It had been almost 10 years since Quinn had lived in her hometown. After graduating high school she had immediately gone to college to study architecture and then lived with her boyfriend in Chicago only returning for brief visits. However, after their nasty breakup, she decided to move back to the very small town in Virginia she had come from. It was almost as she remembered. One thing she did notice was how many more people seemed to walk around smiling. And not only that, they all seemed to have impressive Hollywood smiles, much more than you would expect from such a small town in the middle of nowhere.

After a week or two back, she had lunch with a childhood friend, Charlotte. Charlotte seemed the same as always, as they had kept in touch the past several years, with one major difference. When she sat down and smiled, she had a mouthful of orthodontia that seemed out of place with the rest of her fashionable self. Quinn was surprised. "Your teeth were already fine, do you really need them?" Charlotte laughed. "I guess you noticed." She bared her teeth, showing the full glory of her metal mouth. Not only was she not wearing Invisalign, they were chunky and made of metal, almost completely covering her teeth, with a set of pink rubber bands tying her top teeth to her bottom. "It's a bit of a long story. Do you remember Dr. Whites?"

Dr. Whites and his wife, who went by Dr. Mary, were the only dentists in town when Quinn and Charlotte were growing up. Their office was a converted home that they still lived in the top floor of. "They retired a few years ago." Charlotte continued. "But their daughter took over the practice. Remember Pearl?" Quinn vaguely remembered Pearl Whites, who went to school with them. Perhaps it was because her parents were feared and resented by the local children, or because she was a strange-looking nerdy girl who always talked about science, but Pearl didn't seem to have many friends growing up. "She's still a general dentist, but she also specializes in orthodontics. Remember those big metal braces her parents made her wear in high school?" Quinn chuckled, even though Charlotte's braces were probably more noticeable than Pearl's ever were. "Anyway, apparently she's actually very successful in her field. She graduated dental school early, and wrote a bunch of papers on orthodontics before working here. But now she's doing a study on women 25-35, and giving free treatment to any willing participants."

"And you agreed? Why?" Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Well, the study only lasts a couple months, apparently her methods work very fast. But the results are so surprising. It's like if someone's teeth are 80 percent perfect to begin with, she can bring them up to 100, and they come out looking like a celebrity! And to be honest, it would get her to stop pestering me at every appointment." She rolled her eyes at the last point. "But you'd be surprised, almost every girl we went to school with has had them by now, it's like she's finally popular a decade later." Quinn raised an eyebrow again. "Well I'm not getting them, that's for sure." Charlotte chuckled, showing another rubber and metal smile. "Suit yourself then."