Purple is perfect

I’d always wanted white teeth, ever since I could remember. The bigger and shinier the better.

I was obsessed with American mouths in particular, those big gnashers were like the route of all power, the modern ivory trade. If you had the teeth you had the control; got a better job, had a better spouse, one with an equally dangerous mouth.

I suppose my mother was the one who got me into it, watching all those 90’s American sitcoms where everything was perfect. Even when they tried to show you it wasn’t, it basically was. They weren’t eating pork chops or having to wear Wendy from next door’s school blazer because I’d outgrown my year 7 one too quickly. Rachel Green had no experience, no drive, but a perfect smile; so was rewarded with a job at Bloomingdales. I wanted that, but without the teeth it obviously wasn’t going to happen. I’d just remain at home, cursed with British teeth, like Austin Powers but without any of the fame or sex appeal.

I’d bought everything I could find, stuff from Instagram, from China, from celebrities, all with minimal results. The bathroom cupboards began to become stacked with toothpastes and gels and strips and trays and stuff that burnt when you left it on for too long. That’s when you knew it was the good stuff my mother would say, a bit of pain in sacrifice to the cause.

The collection had started to become a fair problem when I’d come home drunk after work one night and had fallen into the bathroom cabinet. The doors secreted purple toothpaste like something out of a Disney horror film gone wrong. I watched it pool onto the floor but I wasn’t in any state to clear it up. I just stared at it blankly, and hoped by some mystic force that the liquid would reverse engineer itself back into each broken bottle and tube.

At night I could hear it dripping. The sound of each drip reverberated around the bathroom like some kind of symbolic gong, a psychotic church bell. It kept calling, taunting, a regular reminder that my teeth just weren’t good enough. Every drip confirmed that they indeed should be whiter, shinier, better, not showing the stains of coffee, red wine and regret.

I let it go on for weeks if not longer. The bathroom slowly filled with purple goop which bleached everything it touched. I still couldn’t bring myself to sort it out, I just wasn’t in the mood. I was never in the mood to be honest with you, at least not lately. I needed my whole body to be in that goop, to be clean and white and whole, let alone my teeth.

I imagined myself covered in the stuff. I rolled around in it, became drunk on it, drunk on the hope that it would hurt and it would work. It clung to my skin and I pushed it into every crevice I could find; the rolls of my stomach, the hooded lids of my eyes, the ear lobes that just weren’t quite the right shape for 2 sets of earrings. The ones that Chelsea Duggan used to point out every chance she’d get.

Now Chelsea had beautiful teeth, like Margot Robbie in the Barbie film. All perfectly shaped like a mouth full of prescription pills. She would flash them in history class. A weapon to accompany her verbal jabs, the hidden dagger she’d use after her words plunged into you, the rest of the class laughing before the victorious blond gladiator delivered her final blow. I just can’t sit with her Mr Robbie, look at her ears!

It didn’t matter, I didn’t want to be like Chelsea Duggan. A 31-year-old mum of 3 with a part time job at Boots. Not that there’s anything wrong with working in Boots just to be clear. She’d wasted those teeth, that perfect mouth like Rachel Green. I kept thinking what I could have done if I had her teeth, what my life might have been like if her teeth would have been in my mouth.

I might be in Milan, relaxing in some apartment before a big runway show, having been scouted at The Clothes Show in Birmingham when I was 13. They took a picture of me but it never came of anything. I’d wasted a whole week picking out an outfit for the damn event. I’d meticulously selected every piece to ensure it gave off the perfect mixture of sophisticated and ‘I don’t give a shit’ which culminated in a black biker hat that ironically came back into fashion two years ago.

I might be happily married to that long jumper I’d dated in university. He had the most pristine teeth, no match for my tiny things. He would flash them on the regular when he flirted with girls, like a shark circling little fish prey, most of the time when I was still in ear shot. 

I might be a better daughter. Smiled more, showed my teeth more, showed my mother I cared about her more.

I might just be happier, not laid on a bathroom floor covered in purple goop.

I’d been laying on the bathroom floor for 2 days at this point, the dog had started to stare at me with his own set of pearly whites. My nose felt prickly, like that feeling you get when you watch a film with someone at the cinema and you don’t want them to see you cry. The dog licked my face, half in worry half to probably decide how I tasted.

I managed to get up and sit on the toilet seat. My phone had 64 missed calls on it, most of which had been in the last hour from my mother, accompanied by a suite of text messages. She’d be here any minute by the looks of things.

I automatically opened up Facebook and searched for Chelsea Duggan. Her beautiful face appeared along with a recent photo album of her equally beautiful kids. I decided to write on her wall to wish her a Happy New Year. Within a minute she had liked the post and replied.

A very happy New Year to you too lovely! We should meet up for coffee soon, would be great to catch up

I heard my mother unlock the front door, shouting upstairs to try and find me. I decided in that moment that this year’s resolution would be to redesign the bathroom, just with no cabinets.