How to Rock Braces and Glasses

by Meg Haston

  “I can’t believe he blew you off,” I said as I hopped off the stage. “Those jeans must be cutting off blood flow to his brain.” But when I squinted at her face, all I saw was an enormous smile.

  “He’s so committed to his art,” she breathed. “Hot.”

  “You’re delusional,” I muttered, dragging her to the circle forming at the edge of the rink. Quinn was break dancing at the center.

  “Wild-er! Wild-er! Wild-er!” the guys hooted while Quinn spun on his head.

  Quinn whipped his body to standing while the circle erupted in screams and cheers. Then he did a victory lap around the circle.

  Until he got to me.

  “Come on, Simon!” he yelled, grabbing my wrist. “Let’s go!”

  “Quinn!” I shrieked, pawing blindly at the air.

  “Si-mon! Si-mon! Si-mon!” The guys switched chants as Quinn whisked me to the center of the action and spun me around. Without even trying, I was skating backward on pure adrenaline, floating through the pulsing, starry air to the screams of everyone at Marquette. It was an out-of-body experience. Some would call it nirvana. Others would call it heaven. I called it Saturday night, starring Kacey Simon and Quinn Wilder.

  Quinn Wilder. Somehow I’d lost sight of him in the sea of fuzzy, chanting faces. I whirled around in search of my costar. But before I could find him, I slammed into something. Someone? And then my brain switched to slow-mo. Suddenly my skates were in the air, hovering over my head. Wait. I don’t know how to do a back flip. This was definitely not part of the Kacey-Quinn romance montage. Stop! Do-over! Rewind! Somewhere far away, somebody screamed my name. Molly?

  Overhead, a giant, spinning disco ball. And then my movie cut to black.

  PARTY FOUL FALLOUT

  Saturday, 9:39 P.M.

  In breaking news situations, a responsible journalist gathers as many facts as possible to avoid jumping to conclusions and subsequently freaking out. Those of us in the business call it gathering the five W’s: Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

  Allow me.

  Who: Me.

  What: A warm white light pouring over me. Head throbbing. Mom, murmuring my name from far away.

  Where: Last time I checked, a busted warehouse.

  When: Sometime after Molly’s lame-turned-amazing birthday party.

  Why: Isn’t it obvious? A warm white light? I’M. DEAD.

  “Kacey. Kacey.” Now it was a man’s voice, deep and gravelly. My eyelids fluttered open and I stared directly into the light.

  “God?” I whispered.

  Only it came out sounding more like this: Mraaaaaw? Because there was something thick and dry and fluffy stuffed in my cheeks, which were numb. And my jaw was throbbing more painfully than the time I did sixty-five minutes of live coverage on last semester’s Lunch Lady Mutiny.

  I tried to lift my hand to massage my jaw, but it was as heavy as lead.

  “Kacey.” A hand pressed down on my shoulder, and I squirmed beneath it, jerking away from the light. It wasn’t my time! I hadn’t gotten to do all the things I wanted to do before I graduated from middle school. Like revolutionize broadcast television! Off-stage smooch Quinn Wilder! Finish the entire Big Daddy cupcake at Sugar Daddy to get my name on the chalkboard over the register!

  “Here she is.” Mom’s warm breath tickled my ear, and the white light dimmed. Then I felt the heavy plastic frames settling onto the bridge of my nose. I tried to scream, but nothing came out.

  “Welcome back, kiddo.” A dark shadow leaned between me and the light, and tiny gold fireworks exploded in front of my pupils as my eyes adjusted. The sharp, skinny red and white stripes came into focus first. Then came the navy cursive embroidery that read MARVIN HAUSSMAN, D.D.S.

  Not God. Just my too-nerdy-to-live dentist, who said things like “kiddo” (and once, “okie dokie, artichokie,” which should be grounds for a malpractice suit).

  “What’s going on?” I murmured groggily, which sounded more like Mraaaaaaw mraaaaaw mraw mraw?

  Luckily Mom read my mind. “You fell at Molly’s party,” she said gently, her fingertips grazing my throbbing cheek. It reminded me of when I was a little kid, and home sick from school. “Looks like you chipped a molar. Dr. Haussman was nice enough to meet us at his office to take a look.”

  “My pleasure, Sterling.” Dr. Haussman slid on his wire-rimmed glasses and leaned over the exam chair. “All righty, little lady, let’s get those cotton balls out of your mouth. Then we can talk about our options.” As Marvin Haussman, D.D.S., leaned over and pulled out the cotton balls, his silk sleeve grazed my cheek. This must have triggered some sort of PTSD flashback, because suddenly, the entire night came screaming back at warp speed, with sound and everything. And I saw the Sunday morning headline in cold, hard black and white: WORLD’S YOUNGEST BLIND JOURNALIST TRIPS OVER SHAGGY-HAIRED HOTTIE DURING STEAMY PRE-KISS DANCE-OFF; HELD HOSTAGE BY DORKY DENTIST IN SILK JAMMIES.

  I screamed and bolted upright, slamming my head into the overhead exam light.

  “Kacey!” Mom gasped. “Careful!”

  “Owwwwwwwwwww!” I bellowed, collapsing back into the chair. But the pain in my head and mouth was nothing compared to the pain of knowing that Quinn Wilder had seen the fall. Was he having second thoughts about me? About us?

  “Easy, kiddo.” Dr. Haussman’s potbelly shook when he chuckled.

  Oh, is this funny to you? I wanted to scream. Is my public humiliation amusing?

  “Now let’s get you upright so we can chat.” The exam chair hummed beneath me.

  I raked my hands through my hair. How could he be so calm at a time like this? He had no idea what it felt like for a public figure to hit rock bottom.

  “Believe it or not, it’s a good thing you fell when you did.” Dr. Haussman cleared his throat. The middle button on his pajama top shimmied dangerously, threatening to free itself from the buttonhole. “Forced me to take a look at your wisdom teeth, which are coming in very tight. They’re altering the alignment of your entire mouth.”

  The exam light was starting to make me sweat. “Is there a point to this?”

  “Kacey, let Dr. Haussman finish.” The sympathetic cushion to Mom’s voice was starting to deflate.

  “The point is that you’re going to need orthodontic work to address these concerns, or I’m afraid you’ll see a fairly severe maxillary prognathism in the next few years.”

  “Translation?” I jerked my head toward Mom. I hated it when adults used big words. It was like when some people were just trying to help certain geometry teachers by politely mentioning that short-sleeved shirts with dancing patriotic teddy bears on them should be reserved for pediatric nurses and insane cat ladies. And then certain geometry teachers sent a note home threatening disciplinary remediation. Which was PSAT for detention.

  Mom pressed her lips together like she was blotting her lipstick. “You need braces, or you’ll end up with an overbite,” she said gently, interlacing her fingers with mine and squeezing.

  My entire body went tingly, then completely numb, as if Dr. Haussman had just injected me with a giant shot of Novocain.

  “Due to the placement of your wisdom teeth, Invisalign isn’t an option,” Dr. Haussman said from somewhere far away. “You’ll need braces, plus a night retainer and headgear.”

  Dazed, I stared at the reflection of the bug-eyed tortoiseshell frames in Mom’s eyes. They invaded my face. That girl wasn’t me. Her cheeks were puffy, her eyes glazed over. Her hair was matted to her head. She was… ugly. I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.

  “Mom,” I managed, squeezing her hand. “No. Please.” She had to understand. If I ever showed up at school looking like this, everyone would abandon me. Just like Dad abandoned her. Us.

  “I’m sorry, Kacey. This is just something we’re going to have to do.”

  “But… I can’t.” Hot anger churned in my gut. Stop him, Mom. Please.

  “Kacey,” Mom said gently. “It’s just braces, sweetheart.”

  But
I knew she was lying. It was never just braces. First you got braces. Then you lost your television show because the camera guy was blinded by your braces, which was an occupational hazard. Then Quinn Wilder decided not to like you anymore, because who wanted to stage-kiss a girl with metal welded to her teeth? Then the rest of the school decided not to like you, because Quinn Wilder’s hair tosses were very persuasive. Fast-forward a few years, and you were reading the lotto numbers on basic cable somewhere in one of the Dakotas because no one else would even look at you, let alone hire you as a journalist.

  Clearly, Dr. Haussman didn’t understand this unavoidable chain of events, either. Or else he wouldn’t have snapped on his little paper mask and said the two most torturous words in the English language:

  “Open wide.”

  H IS FOR HOMESCHOOL

  Monday, 6:45 A.M.

  On Monday morning, the only thing vibrating louder than my Channel 5 ringtone alarm was my jaw. I kept my eyes screwed shut and slapped at my nightstand until my phone hit the floor and skittered to a silent halt.

  “You up, sweetheart?” Mom called from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Aaaarrrghhh,” I moaned. I was never getting up again. Not after taking a face dive in front of my ex-future-boyfriend-hyphen-costar.

  “Kacey?” A soft finger poked my arm.

  I lifted my head a few inches off my drool-soaked pillow to see Ella’s blurred, juice-stained mouth hovering just inches from my cheek. A gleaming roll of tinfoil was wrapped around her face like—like—

  Headgear.

  I slapped at my pulsing cheeks. Or I would have, if there hadn’t been a barbed wire fence strapped around my head and protruding at least six inches in front of my lips. When my fingers hit the headgear, it felt like a jellyfish had taken up residence on my face.

  Frantic, I ran my tongue along my teeth. But my smooth, pearly Simon Smile was gone. Vanished. Replaced with a junkyard of jagged metal parts that were wound tighter than Nessa during midterms.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, kicking off my duvet.

  Ella fell backward, an old pair of mom’s reading glasses slipping off her small nose onto the floor.

  “Owwwwwww!”

  Ignoring her, I scrambled off the bed and ran for my closet, kicking a pair of inside-out skinny jeans out of my path. I gripped the edges of the full-length mirror on the door and leaned toward the glass.

  “Girls?” Mom’s footsteps pounded up the stairs. She rushed into my room, ducking under the slanted ceiling. “What’s going on?”

  Staring at the reflection of myself encased in metal, I pinched my upper thigh. But instead of waking up, I left two crescent-shaped dents above my bruised knee. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real.

  “Kacey pushed me!” Ella wailed through a mouthful of tinfoil.

  “Kacey?” Mom perched on the side of the bed and pulled Ella into her lap. “Is that true?”

  Ordinarily, the sharp edge in her hard-hitting-question voice would make me squirm. But every cell in my body was already in pain.

  “Kacey?” Mom prompted me again. Gentler this time.

  I wanted to scream. Yell. Hit something. Things like braces and glasses weren’t supposed to happen to me. They happened to chess club historians, and math club founders. Student government junkies. The Paige Greenes of the world. The Band Geeks. Not the Kacey Simons.

  I whirled away from the mirror and pawed at the velvet curtain to my photo booth. Then I took a deep breath and collapsed onto the bench inside. The photo booth never lied.

  “Sweetie,” Mom tried again. “Calm down.”

  Ignoring her, I slammed the glowing green button inside with my fist. Most people wouldn’t be able to look at themselves in this state. But I needed the cold, hard truth. Even if it killed me.

  The flashbulb inside popped four times.

  “Honey. You’ve got to take a breath.” Mom’s voice barely rose above my heartbeat and the churning photo booth. How could she have let this happen? I was never speaking to her again.

  Ella drew the curtain and climbed into my lap, clutching the dreaded photo strip. She smiled, apparently over her tantrum. “I think it looks pretty. Sparkly! Like your teeth have earrings!”

  I groaned, swiping the photo. I stared down at the gritty black-and-white image. Swollen, pursed lips and puffy cheeks stared back at me, along with a deepening bruise on my cheekbone, and a thick wire orbiting my head.

  “You know, Kacey, it doesn’t matter what you look like with braces.” Mom pulled the curtain back all the way.

  Right. Next she was going to tell me that it was what was inside that counted. You know who wrote that line? People with braces and glasses.

  “Maybe you’ll even start a trend. Remember the time you broke your arm in fifth grade? What happened when you showed up to school in a cast?”

  Fine. So maybe a few kids came to school the next week with fake, Sharpie- and glitter-decorated casts of their own. Maybe the principal even caught that one girl about to take a dive off the jungle gym so she could break a bone for real. But this was different. Nobody in their right mind was going to fake braces and glasses.

  “Your classmates love you,” Mom said earnestly. “You’re Kacey Simon. And what’s the Simon women’s most important accessory, on the air and off?”

  “Oooh! Oooh!” Ella leapt out of my lap and waved her hand in the air. “Confidence!”

  I bit my cracked bottom lip and swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “I remember the first time I knew you were going to be a reporter.” Mom pulled me out of the booth and into a hug. Her bathrobe smelled like soap. It made me want to cry. “You were six years old, and—”

  “Like me!” Ella threw her arms around both of us.

  “Just like you,” Mom said, humoring her. “I was covering that student protest at Loyola, and I couldn’t get a sitter, so I brought you with me.”

  I half smiled, half grimaced.

  “You were interviewing the student body president and using your Elmo spoon as a microphone. I’ll never forget how excited you looked, being right there in the middle of all the action.” Mom squeezed my shoulder. “You’re still Kacey Simon. And you still have a job to do.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I had a responsibility to my public. If I let braces and glasses take me off the air and off the map, who would help everyone at school? So I’d have to memorize my scripts since I couldn’t read the teleprompter. Doable. So I’d have to learn ventriloquism so I never had to open my mouth on air. Okay. I’d pay for lessons with the settlement money I’d win after suing the roller rink for having hazardous party conditions.

  “Let me hear you say it.” Mom nudged me. “Who are you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m Kaythee Thimon.”

  My stomach catapulted into my throat. Wait. That was wrong. Okay, I just had to enuuuunciate, just like Sean was always saying at rehearsal. Take two.

  “I’m Kaythee Thimon,” I repeated, louder this time. My blood ran colder than leftover sesame chicken. No. Not possible.

  “Kaythee! Thimon! Kaythee! Thimon!” Ella squealed.

  My jaw lolled open, weighed down with metal and doom. No. Nononononono.

  I ripped my off my headgear, tensing at the pain. “KAYTHEE. THIMON.” The room swam before my eyes, spinning out of control. I gripped Mom’s arm for support. “DO I HAVE A LITHP?”

  Mom averted her eyes, pretending to pluck a piece of lint from her bathroom. “I’m sure it will go away when you adjust to the braces. You probably just have to get used to speaking again. But it may take a while,” she said gently.

  A while? I didn’t have a while. Homeroom was in less than an hour. Plan B.

  “I think I’m thiiick,” I moaned, stumbling toward my bed.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Mom shook her head. “I heated up some soup and made smoothies, so you won’t have to chew.” She was acting like she hadn’t even heard me. Like she didn’t even care. �
��Be downstairs in ten. Ella and I will drive you if you get a move on.” I heard her quick steps down the stairs, followed by the slow thud of Ella’s.

  We interrupt this broadcast with a special announcement:

  Kaythee Thimon Ith Thuper Thcrewed.

  THEEN AND NOT HEARD

  Monday, 8:04 A.M.

  Before I dragged myself across the threshold to Sean’s homeroom, I tucked my glasses away in my bag, bent over, and gave my waves a shake. A girl could only hope that volumized hair and a chunky metallic gold infinity scarf would cover her chapped lips and chipmunk cheeks. And if enough blood rushed to my brain maybe I’d pass out, break something, and get to go home for the rest of the semester.

  My sweaty palm slipped against the door handle. I wiped my hands on my chocolate-brown leather leggings and tried again. The door opened and I stepped into the back of the classroom.

  “OPENING NIGHT TICKETS FOR GUYS AND DOLLS! ON SALE! NOW!” Abra screeched from the flatscreen mounted in the front corner when I tiptoed inside. Sean stood with his back to the class, using a yardstick to turn down the volume on the television. Everyone else had already plugged their ears with iPod buds.

  In our usual back row seats, the shadowy outlines of Molly and Liv shifted toward me. Molly’s pink streak tilted in curiosity, and Liv’s dark curls bobbed with concern. In the row ahead of them, Nessa’s highlighter-yellow flashcards stopped their shuffle.

  Up in the front row, Paige Greene sat with the other dorks, including half the string section of the school band and Imran Bhatt. Even with my 20/500 vision, Paige’s bob looked asymmetrical.

  “Kacey. I thought you were dead or something!” the pink streak whispered when I stepped over a pile of backpacks and took my usual seat between the pink streak and Liv’s hand-crocheted knit cap. In the next row, Nessa’s neon flashcards started flying again.

  “Mmmmm,” I nodded, staring straight ahead at the television like I wouldn’t even think of missing Abra’s segment.