Cutting Teeth: A Novel (35 page)

She knew she could have told them she had been raped. But because this wasn’t the first time she’d come to half-naked in a stranger’s bed, because it wasn’t the first time some guy had been inside her while she lay like a corpse, she didn’t.

She ate her last bowl of ramen and swallowed her last Klonopin, a gift from her most recent ex, the prescription-drug dealer/Ivy League grad.

Michael was three light-years away, Harper Rose, five. And there’d been nowhere else to go.

So Tiffany had gone back to her middle-of-fucking-nowhere hometown, out on the end of Long Island. She crashed at an ex-boyfriend’s place. He was squatting in an unfinished house: pink insulation bulged through the beams in the ceiling. Her possessions had fit into two duffel bags and one cardboard box. They were her clothes, her grandmother’s faded quilt, a box of thick biographies she had loved as a girl (Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, Georgia O’Keefe) and the little pewter angel with stained-glass wings her mother had given her at her First Communion. There was a wordless fuck with the ex every night on the sunken couch (the price of rent), but she threw back two of his Xanax twenty minutes before and was half-asleep when he came inside her.

She visited her father and stepmother Shelley over casserole dinners at their ramshackle house, a trailer with ill-proportioned adjoining rooms her father had built himself. The cracks in the wood were filled with tar, but the wind wrenched its way in.

For three brisk autumn nights, she’d sat with her father and Shelley under the oak trees, the night smelling of low tide and fire smoke as they roasted chestnuts over the pit and talked of people in the town. Shelley filled her in on who had had married whom, who had whose baby, who had collected enough DUIs to send them to jail, who had finished at the community college and who had left for the city only to return less than a year later. As she listened to the lilting waltz of Shelley’s voice, Tiffany tried to remember how to talk in that way—maybe, she thought, it would help her tell them what had happened, why she’d had to surrender, come home—the slow-paced chitchat that mimicked the swaying branches above. She’d been practicing the speedy scrutinizing discourse of the young metropolitans for years, the quicksilver tongue that jumped from earnest to irreverent in a flash.

As her father recounted the latest nor’easter and the damage done to the town bowling alley in the floods, Tiffany watched the gray-speckled gypsy moths flutter close to the flames, catching fire and diving, wings smoking, into the embers. She told her father that something bad had happened to her, had been done
to
her. She wanted her father to ask
what
? And wanted him to say,
It’s okay, baby doll. You can tell your daddy.
And then she’d tell him, and he’d hold her and stroke her hair, then promise he’d find those motherfuckers and tie them to a tree in the woods and cut off their dicks and feed them to the muskrats in the marsh.

But her father didn’t ask. He made a sound—a
hmmph
—and after a few moments of nothing but twigs crackling and chestnut shells popping, he said, “Best to just move on. I told you to be careful,” he said. “That you’d never survive that rotten city.”

“Maybe it’s me that’s rotten, Daddy,” she said, and looked at him, waiting.

She felt a lift in her chest, like she was close to understanding something big, and she knew that even after all she’d ruined, the parts of her she’d let get dirty, she still wanted to live. If she could keep that feeling, she thought, she just might make it.

“Thinking, thinking. Talking, talking,” her father said, as the flames sent shadows dancing across his fat cheeks. “Do you got to share every thought that passes between your ears?”

Then she remembered the times her father had said to others—right in front of her, like she was invisible—“Tiff’s always thinking on things too much,” with an eye roll, his twang garbling the words, but not enough that Tiffany couldn’t hear the disgust beneath.

Like he was apologizing for her.

And Tiffany knew. She had to go back.

Later that night, she walked the cracked road that led to town. Walked the three miles, the cold salt-filled wind of the nearby shore stinging her cheeks. She prayed to God as she walked, as her sweat-damp hair froze into solid strips. She slept on the chilled aluminum bench at the Greyhound stop, and when the bus pulled up, she left everything behind her, even her books, even her mother’s pewter angel. She’d had a little less than $200 in her pocket, enough for a ticket, a stale bagel sandwich, and three nights at a Times Square hostel.

She wasn’t like the other mommies, she thought now as she stared at her image—that of a strong and beautiful woman in her prime. They could feel safe in a godless world, so much so that they’d brag about it, as she had heard them do many times.
It’s not like I believe in God or anything. Well, you know, I don’t believe in God, only in free will.
Not believing in a higher power was a privilege, Tiffany knew. A woman had to have a shitload of self-esteem to walk around thinking she was the most important part of the world, that she called the shots, that she held the reins of her own fate.

Tiffany opened her silk jewelry purse and found the two pink pills she had snuck from Nicole’s room that afternoon. Knowing Nicole, who’d been throwing these babies back every few hours since they’d arrived, she wouldn’t notice there were a couple missing. Knowing Nicole, Tiffany thought, it was a Xanax. And if not?
C’est la vie.
She threw one, then the other, into the back of her throat and swallowed it dry. The bitterness spiked her tongue just as her phone buzzed with a text.

Another text from Leigh:

Tiffany, answer me!!!

Three exclamation points, Tiffany thought with approval, and when she looked in the mirror, she smiled, checking her teeth for lipstick.

Her phone vibrated again.

Please, Tiff. We’ve GOT to talk about this! In person. Like adults.

It was only a matter of time—maybe even minutes—before Leigh gave in, before her resolve cracked, before she agreed to handing over Tenzin on Thursday afternoons.

Tiffany knew how little it would take to ease Leigh’s stress. A single text, like:

I’m sorry! I love you too, bff

But she didn’t write it.

It wasn’t the babysitting hours that held her back, or the fact that her music-class gig at Shabbat Tots was at stake—although the extra money would be nice. It was the principle. There was self-righteousness in Leigh’s refusal to share Tenzin, as if Leigh thought she was more deserving than Tiffany. Better.

Other mommies—strangers Tiffany didn’t even know—made her feel like this every day. On the playground, at the playgroup, even in her own music class, the scrutiny of women who looked her up and down, trying to figure out exactly what it was that made Tiffany just a bit
off.
She’d become accustomed to it.

But not from Leigh.

She would have to compose herself, Tiffany thought. There was too much at stake with Leigh to lose her. Leigh was crucial to Harper’s acceptance at St. Ann’s School, which was an absolute necessity. Everyone knew an elite private school was the golden ticket, the first and most important step.

Tiffany knew she’d been too messy this whole beach weekend. With Rip in the kitchen. The things she’d let herself say to Leigh. She’d have to decompress next week, reboot: a massage, an aromatherapy session, maybe she’d see her therapist twice. Just until they got through the stress of the upcoming interview at St. Ann’s. She couldn’t afford to fuck up now.

Is anyone else freaking out over this Webbot thing? What are you doing to prepare?

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

fear the worst

Nicole

Wyatt was jumping
on 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.