Between the Teeth

By Wu Yu

Lilian wakes up in the stomach of night. Again.

It is not even 5 am yet. The first lesson begins at eight, and she needs at least one hour getting dressed and wandering around the apartment purposelessly, trying to figure out what to do next. Minutes marching on, Lilian closes her eyes. Monday is already dreadful enough.

Later, the alarm goes off mercilessly. Lilian grabs her phone beside the pillow and presses the stop bottom. Then, she checks her message box. It is empty.

She leaves the bed and turns on the lights in the bedroom, the corridor, the kitchen, and the bathroom. The reflection from the ceramic tiles is dizzying, the consequence of a bad decision in haste. Lilian probably needs to live with it until death. She considered buying a carpet to cover the spot so that her eyes would not bulge painfully every time she crossed the house, but that remains an idea. 

In the mirror Lilian sees herself with a pair of puffy under-eye bags, so horrific that she spends another ten minutes concealing them. While brushing her teeth, she moves around, feeling the electronic toothbrush buzzing in her head, and checks her phone again. 

Kai – Lilian’s ex-boyfriend – should have replied by now. She gave him a lucky charm on Saturday because she saw his post online about frustration at work. At times Lilian found it difficult to remember why she left him. A mommy’ boy? Too temperamental? Not supporting her when they were cut up in a line? 

Lilian just wants to be nice, and all that compassion makes her hungry.

She opens the refrigerator door to get milk. When she shuts the door, one end of the shelf bar dangles from its broken bracket, causing a bottle of apple cider vinegar to quiver. 

Maybe I should fix it. Lilian considers. Later. 

Walking to the school takes at least 20 minutes. If she misses the shuttle bus, she might be chewed out again in the teachers’ assembly for causing a teaching accident. Last time, it was because of a typo in the exam paper. The bus arrives at 7:35. She grabs a slice of bread she bought days ago and scrambles onboard, just barely making it.  

Wind from the coastline slides in and brushes her chins, sharp and soggy. Palm trees and bikers ebb away as her hair twirls and tangles. There is a lagoon lake nearby that can be seen from the balconies of the mountain villas and high-rise apartments. Fifty years ago, local residents sneaked home fish from there and sold them secretively for grain during the time of rationing. As developers moved in, surfboards and yachts, novel as they came, reign the blueness today. Lilian thinks to herself, as she occasionally did, what would happen if she is ran over by a car now? Would the surfers ditch their gears and come to her rescue? Under the sun, waters sparkle, reminiscent of the belly of a yellow-fin sea bream. 

The bus takes a left turn, approaching Lilian’s destination. 

She puts on the biggest smile she can manage after entering the school, the corner of her mouth twitching so hard that she has to gnash her teeth. Good morning. How was your weekend? Peachy.

The classroom is folded up by four colorful walls, covered by paintings and posters. Students are divided into groups to discuss what makes a dream job. 

Lilian could have kids their age if Kai had popped the question and she had decided to join the herd. Lilian’s mother once said: an unwedded woman can still look young and pretty at her late twenty, but to the mundane eye, her body is no longer a promising land. Even though Kai was never a candidate for the sacred contract, she lamented the possibility. 

The first group finishes their presentation, then Lilian claps. At the moment, her cellphone lights up with a new message. She glances down at it.

Send the application form ASAP. Today is the day!

It is not Kai, but the principal. He announced last month that he would take Lilian to the annual conference this year and asked Lilian to reserve a twin room in advance.  

Lilian slips the cellphone into her pocket. The second group, please.

Students continue to talk about their dreams, using all the fancy words they have learned in class, though Lilian knows that half of them will not even need a job in the future. She makes half of their housekeepers’ salary. 

When the last group begins, Lilian’s patience thins abruptly. Usually she can teach an identical lesson to five classes repetitively in a day without even the slightest droplet of boredom. 

The crowd is being distracted, presenting her the perfect chance. Lilian circles to the back of the classroom where the surveillance camera cannot pin her, and checks her phone again.

Her heart palpitates fast, for this time, she did not run the risk for nothing.

Thanks for the charm. I’ll make sure I have it with me everyday.

Class is finally over. Lilian brings her lunch to the office. Meanwhile, her message box has already been filled with social media feeds and ads from those shops that she only patronized once. A few minutes ago, Kai invited her over for dinner as a gesture of gratitude, just before she checked his social media profile and found a picture of a woman’s silhouette.

Lilian has not replied yet. She sits and scrolls the screen, keeping herself busy. Yesterday Mei sent her a picture taken in Shanghai, and now she finally has the time to comment. That’s the place where Kai went to college, she texts. Then regret follows. 

Mei calls immediately. Don’t tell me you aren’t over him! 

No worries, Lilian says. I know he is dating someone. I’m way past it. 

Technically, she is not lying. The decision has not yet been made anyway. Lilian looks up at the calender on her desk, which is marked by highlighters. The annual conference is in two weeks, and she has a few hours before the deadline of accommodation request. 

Lilian was a planner. Before bed time she would have a list of things to be handled and tuck herself into a intricately woven routine. As she aged, she came to senses that, there was something you can never prepare yourself for. Bumping into an acquaintance with the worst outfit; receiving a break-up call on the Christmas Eve; parting ways with the ones that were there your whole life and never, ever seeing them again. She sees no point in planning now. Fate takes over when you least expect it. 

She has thought about quitting. Multiple times actually. She never really like kids. The idea of confronting the principal and shoving him her resignation letter surfaced constantly when she was grading papers, breaking off students from a fight, and reading her medical report. But her parents strongly opposed. To them, the job was gifted to her as a result of burning incense on the altar and ample offerings to their ancestors. As a village girl with merely a bachelor’s degree, she is blessed enough to teach at such a reputable school.

Give it time, and things will be worked out slowly. Lilian’s parents always say so. She scorns this out-dated wisdom. Look where it got her Grandfather. Lying awake at night and hoping that the numbness in his limbs fade away like the old grudge with the neighbor. There went the precious time. Yet his wish never came true. 

Was there any pain? Lilian wondered, lying awake at countless nights hoping that there was not. It took the family three days in suspense, twelve hours at the wake, and the rest of their lives forever at a loss. For Grandfather, it was maybe just a flash under the surgery room light. 

Nevertheless, she stopped fighting her parents’ will a long time ago, which is a war she could never win with glory. According to their plan, she should have had babies by now. One is good, but two are better. The husband must be smart enough to make a fortune, but dumb enough to fall for her appearance even after she withers. 

That is why she cannot go back to Kai. 

Lilian starts chatting with Mei, who is a very close friend, and also her only friend. Don’t die before me. She once said to Mei, several days after the funeral. What do you mean? Mei questioned, and then sent over a video from TikTok. See? I told you the movie was terrible. They picked the wrong actress!

The rest of the day goes on without any accident. Classes after classes, followed by seminars in different buildings, Lilian clocks out at seven. On the way home, she stops by a cinema and mutes her phone for the first movie she can catch. It transcends her to a Mars colony where everybody’s biggest problem is aliens.

After one hour and a half, more than twenty missed calls drag her back to reality. There is the ultimatum from the principal. 

You seem to have forgotten who’s in charge here. If you are too stupid to understand my order, don’t bother to come in tomorrow.

The screen of the cellphone turns off automatically. Lilian is not terrified nor devastated. Instead, she is confused. Has she done anything wrong? She recalls the day her parents sent her off to college, the last Chinese New Year they celebrated as an unbroken family, and the inauguration ceremony where the principal’s hands should not have been on her hips. He was there with his wife and sons.

Lilian used to be a weepy baby, screaming in the arms of Grandfather, begging her parents to take her back. The ignition of car engine was her battle horn. She seized the quietness of the night as she started crying. But it never worked. Over time, all those summer and winter breaks being left in that small, tranquil village have taught her the merit of forbearance.

In the thick tenderness of night, she uses her employee pass one last time to board the shuttle bus. It takes her away from her daily route to the other side of town that she has not ventured in for years. 

Around 9 pm, families go out for a stroll after dinner, and street vendors are clogging every intersection. The bus is temporarily stuck in the neon traffic, and then eventually pushed towards the end of that glistening, vertiginous stream. 

What if she is actually on an ambulance now, drenched in sweats and soon to be declared cancer? Lilian closes her eyes and lets out a long, long breath. The doctor will be very sympathetic. 

She is dropped off at the nearest station. The address has been saved in her cellphone when she mailed the package last week, but she hardly needs to look it up.

She and Kai have known each other for almost two decades. When they were just teenagers, they shared inside jokes and exchanged glances in class secretively. Something must have happened to them, changing their perceptions of choices to be made. Back at college Kai had her photos all over his dorm, but ten years later, she is the one pacing anxiously in the dark. 

If he is with his girlfriend, she will head back. Lilian tells herself that before calling. And then, everything goes like the dream she had the other day. 

At dawn Lilian arrives home. Bathed in pale sunlight, the neighborhood is yet to be wakened. Feeling thirsty, she yanks the refrigerator open, attempting to find some leftover barley tea. Earlier in the day she noticed a hair band on the nightstand, next to the lucky charm she brought all the way back from a Buddhist temple hidden in mountains, which Kai swore, whispering to her ears, that he would cherish as if it is a lost treasure. 

With a violent jolt, the shelf bar finally snaps free. A bottle crashes to the floor and shatters into shards. Apple cider vinegar runs across the white tiles, some flooding the worn-out soles of her uniform shoes, the rest trickling relentlessly into the bottom of the refrigerator. 

Holding onto the kitchen counter, Lilian bends down slowly and stares at the glass pieces. And they stare back. Tears run down her cheeks, something bursting from deepest within her lungs as she trembles. It is not a scream. Just a gush of warm and shuddering air that does not make sense. 

Nothing makes sense at all.  

Wu Yu is an islander born in a tropical seaside town of East Asia. She has written about the mysterious culture of local tribes in the forms of non-fiction, prose, and poetry. Nearly every piece of her work is dedicated to a certain family member or friend. Laterly she focuses on the loneliness, self-doubt, and devastation of young females in a society where disciplinary power is deeply rooted in every facet of their lives.