“And that’s it!” Annette gave Morgan a dazzling smile. “Congratulations! I’m so excited for you!” Annette’s enthusiasm was infectious. Morgan smiled back.
“Thankth!” she said, the lisp surprising her. “Oh! I gueth I’ve got to get uthed to thpeaking with all of thith,” Morgan gave an embarrassed laugh.
“It’s an adjustment,” Annette agreed. “You look like you’re dressed for work? I can help you take your headgear off.”
Holding the pouch stuffed with her headgear and all its straps, Morgan stepped out into the lobby. She checked her phone. She had just enough time to make it to work, at least if there were no traffic delays.
And of course, in Houston, there were. Morgan jogged up to the back entrance of the pharmacy, typed the security code in the door, and hurriedly clocked in for her shift. She was only a couple of minutes late. Traffic had been nuts, so she’d had to concentrate on the road, and now the afternoon rush at the pharmacy was in full swing, so there was still no chance to check out her new braces in a mirror.
Morgan had been feeling all around them with her lips and tongue while she drove, but there’d be no chance to slip away to the bathroom and see what it looked like.
“There you are,” said Mariana, the lead pharmacy tech, “go work a register,” she ordered, bustling away. Mariana, when she wasn’t harried by customers, was Morgan’s friend.
Morgan logged in to the register, pulled the “Closed” placard from the counter, and, awkwardly smiling at her first customer, said “How can I help you?”
The four hours of her shift went by in a blink. When she had time to think about it, Morgan was glad the pharmacy had been slammed. She’d never really had a chance to be self-conscious, since she was so focused on work. Even though she was aware of her lisp, none of the customers had seemed to care. The only time her braces had been mentioned at all was by a young woman in a University of Houston t-shirt who smiled to show off her own metallic braces to Morgan and gave a thumbs-up as Morgan handed over her prescription, saying “Love the colors!”
Morgan walked in the kitchen door of her house feeling confident again. Jeff was in the kitchen, pulling more of his frozen lasagna out of the oven. Carrie was leaning against the counter, sipping from a canned beer. Her eyes lit up, her round cheeks dimpled, and she gave Morgan a heavy metal smile of genuine pleasure.
“Hey sweetie!” Carrie’s elastics stretched at the corners of her mouth as she smiled. “Your text message made my day. I’m so proud of you.” She put the beer on the counter and stepped across the kitchen to give Morgan a hug.
“Aww, thankth Mom,” Morgan said, giving Carrie a broad smile. Carrie’s eyes registered surprise before she smiled again at Morgan.
“I’m really proud of you,” she said again, hugging her daughter.
“U of H colors,” Jeff nodded, placing plates of lasagna on the table. “Nice.”
“Do you mind me asking what changed your mind about getting braces?” Carrie asked, gently.
“Elithe thaid loth of people in the pharmathy program get bratheth,” Morgan explained, “tho I don’t need to worry about being the only one. And Elithe got bratheth, too. Thorry,” she put her hand over her mouth, blushing, “I have a big lithp.”
“I’m not having trouble understanding you, sweetie,” Carrie said, reassuringly.
They ate dinner, chatting about their days; Jeff and Carrie expertly weaving forks past their elastics. Morgan struggled, realizing for the first time all day that the large acrylic bite block behind her front teeth was the only thing that made contact with her bottom teeth, forcing her to chew by mashing food between the bite block and her lower front teeth. She snagged her elastics a few times with the tines of her fork, slingshotting lasagna and meat sauce across the table.
After a while, Jeff and Carrie having cleared their dishes and tidied the kitchen as Morgan laboriously chewed, she put her fork down.
“I am thuppothed to wear headgear,” Morgan announced to her parents. “Twelve hourth a day minimum, but ath many hourth ath pothible when I can. I’m going to put it on now, and if you thee me without it, can you help remind me to wear it?”
“Sure, honey,” Jeff said. Carrie nodded her assent.
In the bathroom, Morgan leaned toward her mirror, grimacing at herself as she saw her orthodontia for the first time. The bright red ligatures were definitely eye-catching and the shiny metal brackets and wires were impossible not to notice, but Morgan realized she didn’t hate how her smile looked with braces. It was different, metallic and obvious, but not bad. She opened and closed her mouth, seeing the rubberbands on the sides stretch. The bite block hung down, visible below and behind her top front teeth, the translucent acrylic making it look a bit like an ice cube stuck in the roof of her mouth. She bit down, seeing how only her bottom four front teeth could touch it, the rest of her teeth half an inch apart. The expanders in the roof and floor of her mouth made a hard, irregular surface for her tongue. Morgan’s tongue had been tracing the arms and expansion screws of the appliances all day, trying to get used to its new home.
She unpacked the headgear pouch Annette had given her and, after several missed attempts, aimed the ends of the facebow into the tubes on her top molars, then strapped the bright red combination straps around her head.
–
Monday morning, Morgan used the parking permit she’d received in the mail to open the gate across from the pharmacy building. She pulled her battered Kia into the student parking area and carefully double-checked the backpack she’d packed last night. Brand-new laptop with the school’s required specs, Elise’s binder of study materials, large water bottle, lunch-bag with soft foods, a toothbrush and baggie of elastics.
Smiling, excited, Morgan locked her car and walked with a bouncy step toward the building and the door with a placard reading “Pharmacy 1st Year Class.”
