Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker

Author:Chandler Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

TWENTY-THREE

“It happened again,” Lincoln’s mom, Chelsea, murmurs to Mary Beth at the playground.

“Again?” She feels fragile, like one of those rickety toothpick-and-marshmallow bridges built by elementary schoolers. “You’re kidding,” she says. “Where?”

“This time, it was in the book nook,” Chelsea says, then adds darkly, “The class copy of Dragons Love Tacos has been permanently removed.”

To date, there’ve been two mysterious incidents since the first, one at the bottom of the slide, one in the play kitchen. This marks the fourth incursion.

She angles her body to shield herself from the wind, which has picked up over the course of the day. Above them, the American flag flaps violently against the pole. “So who was it? Do we know?”

“Still the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

They watch their children play normally within the fenced border of the playground area. It feels like they’re being detained. A look around at all the other adult faces in attendance and none of them suggest a parent who is having a good day.

Mary Beth has always been fascinated to see the way the office of president of the United States ages a man—so far only a man—in four years, but that’s nothing, that’s only four years. By that math, Mary Beth has already served two terms as mother and still has years and years to go. She tries to imagine what she’ll look like by her kids’ eighteenth birthdays and then thinks, better not.

“I don’t understand how that’s possible? A child can’t drop trou and do…” She waves her hands around for effect. “That without anyone seeing.”

“This one can,” Chelsea intones ominously. “Asher’s dad is over there giving Mrs. Tokem an earful.”

“It’s not Mrs. Tokem’s fault, really.”

“She called the cops.”

“She what? Why? Why would she do that? It’s not a crime. Or it shouldn’t be when kids—when—” A creeping, sick sensation turns over her own bowels. “You know what? I’ll just go investigate, at least represent the class. In an official Room Mom capacity.” She pulls herself together, tucking herself in, making herself as tall as a woman who has never managed to clear five foot three inches can possibly look. She can fix this. That’s what she does, that’s who Mary Beth is. She’s a fixer.

But, as she approaches Asher’s father, Bill, and Mrs. Tokem where they stand talking over the playground fence, she’s sweating in all the places you can’t see.

“I was specifically asked to provide this sort of information,” Mrs. Tokem is saying, and for a flash Mary Beth hates her, this stupid, old, no-fun woman in knee-length shorts. And it’s an emotion that shocks her system because Mary Beth hasn’t hated anyone, maybe ever. “If any became available. I’ve been in close contact with the detectives on the case.” As though she’s been given some sort of volunteer deputy sheriff star to pin to that beige cardigan of hers.

“But—” Mary Beth stammers, not waiting for an opportune moment to interject, just going for it. “But what were you thinking?”

Mrs. Tokem has adopted a “power stance,” feet wide apart on the playground’s artificial turf.

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