Smile
I was surprised. He was missing teeth. Three right in front. He wasn’t missing them in his dating profile pictures. But here, at the nice restaurant where we had made plans to meet, they were missing.
I tried hard to remember if he was smiling in his profile pictures. Going forward: they must be smiling in their pictures. Men who wear hats in all their pictures are bald, and I knew now that closed lips meant missing teeth.
At the table, he explained with his British accent that he’d spent the whole day in the dentist’s chair. Maybe the three teeth had been pulled that very day, maybe he would get replacements. I have nothing against fake things, I’d be a hypocrite if I did. My former breasts were rotten with cancer, and his teeth were rotten with whatever. Still, I had a hard time looking at his mouth. I tried to settle for his forehead. His eyes were too eager. I found myself back at his mouth. He wanted to order a bottle of wine.
“Will you have some?” he asked.
“I drink beer. I can’t sleep when I drink wine.”
He smiled even though I could tell he wasn’t very happy with me. I wished he’d kept his mouth closed. He waxed on about the romance of wine. On their first date, his wife and he split a bottle of red and got up to all kinds of naughtiness. I wondered if he’d had all his teeth back then.
I mustered up all my manners and stayed for the rest of dinner, trying my hardest not to make him smile.
Kirston Mann is a costume designer, writer, and artist. She splits her time between Los Angeles and New York City.