Teeth
I picture her sucking one of those cold, red toned fingertips into her square mouth, the tip hitting her straight white teeth, pulling it out and wiping a smudge of ink off my temple. Her name is Margaret, and she's 45 years old, possibly older. A strong woman, a professor, feeding us knowledge like apples.
“Hello Emily.” Margaret's stopped between the music and sociology building to say hello to me. Straight bones lined up from hips to her collarbone, and just one more reason I feel so oddly unlike myself when she's near. Are those bones lined up so straightly or is that just the impression from such upright posture?
“Hi Margaret.” Oh god, I should just have called her professor, I think, but I want her to step closer with that healthy looking body and those heavy black clogs. “Are you enjoying this beautiful weather?”
Who else says that, ‘this beautiful weather?’ I know, of course, my mother. I feel sad that Margaret had to ask the first question. Yet I love it. It feels maternal, just like that maternal instinct in her that makes her touch my elbow, moving me out of the way of an oncoming bicycle. I hate that this topic starts our conversation, and that it stimulates me just because she is talking to me. I hate that it’s such a short walk across campus to her building.
“Yeah, it’s so beautiful.” I pause, run through too many things I want to tell her about me but it all sounds narcissistic and I want to engage her. So instead:
“What about you, you’re not so busy you can’t enjoy it?” We’re walking now through a small and overgrown garden to her building, and I watch that straight back covered in a classy black turtle neck and watch her long strides.
“No, I'm not too busy. I’m actually on leave for this semester. I just have the one class that I’m teaching right now.” My class, those 3 hours in my week I am so strangely anxious about. That’s why I never see her on campus, I think, that’s why I miss her wide smile and straight white teeth in the library or cafeteria or on the steps to her building.
“Oh, is that nice for you, just teaching one class?” I feel like Ruth in the wheat field, trying to glean the small morsels I can.
“It's nice in that I have time to give to other projects that I'm working on, yeah" She pauses, then offers me more. "I do have a few other things I’m working on.” Her smile is bland at this, as if she accepts my as yet hypothetical apathy regarding her personal projects. My desire to learn more spikes.
“Oh? Can I ask what you’re working on?” Her building is in front of us and we have to separate soon.
“Well, I have some art that I’m working on. I’m actually opening my own studio next spring.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were an artist. That’s so neat. You must love it, to be opening your own studio.” Does that high note at the end of my sentence make me sound desperate?
I leave campus, a small brown girl on a bike, my straight black hair like a cape behind me. Alone, with just the wind biting and kissing my cheeks, and think about her straight white teeth. I check my messages when I come home. My mother never called me back about her birthday. That’s four messages I’ve left her to the zero she’s left me. Where is she? I picture those polka-dotted airy gowns they give in-patients in the hospital, just a few ties at the back, and always, so large they droop sloppily on her condensed form. I see her lying on her stained tile floor. Arms tossed from her sides, her legs covered in empty Molson’s cans and maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels, hair tied up in leftover food or maybe unwashed clothes, sleeping.
Has she been evicted? I see a small Indian woman with eternally blushing cheeks from burst blood vessels, black straight hair with skunk-like streaks of white and her limp. That huge limp, her shoulders reacting and moving like a small see-saw above faded black jeans. And I see her smile. That little smile. Yellow crooked teeth and spaces in between. Will she phone if she has no place to go? I walk away from that blank, black square on my machine that tells me nobody has called me. Down a dark corridor to my room.
I walk to my computer. Open the screen. A scene of green water and rocks in the south of France greets me and I open up my hotmail. Nothing. Gmail. Nothing. Facebook. No new notifications. New address, my blog. No comments. I sit, and run my tongue over my teeth. Mine are crooked on the bottom, twisted into each other, and I want braces, which I don’t need, to fix my teeth. There is stale coffee beside me and I drink from its well. I open up my Gmail again, and compose a message.
Hello Margaret,
It’s Emily Stonieson emailing from your English 200 class. I was wondering about the assignment you gave for this week. Does it have a maximum? I know you mentioned two pages but my work is already over 3 pages! I’d also like to talk about our upcoming project with you. Just to make sure I’m on the right track but I’m in class during your office hours. Is there a time outside of that that you are free to meet with me? Thanks very much and have a good week!
Emily
P.S. By the way, as a student, I’m really enjoying your teaching methods and the class. It’s very engaging.
I read it over, once, twice, changing my wording, changing it back. Adding a P.S. Deleting it. Adding it again. I read it once more, and press send. I go back to my inbox. No new messages. I wait. Run my tongue over my teeth. There’s a film forming over them. My coffee breath must be rank. I need to brush my teeth. I need to shower.
I turn the water on. It needs to be hot, so it burns my skin and makes it itch. I strip, and my clothes make soft noises as they hit the tile floor. Swish, thud, swish. The light is so artificial, it feels cheap as it covers my compact body, hungry little belly tucked in, thin lips, brown eyes. I want to turn the light off, light a candle, but I have none. I step into that water. I shampoo my hair twice, and wash my skin. Soaping expensive eco-friendly soap that smells of thyme and green tea over my brown skin.
I see: my mother’s crooked teeth bared in a feral smile. I turn, and wash the soap off. I think I smell beer. Molson’s. I picture it stale and warm, leftover and sitting on a mouldy second hand coffee table marred with pale round circles. I sink, for a moment, into the wall, and let the water press against my face and my eyes, and then my face itches and I turn around, rubbing my hands over my eyes and my cheeks and my hair, over my mouth, and my nose, and again, pressing into my eyes. I turn the water off. Step out, and dry. New, clean clothes.
I return to my computer screen. Open up my inbox. No new messages. I refresh the page. Again, nothing. Refresh again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again, again, again. Nothing. The screen slides out of focus. My face is wet again. She hasn’t emailed me back. I picture those straight white teeth, clicking away in rapid chatter with her husband, maybe her daughter, eating dinner with them, and not replying to my message. Refresh. Nothing. Little tremors run through me, down to my hand as I close the box. I have handkerchiefs now. This one is a pale green, folded neatly into a square. I unfold it in my hands, picture somebody else’s hands unfolding it. Small and white and clean. Elegant, with clipped fingernails and strong and only slightly aged knuckles. Picture them gently wiping away my mess.
“Hello Emily.” Margaret's stopped between the music and sociology building to say hello to me. Straight bones lined up from hips to her collarbone, and just one more reason I feel so oddly unlike myself when she's near. Are those bones lined up so straightly or is that just the impression from such upright posture?
“Hi Margaret.” Oh god, I should just have called her professor, I think, but I want her to step closer with that healthy looking body and those heavy black clogs. “Are you enjoying this beautiful weather?”
Who else says that, ‘this beautiful weather?’ I know, of course, my mother. I feel sad that Margaret had to ask the first question. Yet I love it. It feels maternal, just like that maternal instinct in her that makes her touch my elbow, moving me out of the way of an oncoming bicycle. I hate that this topic starts our conversation, and that it stimulates me just because she is talking to me. I hate that it’s such a short walk across campus to her building.
“Yeah, it’s so beautiful.” I pause, run through too many things I want to tell her about me but it all sounds narcissistic and I want to engage her. So instead:
“What about you, you’re not so busy you can’t enjoy it?” We’re walking now through a small and overgrown garden to her building, and I watch that straight back covered in a classy black turtle neck and watch her long strides.
“No, I'm not too busy. I’m actually on leave for this semester. I just have the one class that I’m teaching right now.” My class, those 3 hours in my week I am so strangely anxious about. That’s why I never see her on campus, I think, that’s why I miss her wide smile and straight white teeth in the library or cafeteria or on the steps to her building.
“Oh, is that nice for you, just teaching one class?” I feel like Ruth in the wheat field, trying to glean the small morsels I can.
“It's nice in that I have time to give to other projects that I'm working on, yeah" She pauses, then offers me more. "I do have a few other things I’m working on.” Her smile is bland at this, as if she accepts my as yet hypothetical apathy regarding her personal projects. My desire to learn more spikes.
“Oh? Can I ask what you’re working on?” Her building is in front of us and we have to separate soon.
“Well, I have some art that I’m working on. I’m actually opening my own studio next spring.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were an artist. That’s so neat. You must love it, to be opening your own studio.” Does that high note at the end of my sentence make me sound desperate?
I leave campus, a small brown girl on a bike, my straight black hair like a cape behind me. Alone, with just the wind biting and kissing my cheeks, and think about her straight white teeth. I check my messages when I come home. My mother never called me back about her birthday. That’s four messages I’ve left her to the zero she’s left me. Where is she? I picture those polka-dotted airy gowns they give in-patients in the hospital, just a few ties at the back, and always, so large they droop sloppily on her condensed form. I see her lying on her stained tile floor. Arms tossed from her sides, her legs covered in empty Molson’s cans and maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels, hair tied up in leftover food or maybe unwashed clothes, sleeping.
Has she been evicted? I see a small Indian woman with eternally blushing cheeks from burst blood vessels, black straight hair with skunk-like streaks of white and her limp. That huge limp, her shoulders reacting and moving like a small see-saw above faded black jeans. And I see her smile. That little smile. Yellow crooked teeth and spaces in between. Will she phone if she has no place to go? I walk away from that blank, black square on my machine that tells me nobody has called me. Down a dark corridor to my room.
I walk to my computer. Open the screen. A scene of green water and rocks in the south of France greets me and I open up my hotmail. Nothing. Gmail. Nothing. Facebook. No new notifications. New address, my blog. No comments. I sit, and run my tongue over my teeth. Mine are crooked on the bottom, twisted into each other, and I want braces, which I don’t need, to fix my teeth. There is stale coffee beside me and I drink from its well. I open up my Gmail again, and compose a message.
Hello Margaret,
It’s Emily Stonieson emailing from your English 200 class. I was wondering about the assignment you gave for this week. Does it have a maximum? I know you mentioned two pages but my work is already over 3 pages! I’d also like to talk about our upcoming project with you. Just to make sure I’m on the right track but I’m in class during your office hours. Is there a time outside of that that you are free to meet with me? Thanks very much and have a good week!
Emily
P.S. By the way, as a student, I’m really enjoying your teaching methods and the class. It’s very engaging.
I read it over, once, twice, changing my wording, changing it back. Adding a P.S. Deleting it. Adding it again. I read it once more, and press send. I go back to my inbox. No new messages. I wait. Run my tongue over my teeth. There’s a film forming over them. My coffee breath must be rank. I need to brush my teeth. I need to shower.
I turn the water on. It needs to be hot, so it burns my skin and makes it itch. I strip, and my clothes make soft noises as they hit the tile floor. Swish, thud, swish. The light is so artificial, it feels cheap as it covers my compact body, hungry little belly tucked in, thin lips, brown eyes. I want to turn the light off, light a candle, but I have none. I step into that water. I shampoo my hair twice, and wash my skin. Soaping expensive eco-friendly soap that smells of thyme and green tea over my brown skin.
I see: my mother’s crooked teeth bared in a feral smile. I turn, and wash the soap off. I think I smell beer. Molson’s. I picture it stale and warm, leftover and sitting on a mouldy second hand coffee table marred with pale round circles. I sink, for a moment, into the wall, and let the water press against my face and my eyes, and then my face itches and I turn around, rubbing my hands over my eyes and my cheeks and my hair, over my mouth, and my nose, and again, pressing into my eyes. I turn the water off. Step out, and dry. New, clean clothes.
I return to my computer screen. Open up my inbox. No new messages. I refresh the page. Again, nothing. Refresh again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again, again, again. Nothing. The screen slides out of focus. My face is wet again. She hasn’t emailed me back. I picture those straight white teeth, clicking away in rapid chatter with her husband, maybe her daughter, eating dinner with them, and not replying to my message. Refresh. Nothing. Little tremors run through me, down to my hand as I close the box. I have handkerchiefs now. This one is a pale green, folded neatly into a square. I unfold it in my hands, picture somebody else’s hands unfolding it. Small and white and clean. Elegant, with clipped fingernails and strong and only slightly aged knuckles. Picture them gently wiping away my mess.
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