Mary worries that she’s taking up too much space in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. She tries to make herself small on the sofa beside her mom, picturing a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied up tight with string. The air is dry and powdery. The light is low. Magazines fan across a table in a colorful arc. It is a small and cozy room, this waiting room, cozier than her living room at home. Mary sometimes worries that she steals air from others. Her father has implied this over the years. “Mary, sit down. Mary, be quiet. Are you listening, Mary? Jesus Christ, Mary, get up! Do you see Grandmom standing right there? Give her your chair. Why do I have to tell you these things? Mom, I’m talking to Mary. Mind your business. You’re an idiot, mom. You are a pain in my ass, Mary. If you would just listen to me. Get me a beer, Mary. Are you going to take my cup? Where the hell are you going to pour it? In your hands? Are you going to answer me? Mary, answer me when I ask you a question! Be quiet, Mary. I cannot listen to your voice for one more minute.” Mary takes all of the air and then no one else can breathe. She feels badly about this and works to take shallow breaths. She practices in her bed at night in the dark. Cool sheets, shallow breaths.
A thin woman sits on a chair in the waiting room. She wears high heels. Her fingers glitter with rocks and gems. Her hands are a sparkly pile in her lap. An old man in a blue button down shirt reads a magazine opened on his lap. A cane stands against the chair beside him. The man’s knees fold sharply in his creased pants. A fish tank hums by the door to the office. The water glows bright and blue as a popsicle on wooden sticks, and fish turn in loops in the water. Gills flutter beside their puckered mouths like small hands waving. Mary’s fingers flutter in her lap. Her breath catches. She is embarrassed. She is hot. She wants to die. She looks around. No one is looking at her. No one saw. Her face is hot. Her neck is hot. She smells differently than normal people. When she spends the night at her friend Kristy’s house, Kristy’s mom strips the bed after the girls go downstairs for breakfast. Every time. As soon as the girls leave the bedroom, Kristy’s mom runs upstairs to strip the bed. Kristy’s mom doesn’t like her. She thinks Mary is weird. Mary is weird. Her organs are ugly, and she wears them on the outside like a sweatshirt or a pair of sneakers. It makes people uncomfortable, the way that she glistens and pulses. She is a wet pile of girl, shining and shining. People shield their eyes against her glare. It is obscene. She is obscene. She looks like an exposed sex organ, and this is not what pretty mothers want sleeping beside their pretty daughters. Kristy’s mom would pick a nice girl named Angela who had a small smile and thin knees. Angela would wear headbands and her socks would always be white, even the bottoms. Kristy’s mom would not change the sheets after Angela spent the night. The sheets would smell like apples and clouds after Angela stayed the night, and the next Thursday, Kristy’s mom would bite into an apple in the car after swim practice and say to Kristy, “Why don’t you see if Angela’s around this weekend? Maybe we could take her to the Flower Market and then have a sleepover. Maybe Angela’s mom and I can get dinner while you girls go on the rides.” Mary’s mom is very quiet. She is a scared mouse who hides behind doors. She startles like a mouse when doors slam. She does not like to go to restaurants or drink wine. She does not hold a wine glass between her long fingers, painted fingernails flashing. She drinks big plastic tumblers of Mountain Dew from 7-11. She stirs the soda with a red plastic straw, moving sround the ice cubes so the drink stays cold. Mary’s mom has chapped fingers. Her hands are red and raw, like uncooked meat left to dry out on the counter, the pool of blood evaporating. Angela’s mom is like a bowl of lemons in a warm kitchen. Kristy’s mom is like an apple pie cooling on an ironing board set up in the porch. Mary’s mom washes dishes in the kitchen of a restaurant all day. Probably Kristy’s mom would not like to go to dinner with Mary’s mom anyway. Mary’s mom wouldn’t talk. She would smile nervously, her eyes darting around the restaurant like an animal. She would laugh at weird times. Her laugh would jar the patrons at other tables. People go to dinner to relax, to unwind. Things would get awkward. Everyone would be uncomfortable. Mary’s mom makes her uncomfortable. Mary feels awkward always but especially so when her mom is there. One time in church, Mary’s dad made a joke to a friend in the next pew. Mary’s mom had dyed her hair and something went wrong. Her hair was pink. Mary’s dad guffawed in the pew. His friend looked embarrassed. Everyone was always embarrassed. Breathing was embarrassing. Winter hats were embarrassing. Thermoses that smelled like sour orange juice were embarrassing. Mary was embarrassed when her mom cried. Mary’s mom’s face screwed up like a wet washcloth around her nose, and her eyes filled. Mary could tell that the tears were hot. She wished her mom would not make a scene. The friend stuttered, “Ah, well now…” The friend was uncomfortable. Mary’s dad laughed. Mary laughed. Mary’s mom cried into her hands. Mary’s ankles swung from the pew bench. Mary smelled her mom’s tears. Her throat burned in the back, and Mary’s ankles let loose like water. Her shiny maryjanes were not hers. They were another little girl’s shoes. Organ music did not swell. It tinkered out an awkward tune, and mass began.
Mary’s bones hum quietly as she sits in the chair in the waiting room at the dentist’s. She pulls her arms and legs in tight, her elbows pressing at her waist. Hands joined in her lap, thighs sewn together with a tight seam. She pulls her pelvis back and up until she’s not really sitting on the chair but floating over it. No one wants to see her legs. Her kneecaps are too big. They make her feel immature and needy. No one wants to see her pelvis. Tuck it away, out of sight. It’s a filthy pelvis. She will rattle when she stands up. She will disrupt the peace of others. The man with the cane will want to move to the other side of the room. He will be nice about it, acting like he’s interested in that magazine, right over there. The woman with rings will stand up and walk out of the office. She does not need this. She’ll come back another time. Mary leaves the smell of sour blood in her wake, sharp and metallic and rancid. Her gums shine. You can’t see other people’s gums like you can see hers. She knows this. They are pink and swollen. A sex organ across her face, catching the light and shining wetly. Her teeth are broken. That is why she is here. Her mouth smells. The dentist will want to throw up in his lap. He will not want to make her feel badly. She’s only a child, and after all, he has grandchildren himself. But the smell will be too much to bear. Her skin is a series of peeling scabs. When she stands up to walk, her bones rattle and set people’s nerves on edge and she will leave a trail of powdery dead skin behind her. The trail will look like ashes, a messy line of cremains. Mary’s eyes smell like rot. Her mouth is bloodshot. She brings out the very ugliest in even very beautiful people. She understands this. It is why Kristy’s mom will say that it might be fun to have Angela over. It is why Kristy will come to realize that her and Angela have much more in common, and she will ask Angela to go to the beach with her family in April to open the trailer. Mary says quick prayers to fit in to life. She is forever overflowing her box, like bread dough left under a wet towel to rise in the laundry closet. And rise. And rise. And swell. And stick to everything. Mary, why can’t I open the goddamn doors? What the hell is sticking? I was supposed to leave for work ten minutes ago! Go get your mother. Jesus fucking Christ, Mary, why are the goddamned doors stuck?
