking. Sucking the life out of me.”

Grace pitched face-first into the mattress. “I know!” she cried into the comforter. “You’re right. Why is everything I do so un-mommylike?”

He’d won, and it made him feel awful. He lowered himself onto the bed beside her and stroked her back.

“That’s not true, sweetie,” he murmured into her ear. “You make everything possible for our family. Hank and I are so lucky to have you.”

As he stroked her back, he felt her soften beneath him. Respond to his touch. He kissed her neck first, cautiously, and when she didn’t brush him away, he made his way to her mouth. He undressed her, he licked her, he tweaked her nipples while he made her come with his tongue. He pulled down his boxers and spread her legs—his penis is his hand. But then she was on her knees, taking him into her mouth.

He hadn’t brought the condoms she always made him wear. Just in case one of his swimmers picked up speed.

“I want to be inside you,” he moaned.

She ignored him.

When she stopped midsuck to adjust her hair, he could tell she was getting tired. She was growing impatient. Her head bobbed up and down. Too fast. She’ll run out of steam, he thought, she’s got to pace herself, or this would end up like most of the blowjobs she’d given him in the years since Hank was born. Half a blowjob.

“Honey”—he held her head in his hands, stopping her, as painful as it was—“that’s enough.”

She looked up at him, spit glistening on her lips.

“I want to come inside you,” he said.

“No,” she said. A single, flat denial.

Instantly, the mood flattened, too. She put in another five minutes of decent work, tiring out toward the end (
sorry, my neck is sore
), practically handing his penis back to him, then crawling up to nibble on his earlobe while he jerked himself off. As he came closer to climaxing, he thought about the text Tiffany, definitely drunk, had sent him the night before. The text had been a tease because he knew that she knew the answer, especially after she’d felt his hard-on in the kitchen.

who would u rather fuck? allie or susanna? ;)

You.
The answer he never sent.

Now, as Grace lay limp next to him, performing the bare necessities—her cheek pressed to his chest, her hand between his thighs cupping his testicles, he conjured a vision of all three of them—Allie, Susanna, and Tiffany—naked and writhing on the beach. When he finally came, Grace was still lying dutifully beside him, but he’d flown far away from her. He was no longer in the dusty bedroom but beside the sea, entwined with Tiffany, inside her.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Rip was on the deck with the rest of the mommies and daddies. The children had a surprise, Tenzin had told them with her usual hand-clapping vigor, and she and the kids had been out of sight since.

Rip and Michael were wrestling. They had both wrestled high-school varsity, it turned out, and were now grappling in the middle of the deck while Grace, Susanna, Tiffany, Nicole, and Allie sat side by side in deck chairs, their oversized sunglasses turned toward the afternoon sun.

“Get a room already,” Tiffany said.

“Gross,” Grace said, “You’re practically dripping sweat into each other’s mouths.”

“Oh, God,” Susanna groaned. “Don’t make me puke. Again.”

“Ha-ha,” Rip said between grunts, as the mommies tittered, but the truth was, he was winded. Michael was going practically no-holds-barred. Rip had Michael in a headlock, but he could feel his grip loosening as they grew sweatier. Although the thought embarrassed Rip, he wondered if Michael could smell the sex on him, and he found himself hoping Michael could feel the muscles Rip had once sported. When they’d first moved to the city, right after college, Rip had been struck by the fear he felt; the panic when, during a block party, some Italian-American teens from the neighborhood had picked a fight with kids from the projects. Bottles had been smashed, a folding table collapsed, and a girl was thrown to the asphalt. Rip had jumped up from his seat on their stoop and pulled Grace into the dark hallway of their apartment building, daring only to peek through the small window in the door. In short, he’d been a fucking pussy, he’d thought afterward, recalling the icy fear that shot through his body and the roadrunner rate of his heart.

He had begun lifting weights at the City Gym nearby—nicknamed Shitty Gym because it stank of body odor. After a few months of daily weight sessions, one of the serious gym dudes, the beasts who wore weight-lifting belts on their walk
to
the gym, asked Rip to spot him while he benched what appeared to be at least three hundred pounds. Only then did Rip know he’d put on enough muscle to maybe hold his own in an actual brawl, or just make him less approachable if some bad guy (as Hank would call him) picked on him and Grace.

“You never have to worry, sweetie,” he had said one night at dinner as he took a slug from his protein shake. “I’m pretty sure I could kill someone with my bare hands now if I had to.”

“Um. Okay,” she had said, and smiled. He’d been grateful to her for putting up with him. She was the daughter of immigrants who’d seen war and political persecution, whose father used a rusted machete to kill the rats he caught in the basement of their convenience store, and she had pretended to understand why Rip, a sensitive Jewish kid from the ’burbs, had to convince himself he was capable of defending her.

After Hank was born, the visits to the gym waned, and then stopped. Rip gained weight, and his muscles shrank. His only exercise was pacing around the apartment shushing the crying baby. When Grace returned to work, Rip was lucky if he could squeeze in a shower and a quick bite to eat while Hank took one of his twenty-minute naps, never mind a run across the Brooklyn Bridge or a session at the gym.

Now, as he pressed against the resistance Michael created by arching his back and tightened his hold on Michael’s neck, like a vise, squeezing, he wondered if he could cut off Michael’s air, if he could make the guy black out. He’d seen it done at an impromptu jiujitsu match between two trainers at the gym. All you had to do was increase the pressure until your opponent went limp and slipped to the ground, waking a moment later with no memory of passing out.

Michael submitted with a firm tap on Rip’s arm, and Rip released him with a triumphant roar that startled Nicole, so she gasped, choking on her drink.

“Shit,” Tiffany said. “You’ll give Nicole a heart attack and make Susanna go into early fucking labor!” She laughed, and the tops of her breasts jiggled.

“Damn, man,” Michael said, massaging his throat. “You’re not kidding.”

Rip saw a new respect in Michael’s nod, an appreciating squint in the man’s eyes.

“For crying out loud,” Susanna said. “The daddies are going
Spartacus
on us.”

The women tittered, and Rip gave a prissy little curtsy before he picked up his beer and downed it in three big gulps.

“Boys will be boys,” Tiffany said, a lazy slur in her voice. Her eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and Rip let his eyes travel from her baby-oiled legs up to the pool of sweat resting in the clutch of her cleavage. Their eyes met. Or at least he thought they did, but then Michael was slapping him on the back. “What do you say we take that kayak trip?” he said.

“Awesome, man. Can’t think of a better way to cool off.”

Grace’s voice broke through. “Don’t forget life preservers.”

Rip stopped himself from saying something like,
We don’t need those.
And he was relieved when Michael didn’t reject the idea.

Nicole let her sunglasses slip down her nose, and said, “Susanna and Allie are making a quick trip to Stop and Shop. Anyone need anything?”

“You think they’ve got organic out here in the ’burbs?” Tiffany asked as she drained her wineglass.

Rip watched Michael lean over the back of Tiffany’s chair and finger the wisps of hair at the nape of her long neck. The neck Rip had thought about so many times those last few years because of the breasts it led to.

“We haven’t traveled back in time to the Dark Ages, babe,” Michael said.

“Oh, is it one of those amazing twenty-four-hour supermarkets?” Tiffany asked. “With the fluorescent lighting and the Muzak? And the indifferent checkout girl doing her nails?”

She held her phone up to Michael. “Look at this sweet pic of Harp. I mean, the expression on her face!”

“You’ve posted too many online this weekend already. Enough,” Michael said.

Rip felt the subtle click of the other mommies’ heads swiveling to look at Tiffany.

Michael dropped his voice and whispered into Tiffany’s hair. Her hand shot up and swatted him away. It looked like an accident, the way her green-painted fingernails snagged Michael’s bristly upper lip, but Rip could see she’d meant to do it.

“Everyone knows you’re a fantastic mama, Tiff,” Michael said as he shuffled over to the cooler and lifted a dripping beer. “You don’t have to go posting a billion photos of our little girl out there for every weirdo to see. I’m just being a daddy. Right, ladies?” Michael looked to Rip. “And gentleman?”

“You’re just being controlling,” Tiffany said as she tapped away on her phone. “Everyone knows there’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”

There came a shattering sound from the side of the house. Nicole gasped again, and Rip saw her hand shoot up to her chest, the tendons in her neck tightening. Take it easy, he thought.

Wyatt, Levi, and Dash appeared, walking slowly to the deck, heads bowed with guilt. Wyatt held the remains of a potted plant. A shard of terra-cotta, a clump of black soil, and a few heat-withered petunias. Dash looked the most ashamed, his grubby fingers gripping the metal car and launcher that must have caused the accident.

“Oopsy-daisy,” Dash said.

“Dash oopsied!” said Levi, and all three boys laughed.