Michelle Ross’ fiction
has appeared or is
forthcoming in The
Adroit Journal, Atticus
Review, Fiction Southeast,
Gulf Coast, The Nervous
Breakdown, Sixfold,
SmokeLong Quarterly,
and other journals. She
has an MFA from Indiana
University. She lives in
Tucson, Arizona.
Lesson 1: Engage
Denise tapped the side of the coffee tin with a boning knife to disperse the Plaster of Paris powder into the
water. She stirred the mixture gently with a wooden dowel, careful to prevent air bubbles. What she ignored was
the instruction to wear a dust mask over her nose and mouth. What with the vitamins she no longer bothered
to take and the wine she no longer limited, what was a little particulate matter?
Garrick sat at the opposite end of their dining table, grading papers. He said, “This kid Josh wrote his essay
about his older brother getting his driver’s license. This he calls history?”
Once the Plaster of Paris reached a smooth consistency, Denise worked fast. It would set in minutes. She
coated a nautilus shell and three clam shells in petroleum jelly and pressed them hard into the thick paste. The
process was not unlike her mother shoving her two top front teeth back into her gums when she almost lost
them at age twelve: she landed face first upon falling off her bicycle. It hurt like fuck, but thanks to her mother’s
pluck, the teeth had rerooted.