That Gap in Her Teeth

There’s a skincare ad I’ve watched more times than I should admit. It’s for bebe Young Care, and there’s a girl in it named Dari Maximova who has a gap between her front teeth and a way of smiling that makes everything else irrelevant. I fell for her a little. Not proud of it. Not ashamed either.

The campaign was built around shared apartments—one each in Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, and Munich—where groups of young women would live together for a month, document their lives, and broadcast the whole thing under the bebe Generation banner. Music, fashion, fitness, lifestyle. Sixteen girls total, ages sixteen to twenty-four. It sounds like a reality show waiting to happen. With Dari smiling out of it, it looked like the most appealing thing in the world.

The fantasy of the shared flat has always done something to me. Not just for the obvious reasons—though those are in there too—but for the texture of it. The noise when you come home. Someone else’s dishes in the sink. Arguments about the thermostat. Living alone long enough makes you miss even the annoying parts.

Dari is still somewhere in my head. That gap. That ad. Probably not going anywhere.