It said 'Go Smile' on the top, and housed five small vials inside. She showed me once she got it open.
"On day, my teeth were green--I don't know how, but they were--and I just popped this out and this what is inside is a teeth cleaning solution. You just pinch the sides here until you hear it crack, and then the stuff will come out through this white end here, and then you use it to clean your teeth. Really. See? I wont crack it open, because one case is $30 each for 7 of these little things, but feel the end of it."
I touched my finger to the end lightly before she quickly moved it away.
"Hey hey hey" she said, scowling at me, "That's going to go in my mouth someday."
I wondered what part of the vial I was supposed to feel then. She sighed inwardly as she put the vial back in the case and proceeded to use the mirror on the inner part of the lid. Her makeup was fine, her long dark hair a little messy, she straightened it with a carefree air that would probably fade around noon. The truth about Miriam is that most days she is absolutely beautiful. Those are the days I am convinced that God put her in a wheelchair so that she would stay out of trouble.
Mully once told me that her heart ached whenever she saw Miriam. When she saw her in the mornings before school, going to her locker, Miriam did not use a wheelchair. Miriam didn't like to stick out. Mully would watch her as she made her way down the short hallway, her hand against the old, narrow lockers. That hallway was for the forgotten. The side that Miriam walked on was the side the photography room was on. It was too small and cluttered to really make the transition from classroom to studio.
Amy McBride did a show before Miriam's time at Magruder called "Censored." It was originally titled something else, but the administration of Dr. Steinberg had stifled the edge of her voice, for the communities sake. She wrote everything in red that year, except of course, for her name.
It was always just after 7 when Mully walked in with her thermos of special brew coffee that she never actually drank. Spaid and I were usually already in the studio across the hall, discussing our work for the day, and Miriam walked alone in the hall to her locker to wait. Her friends would come and get her bag, and then they would walk her to class, the same way they would do for the next couple of years when I left.
There was a kid who smoked a joint in the studio. He passed it around two whole tables before little old pinched-face Portugal asked if anyone smelled anything. Everyone laughed, but it was because they were high.
"It's empowering to see her, struggling like that every morning. Alone." Mully often sat with me to talk about why I hadn't done a drawing that was due two weeks ago. I was perpetually behind. I still am. "As empowering as it is though, you can't help but cry for her inside for having to live in that condition every single day."
"I suppose so" I shrugged. I never really thought about it, because I saw it every day too. Mully sat still, looking at my painting. "You should move that fish; and I don't know what this is, but it probably could be replaced."
"It's a sea worm" I told her. I wondered if Mully did cry for Miriam every morning.
This morning when I sat with her, she was improving an infomercial for Go Smile teeth care from Sephora.com. I got up and left, knowing that she would remain at that table for hours, studying for a math test that she would eventually take on the late day. She would sit alone in her chair, joined only by those studious fellows who needed a place to sit close to an outlet, so that they could log onto their laptops and check their Facebook. They would ask her if it was all right if they say there, and she would simply say yes, or nod, and they would continue on their business all the while wondering why she was in a wheelchair. But they will never ask. They will never ask because once they do, they have to care. Because it is a heartbreaking place to be, and cardiac arrest means death ninety percent of the time.
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