Part I: Something Alive

This is what Emily remembered. It was early February and Emily had just returned to Buenos Aires after spending the holidays with her family in the United States. For Emily and her younger brother, their return from the U.S. was the peak of the year. They brought back suitcases filled with American toys and clothes from relatives who had been collecting gifts all year, “and this one is for your birthday back in April and here is a little costume we meant to send for Halloween”, they would say, passing around gifts from under the tree. Upon arrival, they would arrange playdates to show off their new stuff: toys that shrunk in the oven and grew in water, babydolls with urinary tracts and heads of sand, shirts with rainbows and peace signs and unicorns and quotes about the infinite capabilities of girls.

They returned to Buenos Aires on the day of Emily’s best friend, Sol’s, 11th birthday party and hurried from the airport to drop Emily off at their neighborhood’s athletic club for the party. The club was in the middle of their neighborhood, Villa Devoto. It took up an entire block, it had a deep aqua swimming pool and terracotta tennis courts. Emily would later learn it was the choice club for the Nazis running the dictatorship in the 70s. The birthday was held in the club’s quincho, a small house at the back of the property with a charcoal grill for asado, a small kitchen and a screened in room with a tiled dancefloor at the center.

Emily arrived wearing a new shirt from her aunt. It was white with blue tie-dye splotches and sleeveless on one side. Across her chest, in a diagonal from her covered shoulder to her bare armpit was a tight ruffle, lined with sequence. This was not the kind of shirt sold in Argentina, where there weren’t words for the shirt’s elements: tie dye, ruffle, sequence. The shirt was thin and hugged Emily’s chest: her nipples pursed like gentle kisses, points of relief on the surface of her skin. She was at the cusp of something, in the awkward tension of late childhood.

Emily heard Sol’s deep, phlegmy laughter. She was standing next to a column in the corner of the dance floor whispering something to a girl whose back was turned to Emily. Emily waved, thinking Sol would surely see her, that she had been waiting for her to arrive. They hadn’t seen each other in 3 months. But Sol continued whispering, stopping intermittantly to study this unknown girl’s face for a reaction. Then the girl shifted, revealing a hooked nose and deep, almost infinite dimples. It was Emilia Sanguinelli, only one sharp vowel sound away from Emily, yet she had everything Emily wanted: a small Argentine body, an Argentine family, a tan, a cool older brother, the nickname “Emi” and, most importantly, Sol’s undivided attention. Emilia was a year older and her mom had been Emily and Sol’s 4th grade art teacher the previous year. Once during recess Emilia’s mom had bent over to pick up a soccer ball and Emily had seen her long, narrow breasts stretch towards the ground through her displaced shirt. Another time, as they cleaned the art room, Emilia’s mom had told them that in the Middle Ages people cleaned with buckets of their own pee, holding up the bucket of warm, soapy water they were using.

Standing at the entryway of the quincho, her body suspended in the space of the door, Emily clenched the small box she was holding, allowing its sharp corners to sink into her palm. Inside the box was a delicate silver ring with Sol’s name engraved in the inseam.

As she watched Sol, a new feeling came over her, it was different from the pain of exclusion she had felt many times before, emptier. Emily now recognizes it as the anguish of unrequited love, of rejection. Then there was a hand on her shoulder, it was Sol’s mom, Martu, holding a shawl, tapate un poco, she said, “cover up a bit.”

With the new weight of the shawl on her shoulders, Emily had walked over to Sol and Emilia. “Feliz cumple, Solpi,” Emily reached in the small purse she was carrying and handed Sol a package of “Pop Rocks”, an American candy she explained would pop as it dissolved in her mouth, querés probar Sol turned to Emilia, “wanna try?” They removed their retainers and put them in the fluorescent plastic cases they all carried around our necks at that age. Then they held hands, turning towards each other and away from Emily, as if reciting vows. Sol opened the bright envelope of sugar and poured candy on Emilia’s pointed tongue before putting some on her own. A gesture that reminded Emily of the way her pastor gave communion to the acolyte before feeding himself.

The sizzling began immediately, the girls squeezed each other, their eyes wide with new sensation. The popping sounded distant to Emily, but she knew to them it was loud and all consuming. It was the sound of hail falling on a tin roof, but they were the tin roof and she was just the next door neighbor sitting alone in her living room, noticing a distant sound.

The emptiness Emily had felt standing at the front door was now a burning pain in her chest, her throat clenched. She had been the one who had bought the candy, she had been the one that made this experience possible and they were acting as though she didn’t even exist, as though they were the only people in the whole world.

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After they sang happy birthday to Sol, it was time to eat the cake and, as was the custom, all the kids at the party took off their retainers and locked them in their necklaces. Emily observed Emilia remove the orange case from her neck and hang it on a hook next to what Emily presumed was her purse. When nobody was looking, Emily took Emilia’s retainer out of its case and cupped it in her hand like something wet and alive. She took it to the bathroom, locked herself in the stall, sat on the toilet seat and placed the retainer on the trampoline her skirt formed in the open space between her thighs. Emilia’s retainer was clear and smooth, unlike her own, which seemed to accumulate plaque until it became clouded with a grainy white film. Emily took the glow stick from her pocket that she had saved from the birthday goodie back and cracked it open. The green fluid looked innocent under the white bathroom lights. As best she could, Emily shook the stick’s contents into the grooved plastic that would soon cup the roof of Emilia's mouth. It took effort to get the liquid out, the manufacturers had made the stick in this way to prevent the toxic fluid from escaping the tube too easily. As Emily applied the green to the retainer, with the motion of an elderly person applying glue to dentures, she whispered the words “mercury poisoning” to herself just once.

Emily left the bathroom and returned the retainer to its case. Before she could decide what to do next, the disco ball in the middle of the room began spinning and the lights were turned off. Emily felt a heat emanating from her palms. She looked down. Her hands and her skirt were glowing green. Without hesitation, she went back to the hook where the case was hanging next to the purse, and took out the retainer from its shell; it too was glowing green. She rushed to the bathroom, once again cupping the retainer in her hands like something alive. She turned on the faucets and the water rushed out with a force that startled her. She let the retainer sit in the sink as she pumped soap into her palm. She picked up the retainer and rubbed the soap into the shape of Emilia’s mouth. Then she wrapped the retainer in a paper towel and scrubbed her own hands. She didn’t look at her face in the mirror once.