The day I went to have my braces installed I walked through the streets of Buenos Aires past billboards advertising the English version of “Betty La Fea”, the tv series. The ugly duckling frumpy secretary who will be transformed though the series to triumph, and who in the Colombian version was the country’s most gorgeous actress rendered unrecognisable.  This Betty grinned with train track braces that loomed alarmingly out of her mouth and out of the advert, a cruel parody of the originally elegant parody of homeliness.

The byline:  Esta más fea en inglés  (She’s even uglier in English).

I hoped to prove that billboard wrong, to perhaps go without talking for one year and emerge a swan.

Why would one, at the age of 35, elect to have braces for a year? Not those sleek invisalign, but big thick arch wire and brackets (albeit transparent, also with metal showing). The decision was made easier by the numbers of locals sporting orthodontics. People in their 20s and 30s and beyond; English students of mine, throughout Latin American countries. A friend once joked that you could tell if someone was in their 30s and legally employed in Chile because they’d have braces. In the last decade it has become a sign of professionalism, a status symbol.

I was managing a boutique hotel run by a British retiree, a haven for his similarly retired ex-stockbroker, or antique dealer friends who cannot return to their countries of origin because of monetary, legal or romantic impediments. Many guests’ unfortunate European dentures gave me the courage to ignore their jokes.
- Reminds me of my first kiss.
- Ah, she had braces did she?
- No, I did.

What I’ve learned, through researching my own situation and seeing examples such as our friendly joker above, is that our teeth drift forward as we age. Regardless of corrective devices in earlier years the forward movement of teeth still occurs. Mine always crowded to the point of stripping any floss. Eventually I found that as I spoke, my tongue hit a tooth that was edging ever inward, creating an awkward lisp. The entire treatment, fortnightly visits, cleaning, and retainer after the event to maintain discipline, was to cost the equivalent of 1000 American dollars. Adding up to 2 month’s salary at the time I still saw the value. I was to have something the millionaires surrounding me did not! Reasonable teeth!

Keeping your own teeth in your head in a straight or otherwise configuration seems a relatively modern notion. My grandmother had all her teeth pulled as a young woman as a remedy for recurring headaches. In fact, it isn’t at all a recent phenomenon, more that it has become more accessible through the use of adhesives and plastic brackets, instead of wrapping teeth individually in stainless steel or gold.

Guests at the hotel started inquiring about dental work and there was a fluoride frenzy. Implants, near impossible to procure on the British National Health scheme, were the most popular, followed by crowns. My sister had her teeth cleaned at the fraction of the cost an Australian dentist would have asked, and hasn’t smoked since. I tried to convince other friends to visit and have their annual checkups, as crowns and caries and holiday would cost less altogether than the treatment alone elsewhere. I became a living advertisement, a bridge, interpreting between dentist and non Spanish speaking patients, effecting bank transfers and appointments.

When you’re inside the treatment it is interminable, the child in January waiting for Christmas. Only at the end of what transpires to be 10 months and not 12 do I pluck up the courage to send “before” and “after” photos to my parents. The overwhelming majority of blogs on the subject wax lyrical about how BIG your teeth feel when braces are removed. This is true! They sprout like saplings, a new picket fence.

Joan Collins said “The problem with beauty is it’s like being born rich and getting poorer”.
Once one improves one thing, as is so alarmingly possible nowadays, is it the start down the slippery slope towards obsessive beauty procedures? I don’t think so. I don’t think that orthodontics ranks with cosmetic procedures much as many insurance schemes want to call it that to wriggle out of coverage.  Months of mouth ulcers, gingerly brushing away the fear of gingivitis, choosing food for the chew factor before taste, all indicate a health concern with ‘beauty’ as a side effect. I can speak now without worrying about spittle or tangling on the stray tooth. Ease of cleaning is spectacular. Best of all, I still look like me, and other people don’t notice the change.
Maybe my Betty wasn’t so fea after all.

or Oliver
midnight online gambler
out of a job thanks to US economy
lack of credit card
nowhere to squirrel the winnings
all virtual
what’s real any more is tobacco
his lips creep inwards and he’s 50 years younger than Osvaldo
and just alike

Lunch with Nana and Pop at the Victoria Hotel I ordered martini and remembered vividly Nana telling me – before I was allowed to drink – a lesson in etiquette –  that vermouth and tonic was her favourite. A long drink to sip over hours.

I ordered martini and waited for the frowns but Nana said what a nice name I think I’ll have one too. She couldn’t remember the vermouth and tonic, which she’d spent years elegantly sipping, risking neither pocket nor virtue. I watched her struggling with the names
What was it Fred, that drink?
I don’t know May, I think I’ll have a beer.
I said Nana could taste my martini but that she’d probably prefer a chardonnay.

a gentle embrace is a harsh squeeze

or pat a knee in the car
which, spitting juice as from a blister
multiplies teaming bruises
across the soft pear flesh of mine

*Frank Bennett stole from T Perkins
I stole from them both