The Reprimand
“If you can’t behave like a proper young lady, then you shouldn’t look like one either, should you?”
Rochelle began to panic. Her father’s grip on her left arm was like a vice. He forced her across the room and slammed her into the vinyl dental chair.
As a little girl, Rochelle had climbed up on that pale purple chair and begged him to spin her around. When he first set up his practice and did not have many patients, they would stretch out in the chair and read Sleeping Beauty until they dozed off, snuggled together. As a pre-teen, Rochelle even “played dentist” with her chum, Zainab. She scraped her friend’s teeth and had her swish and spit minty, blue mouthwash. Her father’s office had always been a private playhouse, a sanctuary—not this afternoon.
He yanked a fistful of luggage straps from a bottom drawer, to make her a captive.
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Somehow, the man who had raised her and loved her was now going to trap her and hurt her. She flailed, partially pinned to the chair, which was immovably bolted to the floor. She screamed and resisted, but no one was out in the waiting room. No one could hear her or help her. She kicked at his legs, even at his arms, but he refused to stop.
Soon, her shins were strapped to the legs of the chair. She felt like a frog pinned open on a Styrofoam block before the inevitable clumsy and vicious science class dissection.
“Please, Daddy!” she wailed. “Please calm down. Don’t do this!”
“Why didn’t you tell him that? What is wrong with you? Why did you do this, Rochelle?”
“Dad . . . it was nothing! It just happened. We went to the library. We studied for hours. He is a very nice boy. He’s just a nice boy. . . .” She sobbed, coughing out the words.
“No. Nice boys don’t squeeze you and kiss you on public steps. You’re a tramp now. Everyone will say so. You are not my pretty little princess anymore!” He spat the words at her and turned away.
“Yes I am, Papa. I am still . . . I will always be