Over the next few months, Quinn seemed to notice more and more women around town with the same beaming perfect smiles, and if not that, they had the same grisly steel appliances as Charlotte. It was almost like a zombie apocalypse, and sometimes Quinn even thought she noticed judgmental looks when people saw her unbraced yet apparently less than perfect smile. Eventually, Charlotte got her braces off.

They met again for lunch, and Quinn almost didn't recognize her. It wasn't just that Quinn had gotten used to the braces, but Charlotte's new smile made her look like a whole new person. Her teeth were not only perfectly straight and aligned, but her teeth were so white they seemed to glow. It was like they had completely changed the shape of her face.

"Wow, you really do look great" Quinn admitted. Charlotte gave a stunning smile. "Thanks, I've been getting that a lot. It's not just the braces, she and her hygienist are really great at helping with cleaning and whitening. Have you met them yet?" Quinn rolled her eyes. "I'm not exactly jumping at the chance to go to the dentist. And I'm definitely not becoming one of Pearl Whites' dental lab rats or whatever." Charlotte smirked. "Well, that's fair enough. Though Pearl isn't as bad as her parents. I almost look forward to her appointments." Quinn sighed. It had been a while since she had seen a dentist though.

When she got home, she looked up nearby dentists. She groaned when the Whites office was still the only one in town. It did have five star ratings everywhere she checked online though. Reluctantly, she called the number on the website. A strange lispy voice answered, and helped schedule an appointment for the following Friday.

When the day came, Quinn found herself nervously biting her lip on the way to the old Whites office. Childhood memories came flooding back of the constant sound of drilling, with Dr. Mary barking her infamous rants on proper flossing and the evils of soda pop that could be heard from the waiting room. Quinn did not envy the patients with braces, who were taken to a special room in the back of the house for their treatments, and would complain at school about Dr. Whites' painful methods and Dr. Mary's strict rules. Except for Pearl of course, who worked as an assistant in her teenage years and wore her orthodontia with pride, excitedly repeating her mother's lectures to anyone who would listen.

Even though she swore she could smell the dentist office smell from down the street, the house did look nicer than she had remembered. A garden had been planted out front, a rainbow pride flag hung in an upstairs window, and a tooth shaped sign had been put up, showing the names Dr. Pearl E. Whites, DDS and Flossie Park, RDH.

Quinn took a deep breath and stepped inside. The door jingled as she walked in, and the same lispy voice told her to come over to the window. She noticed the waiting room had been updated from the dingy 80's decor, and actually had a pleasant minty smell, with pop music quietly playing in the background. But what she saw in the window almost made her run away.

A woman in her late 20's sat at the window. She was somewhat busty, and wore a tight white buttoned dental uniform. Her hair was dyed blonde and was tied in pigtails with pink scrunchies. Her nails were were painted pink, and her earrings were shaped like tiny teeth. She also had pink eyeshadow and gorgeous red lipstick with a perky smile. However, her lips awkwardly rested around the objects of Quinn's horror. Jutting from the corners of her mouth were a set of metal bars, reaching around her face and connecting to pink cloth straps on the back of her neck and top of her head. Also coming from her lips were a set of blue rubber bands, connecting to another metal device in front of her mouth, this one framing her face with metal bars, connecting a white plastic cup on her chin to a light blue plastic pad on her forehead.

"You mutht be Quinn!" The woman smiled, revealing a set of pink, white, and blue braces, with an intricate set of matching rubber bands. Her voice was very high pitched, but as she spoke Quinn noticed the bars from the corner of her mouth were actually a pair, one on the top teeth and one on the bottom, which moved apart as she spoke. She held out her hand and Quinn awkwardly shook it. "I'm Flothie, the dental hygienitht." Flossie must have noticed the look on Quinn's face and giggled. "Right, the headgear. Patienth rarely get prethcribed anything like thith, and only have to wear it at night. I wear mine at work, it feelth appropriate for a dental offithe." It was hard to understand Flossie as she spoke through her orthodontia, and Quinn was almost hypnotized by the way the appliances moved when she talked. "I'll take you in, Dr. Whiteth wath very ecthited to hear you were coming!" Flossie gestured to a hallway and Quinn nervously followed.