by Julia Fierro
“Okay!” Hank said.
Rip lifted Hank off the seawall and then Harper took Hank’s hand, tugging him to the corner.
Rip had heard Tiffany brag about her baby’s father at many a Friday afternoon playgroup. Michael had knit Harper’s stroller blanket, white sheep on a green pasture. With wool he had spun and dyed himself! Michael had his yoga certification. Michael had been a potter in an earlier life. There’s nothing sexier than a man who can throw his own vase, Tiffany had said with a smoky laugh, then her voice had fallen to a conspiratorial hush, forcing Rip and the other mommies to lean even closer. Michael always pleased her first in bed, she had whispered before breaking into a deluge of drunken giggling.
Rip had imagined a mild, maybe even effeminate man, but it was true what Nicole had said one Friday, on a day Tiffany and Harper were absent from the playgroup. Michael had looks. Like indie-film-star looks. Even Rip could see that. The punkish tangle of brown-black curls, short in back, long on top. Just enough grease to claim hipsterhood. Thick sideburns that accented his chiseled jawbone. Cool in the most casual way.
Of course, the topic of Michael, especially as Tiffany’s wineglass emptied, had also opened the gates to a flood of complaints, all delivered Tiffany-style; big gestures, exaggerated expressions, a choreographed performance. But didn’t they all gripe about their significant others on Friday afternoons?
Michael gave Rip a slight nod of recognition and walked toward him with a disinterested saunter. Rip was certain Michael had been that guy, the aloof bad boy all the girls had swooned over in high school.
“What’s up, man?” Rip said, holding out his hand.
Michael clasped his hand, and Rip caught a whiff of something both sweet and heavy, like pipe tobacco.
“Yeah,” Michael said slowly, “sure. I know you. You make the balloon animals at the park, right?” Michael continued, “Hank’s dad. Sorry, I suck with names.”
“Rip,” he said, hiding his displeasure. Was he so forgettable?
“Cool. Yeah. Rip. Of course! Tiff’s wild about you.”
There was something in the way he said that, the escalation of recognition, that made Rip think of Tiffany and Michael in bed, their lithe, naked bodies like two serpents writhing. He shook the scene from his head with a slug from his beer.
Michael bowed his head to light a cigarette that seemed to have magically appeared. He cupped his hand around the flame, but the wind had picked up, and it took the two of them to get it lit, their hands cupped together.
“Hey, man,” Michael said, and thumbed over his shoulder at the door. “Shhh.” He winked at Rip as he lifted his cigarette.
Rip knew that if he had tried to wink at someone, especially another man, he’d look like a fool.
“Got you, dude,” Rip said and plunged his hand into the cooler’s icy water, retrieving two Coronas. He handed one to Michael.
“Thanks,” Michael said. “I’m down to just a few smokes a day. And treasure every single drag. If you know what I mean.”
Michael held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. Like the Marlboro Man, Rip thought. The way Michael’s eyes squinted with pleasure when he took a drag made Rip hunger for a smoke, but he knew if Grace caught him, it would give her yet another excuse to put off trying to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. Your body is full of toxins, she’d say.
“Yeah, I hear you,” Rip said. “Grace made me quit when she got pregnant.” He found himself wanting to say something clever. “I used to sneak them out on the fire escape. But one night I was drunk and almost fell off.”
This wasn’t necessarily a lie but also wasn’t necessarily the truth, and Rip was surprised by how much he enjoyed Michael’s response. A knowing smile. Like they were cut from the same cloth. Or the same piece of badass vintage leather, Rip thought.
Then Rip realized, with a jolt, that his eyes had been off Hank for too long. He imagined Hank’s head dashed against the seaweed-strewn rocks, his little boy’s body floating facedown. He whirled around and there were the two kids sitting quietly in the corner of the deck, a mound of sand between them. Hank was removing each wave-washed pebble with great precision and dropping it in the bucket. Ping, ping. Delicate and fastidious as always. Like a detective on one of those CSI cop shows, Rip thought. Harper sifted through the sand with her toes, her skirt hitched at her waist, panties bared, shins dotted with bruises.
“Whoa,” Rip said, taking a breath and slapping his chest as if he’d choked on something, “Sorry. I just freaked out. I never forget him like that.” Just in case Michael might think he was one of those dads, the kind that left their kid dangling from the monkey bars while they updated their Facebook status on their iPhone.
“Don’t sweat it,” Michael said, “I’ve had plenty of moments like that. Where it’s like Harp has vanished from the playground.”
Rip felt a decline in their conversation, a momentary pause, like a record skipping, a common side effect in the sleep-deprived and distraction-rich early years of parenthood.
“Look at these guys,” Rip said, nodding at Hank and Harper’s pebble-sorting project. “Some sand. A few rocks. And they’re in heaven.”
“They’re pretty awesome,” Michael said. “They know what’s up.”
“What do you do for work again?” Rip asked, sheepish as usual. He loathed asking the question since he’d been asked it so often, forced to admit he was doing his job right then and there. His J-O-B was watching his kid.
Michael shook his head. “Meaningless crap. I edit videos for infomercials. Internal films for corporations. Like,” Michael altered his voice so he sounded like the Moviefone guy. “There are five points in the star of teamwork!”
Harper and Hank looked up. Harper shouted, “You’re silly, Daddy!”
Michael smiled and gave them a comical bow. Still, there was something unintentionally graceful and James Dean-esque about it, Rip thought.
“It’s a paycheck,” Rip said.
“Yeah,” Michael said, a smile lifting his stubbled jaw. “You got it.”
He likes me, Rip thought, and felt his cheeks flush. What was he? Some kid in freakin’ grade school?
“But like I was saying,” Michael said. “Kids have got their S-H-I-T together, if you know what I mean. They got, like, perspective. We don’t give them enough credit.”
“Totally,” Rip said, nodding in agreement, thinking this was exactly what he’d said many times at the playgroup, where it seemed the mommies demanded too much from the kids. The mommies expected the kids to have the self-control of adults. No one wants to be friends with a nose-picker. Only babies suck their thumbs. Cookies are for good boys only. Why would you want a child to feel shame when you knew adult life was chock-full of it?
“I like to ask Hank what he thinks about things,” Rip said, hoping he didn’t sound like a self-important fool, what the mommies called sancti-mommies.
“Exactly,” Michael said, and nodded knowingly. As if, Rip thought, it was just the two of them on some mountaintop. Two guys dishing the meaning of life.
“I say the same thing at playgroup,” Rip said. “But the moms, you know. They think I’m crazy.”
He laughed to hide the truth—their giggles at his earnestness made him burn with humiliation.
“They’re just jealous,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah,” Rip said, nodding, as if it was a revelation. And it was. He felt taller, and there was a sharpening in his vision, like he could see all the way across the Long Island Sound. He was the one who deserved the status (the honor, he corrected) of main caregiver. He was the one running around the playground while a kid clung to his back, he was the one rolling across the blacktop while Wyatt, Dash, and Levi piled on top of him, while the neighborhood mommies (those jaded bitches, he thought, surprising himself) sat on a bench, watching their kid show off his or her monkey bar skills—watch me, Mommy! But the mommies weren’t really watching, Rip thought. Sure, their pretty little heads were
turned to watch, and maybe the kids were fooled, but the women continued to yap away—Yadda, yadda, the cost of living in Brooklyn was outrageous! Yadda yadda, another preschool rejection came in the mail! Yadda, yadda, did you hear how little Milo bit little Celeste at Toddler Tom-Toms class—better get that kid evaluated!—remembering to pause once in a while to yell, “Way to go, Wyatt!” or “Super job, Dash!” with half-hearted interest.
He was a professional, full-time, stay-at-home parent. And he was awesome at his job.
He was ready to tell Michael. Normally, he waited a while to dish it all out. Most guys weren’t comfortable—TMI and all that—but Michael felt different.
“You wouldn’t think it,” he whispered to Michael, “but she and I have a lot in common.”
He pointed his beer at Allie, Susanna’s partner/wife/whatever, who was curled up on a chaise lounge at the far end of the deck, where she’d been hiding out with her iPhone ever since the lesbians, twins in tow, had arrived. With her chin resting on bony knees, her sweatshirt hood slung over her head, and her face barely an inch from the screen of her phone, she looked more like a teenager than a mommy, Rip thought.
“You both like to have sex with women?” Michael said, straight-faced.
“Heh. Well, yeah”—Rip smiled—“there’s that.”
The men shared a laugh, and Rip took a leap of faith and clinked his bottle against Michael’s.
“Me and her,” Rip said, looking back to Allie, “we’re both nonbio parents.”
The difference is, Rip thought, she’s about to get her own kid. A surge of resentment wormed through his gut.
Michael gave him “the look.” People paused, their mouths fell open, and their gaze moved just a bit off center. It was always the same when he came out to people, when he revealed he wasn’t Hank’s biological father. Frankly, Rip thought, it was a stupid look, but as soon as they got it, the intelligent light returned to their face, and they practically beamed at their aha moment. Like they were freaking geniuses or something.
“That’s right. I’m not Hank’s biological father. We used an anonymous donor. Donor #1332.” Rip sang the combination of numbers, as he often found himself doing. As if the absurdity of it—the fact Hank’s real father was nothing more than a jumble of symbols—called for a song and dance.
“Wow,” Michael said.
“Yeah,” Rip turned to look over the concrete seawall. The sun loomed large and red, a corona of gold simmering around its rim. “My sperm is kind of slow.”
Rip knew, from experience, that guys didn’t dig sperm talk and it was better to avoid eye contact. He wasn’t out to make anyone uncomfortable, and he sure as hell didn’t want pity. He was happy to tell the tale, to perform it even, if it made for a smoother delivery.
“Yep,” Rip said. “At first, the doctors thought we’d be able to do it. That the boys would rally.”
Michael laughed, and Rip was able to turn around and face him again.
“So we,” he looked over at the kids, “you know … A lot. Then we did it less. Because, apparently, too much depletes the sperm. So then we did it on a schedule. Two years later—after hormone therapy, artificial insemination.” He stopped short and lifted his beer. “To turkey basters!”
Michael answered with his own raised bottle and “Here, here.”
“We picked a donor. One who had my coloring and height. A good old Ashkenazy Jew-boy. And after the third in vitro try.” Rip pointed at Hank, who was huddled in the corner of the deck, his tee shirt pulled over his knees. “Voila! Henry Elijah Cho-Stein.”
“Bravo,” Michael said, and this time it was he who reached out and clinked Rip’s beer with his own. “We’re glad you guys made Hank. Harper adores him.” Michael paused, then continued in a half whisper. “And it’s tough sometimes. For Harp to make friends. She prefers to lead. If you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, well, Hank prefers to follow,” Rip said, finding it impossible to hide the disappointment in his tone, a tone he’d found himself using lately when talking about Hank. Hank who was so sensitive. Hank who cried over everything. Hank who wanted a princess dress.
“So,” Rip continued, “Harper’s devoted to her followers. That’s a good thing.”
“I worry about her,” Michael said, looking out into the sea, where a shimmering corridor shot out from the falling sun. “Charles Manson was devoted to his followers, too.”
There was a pause, filled by the screech of a gull, then they laughed. The laugh of friends, Rip thought, who make you feel better about how fucking ludicrous life can be, who remind you how, all of a sudden, joy can fill a deflated heart.
He knew he could hang with this guy.
The sun was ready to drop into the sea. There was a sense in the air, Rip thought, like surrender.
A flock of geese flew overhead in perfect V formation, honking as if saluting them.
Rip watched as Michael, as if he had read Rip’s mind, saluted up to the sky.
“Hey,” Rip said, “Tiff tells me you knit. We should get a beer or something and you can teach me how.”
“Man,” Michael said with a quick wink, “I can knit the shit out of a baby sweater.”
tit for tat
Tiffany
Tiffany was grateful for the break when the children, along with Tenzin and a terrified-looking Josh, marched upstairs for their baths, their squeals dulled by the closed bathroom door.
Of course, Tiffany thought (in defense of her good mommyhood), she wasn’t as grateful for the children’s absence as some of the mommies. Leigh’s face had grown chalk white with exhaustion as the night neared, and Tiffany had noticed an agitated tremor in Nicole’s hands all afternoon. Maybe Nicole had run out of her secret pink pills.
Tiffany watched as Grace stood up from the sofa and moved toward the kitchen.
“I guess I’ll go ahead and make the kids’ bedtime snacks,” Grace said.
Clearly a passive-aggressive ploy, Tiffany thought. Grace wanted someone to say, No! Sit down and relax. We’ll take care of it.
Tiffany jumped up from her seat. “I’ll give you a hand.”
Grace froze. For a moment, Tiffany wondered if they were going to have it out right then and there. But as quickly as Grace’s eyes had dulled with suspicion, she smiled.
“Would you rather do it?” Grace said. “I know I’m just the visitor here.”
“Don’t be silly!” Tiffany said. For fucksake, she thought.
“I’m sure you don’t need me.”
Tiffany sighed. “Grace,” she said, “let’s do this.”
As she and Grace moved toward the kitchen, Rip hurried over. Like some kind of servant, Tiffany thought.
“I’ll help out,” he said, his hand flat against Grace’s wide back, as if he were pushing both Grace and himself through the kitchen doors.
“No, no, no,” Tiffany said, turning him toward the main room and giving him a shove. “I know you have some important stuff you wanted to discuss with Michael.” She looked at Grace and winked. “Guy stuff,” she added in a dramatic whisper.
Rip slunk back to his chair, staring back at them and reminding Tiffany of the mangy shepherd-mix mutt they’d had for a while when she was a kid. The same hurt it wore when her shithead stepbrother gave it a kick.
“We’ll be fine, sweetie,” Tiffany soothed, fluttering her fingers at him. She felt Grace stiffen at her side. Sweetie. Tiffany stopped herself from blowing Rip a kiss.
Not only had Grace humiliated Tiffany when she’d been trying to help calm a hysterical Hank. Not only had the woman cut her down in front of the whole playgroup. Tiffany’s playgroup. She had then heard Grace ask the room, as if Tiffany and Harper (there was her little girl’s feelings to think of) were invisible, “What’s the normal age for kids to stop breast-feeding?”
Normal. A declaration of war.
Tiffany had waited for the perfect opportunity to enact revenge.
Which was now.
Of course, Tiffany thou
ght, how could Grace know breast-feeding was a sore topic between Tiffany and Michael? That Michael had made a request (it felt more like a command) just last week that she quit nursing, which had boiled over into a three-day battle? Please stop, Michael had pleaded. Even if only (her jaw tightened at the memory) to return her breasts to him. He’d claimed it was having a negative effect on their intimacy. Simplistic psychobabble that sounded nothing like Michael. As if he’d googled “wife won’t stop nursing” and copied some pediatrician’s misogynistic advice verbatim.
She had admitted to the few times she’d accidentally sprayed him during sex, but that had been when Harper was a baby, Tiffany’s breasts engorged, the flow out of her control. And wasn’t there, she had pointed out, like a whole online-porn fetish based on lactating women?
Secretly, part of her was grateful to Michael. She knew nursing a preschooler was unnecessary. She wouldn’t call it “ridiculous” (Michael’s choice), but she’d wanted to wean for a few months—tired of Harper’s fingers pulling and tugging, trying to squeeze a few more drops from breasts that held little more than a few ounces each. Tiffany knew that if she’d made the decision herself, she’d have come to regret it, come to label it selfish, an abandonment of her baby, a failure at mothering. She knew she’d think, you are just like your goddamn mother. Michael had given her permission by demanding she stop. So she would play out her anger for a few more days—she couldn’t let him catch wind of her gratitude—and then she would quit, cold turkey, when they returned to Brooklyn. Or at least she told herself she would.
Now, in the small kitchen of the beach house, Tiffany stood a few feet away from Grace, whose breasts—Tiffany was sure of it—had never been put to their intended use. Rip had told Tiffany that Hank was a formula baby. Maybe, Tiffany allowed, Grace had nursed for a few weeks after Hank’s birth, until the nipple blisters and engorgement and performance anxiety had grown too challenging, then a plastic nipple replaced flesh, synthetic formula replaced mama-milk.
