A Fickle Wind. Elizabeth Bourne

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      I have not touched very much on my appearance thus far but am usually interested to know this about other people, so here goes. I am petite and slender. I have good bone structure and large, green eyes. My hair is dark, cooperative with a slight wave, and looks best either very short or up. I have a good sense of style and have always been able to dress well, even on a shoestring. So far, so good.

      The cross I bore up to that time in my life was unattractive teeth. I had unfortunately inherited, according to a dentist, a small mouth and large teeth through genes from two different antecedents. There was not enough room for my eye teeth to move into position when they emerged at about the age of twelve. Orthodontics were nonexistent in the England of my youth and circumstances, and since the eye teeth were distorting my mouth, the decision was made to extract them. This allowed the four remaining front teeth to spread themselves around!

      I hated my teeth, and they constantly sapped my confidence. Quite often, I would not smile because of them. As a child back in England, I would sometimes tie a scarf around the lower part of my face, which emphasized my eyes, and decided I would make a most attractive Arab woman! My mother and Aunt Amy had given me their perfect solution: Have them all pulled and get some nice, new, false teeth. Thank goodness I had enough sense not to do that!

      Florence was a pretty woman with beautiful teeth. I complimented her on this one day, and she said, “Oh, they’re caps. My two front teeth were badly crossed.” What did caps mean? I had never heard of such a thing. Could I have mine capped to close the gaps? With great anticipation and excitement, I made an appointment to see her dentist. This could solve one of my major problems!

      But my hopes were soon dashed; it wasn’t going to be that easy. The dentist explained that if he capped my already large teeth to fill the gaps, my teeth would look like horse teeth. I needed an orthodontist, and he could recommend a good one. The problem would be simple to correct; the teeth were also slightly protruding, and if they were moved back, the spaces would close. But how could I wear braces at my age? That just wasn’t done in those days. And how much would it cost? Always a consideration.

      Florence to the rescue. She encouraged me to see the orthodontist and get my questions answered. As it turned out, he first extracted a bottom tooth and moved the bottom teeth back, as they were causing the overbite, but the top teeth would only take a wire, not a mouthful of metal, and in about a year it would all be over. I can’t recall the price, but it was affordable. Florence insisted that a year out of my life at this young age was nothing, and she encouraged me to think of the remaining years when I would not be hampered by the problem. She was right and I went ahead. I felt rather like a freak at first, but no one but me seemed to notice—or care.

      I find we often credit others with having a great deal of interest in how we look and what we do, when they are actually too interested in themselves to give it a moment’s thought. I started the treatment in January, and by early December of that same year, I was down to wearing only the top wire, which could be removed if I were doing something special. I would continue to wear it at night indefinitely. I was thrilled with the results, and I think it changed my personality. This was really brought into perspective at Craig’s company Christmas party that year.

      Max always had a lovely party for his employees, in a private room at one of Toronto’s better hotels. It was a wonderful opportunity to dress elegantly—one of my great pleasures in life—and socialize with people we knew but didn’t see very often. During the evening, a man I didn’t recall asked me to dance. He remarked that I was a different woman that year. I asked what he meant. He said that the prior year he had noticed how sad I was, and this year I was happy and smiling all the time! I knew I hadn’t been sad, but that was obviously the impression I had given. I had simply been hiding my teeth!