Cornucopia (7 page)

“Why, you brought your dog,” he noted with some annoyance.

“I surrey,” I replied.

“Well, I suppose the animal can stay here in the waiting room while I work on you.”

I led Blue to a corner and tried to tell her to sit. Unfortunately, my slurred speech made it sound like I was ordering her to do something objectionable. Through hand gestures, I finally got my point across and Blue lay down to wait. I followed the doctor through the door and down a short hall to his examining room. Along the way, I noted that the receptionist desk had been decorated for the Christmas holidays—undoubtedly Margie’s hand at work. Her desk was also conspicuously empty.

“Where’s Margie?” the dentist heard me say.

“She didn’t show up for work today,” Dr. Bester explained.

“Huh, that’s odd,” I observed.

I knew that Margie had seemed stressed of late. She had hinted to me that she was unhappy with her work, but she wasn’t one to shirk responsibility. At least I hoped she wasn’t.

“I hope she’s still making the cupcakes. I’d hate to show up at the party with Santa’s sleigh and have no cupcakes to go with it.”

“I’m sure. Now please, have a seat.”

My entire head was throbbing now but still I felt the need to speak. You
see,
dentists’ offices make me nervous as do dentists themselves. I’m afraid of both huge needles and drills. Dentists possess them both. To me a dentist’s office looks like a modern-day torture chamber, which I suppose it is. And when I get nervous, I need to talk.
A lot.
It didn’t matter that my head felt like it was about to explode, I needed to either talk or run screaming from the office. Talking allowed me to sit in the dentist chair and spin my legs into place so that I could recline.

“My, what a comfortable chair.
A chair like this must have been really expensive. I wish I had one of these at home to relax in. Of course, I’d have to fight with Alex for it.”

The doctor took a seat on a rolling stool and clipped a bib around my neck. Then he pressed a button and the couch I was on reclined further.

“
Whee
!” I exclaimed nervously.

“Now, open wide and let’s see what we have here,” Dr. Bester instructed.

The doctor flipped on a blazing white-hot spotlight, like the type Nazis and the CIA use for interrogations, and shined it at my face. Next he rolled a set of instruments that clattered in their metal tray to his side. He donned a baby blue paper hat, mask, and gloves before he picked up a huge metal pick and prepared to begin digging around in my mouth. The instrument glinted in the glare of the overhead light. At the sight of the spike in his hand headed toward my face I felt the immediate need to say something.

“It’s strange that Margie didn’t show up for work today,” I mumbled in dental patient speak.

The dentist paused and looked me in the eyes as he considered my words. Though I could see only a portion of his face, what I could see of his expression showed concern.

“Why do you say that?” he asked in a curious tone.

“I’m just saying she’s a very responsible person. Do you know of any reason she might have been unhappy at work lately?”

“No,” was the terse response I received. “Now, open your mouth wide.”

Icepick in hand, the dentist descended into my mouth. I was afraid that I was going to choke on my own saliva, but then he stopped and inserted a small vacuum cleaner nozzle that made loud slurping noises. The saliva taken care of, he was back in my mouth again.

“Oh yes,” he said, “this is bad. You’ve broken your upper right second molar clean in half. You said that you did this biting into a metal plate in your sandwich?”

“Uh-huh,” was all I could manage.

“That’s terrible.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, let’s take care of that right away.”

The dentist removed his hands from my mouth to attend to the instruments on his tray. When he turned back to address me, he was holding a huge syringe with a large needle attached to it in his hand. I had to say something and right away.

“Where do you suppose Margie is?” I asked.

Again, the dentist paused to consider my question.

“You certainly are obsessed with the whereabouts of my assistant,” he said. “Why is that?”

“I guess I’m just worried about her. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Have you called her?” I asked as the needle approached.

“Open your mouth wide again and let me worry about Margie,” the dentist warned.

“
Aaah
.”
I made this pathetic noise as the needle slid into place.

I felt the needle pierce my skin between my tongue and gum line. It stung before becoming very uncomfortable. The dentist wiggled my lip to work the needle in all the way. He slowly depressed the plunger. Eventually he removed the needle and placed the syringe on the tray.

“Now, let’s give that a few minutes to take effect.”

“Aw-white,” I replied, already feeling my lip and tongue going numb.

The dentist turned away from me to play with his tools lying on the tray. As he did so, he talked to me—I assumed to ease my nerves.

“So, do you have any plans for the weekend?” he asked.

“Just baking my Santa cake.”

“Yes, you mentioned that. What is that all about?”

“It’s a cake in the shape of Santa’s sleigh,” I explained. “Margie is bringing the reindeer cupcakes to the party.”

I was relieved that the pain was going away; however, the Novocain was also making it even more difficult to speak. Additionally, I had no idea whether I was chewing on my tongue, though I certainly felt like it.

“Are you and Margie close?”

“Not very, but I like her a lot. She speaks very highly of you.”

“Oh? Does she talk about her work much?”

“Sometimes,” I said, feeling that I’d said enough and wanting to divulge no more.

“Well, hopefully she has only good things to say about this place.”

Actually, she didn’t. Margie hadn’t said anything directly, but she had hinted to me that something at work was making her unhappy, something related to Dr. Bester. Knowledge of her unhappiness combined with the doctor’s questions was making me uncomfortable. When he suddenly grabbed my arm I jumped in my seat.

“My, but you’re on pins and needles. You don’t like coming to the dentist much, do you?”

“Not much, no,” I confessed.

“I tell you
what,
I’m going to give you a little something to calm you down before I begin working on you.”

Good Lord, not another needle, I thought. Sure enough, the next time the dentist turned to face me he had another syringe in his hand, though this one was considerably smaller. Before I could comment he had wiped my arm down with alcohol, poked the needle into my arm, and depressed the plunger.

“There, that should help,” he said, setting the needle aside.

And it did. It took only a few moments for me to begin feeling the effects of the drug. And it felt wonderful. It also made the office a little cloudy and brought the ceiling closer to my face.

“Wow, doc.
What was that you just shot me up with?”

“Just a little Sodium Pentothal to help you relax.
How do you feel?”

“Relaxed,” I admitted.

Though I could no longer feel much of my face, I was pretty sure that I was smiling. I may very well have been drooling as well, but I didn’t really care. I began slapping the arms of the chair and bouncing while the dentist toyed with his instruments. Then I started to giggle.

“So, do you think that Margie will be missed if she doesn’t show up at this party?” the dentist asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked dreamily.

“Does Margie have any other friends who might wonder where she is?”

“That’s a funny question,” I giggled.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Dr. Bester replied with a chuckle.

The next time the dentist turned to face me he had a drill in his hand. It may have been my imagination or the effects of the drug, but I could have sworn that I heard the drill’s high-pitched whir as the dentist revved its engine. My foggy mind cleared in an instant. I needed to say something and say it quick.

“I think Margie is mad at you about something,” I blurted at the dentist.

Once more the dentist paused to consider my words.

“Now, that’s a very peculiar thing to say. What makes you say such a thing anyway? Did Margie say something about me?
About the two of us?”

“Not directly. She just hinted,” I mumbled, looking wide-eyed at the drill.

“Why would you mention such a thing at a time like this?”

“No particular reason,” I replied sheepishly, attempting to melt back into the chair away from the drill.

The dentist considered me a moment longer before shrugging his shoulders and leaning back over me.

“Okay now, open wide. This won’t hurt a bit.
Just a little discomfort.”

The whirring sound started again, and then changed pitch as the drill came in contact with what remained of my molar. The change in the sound was akin to a similar change produced by pushing a piece of wood into the blade of a table saw. The high-speed whirring was replaced by a grinding, chewing sound. As the dentist drilled deeper I began to smell and taste burning tooth which replaced the medicinal scent of his office. My feet began to wiggle of their own accord while I dug my fingers deeper into the armrests. I wanted to scream but knew that if I did I might shock the dentist into drilling an errant hole in my head.

To soothe my nerves, I forced myself to ruminate over Margie, treating her disappearance as a detective case. There was something about her not being here today that disturbed me. Now, what could it be? I replayed my trip through the office in my mind. I remembered that I had checked out the Christmas decorations in the receptionist area while noticing that Margie wasn’t at her usual station. Something else that I’d seen in that area was the source of my discomfort, I was sure. Then it struck me in a flash. Margie’s coat and scarf were hanging on the coatrack in the corner. I’d seen her wearing the same outerwear a dozen times this season. Now why would she leave the office without taking her coat and scarf with her?

I was totally immersed in my thoughts, happily ignoring the activity of the dentist within my mouth. But then I jumped when he touched a nerve with the tip of his drill. The dentist pulled back and straightened up.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Not really!” I mumbled.

My tongue naturally made its way to my molar to examine the damage. I couldn’t feel much but could still tell that most of my molar was now gone, a result of the dentist’s efforts to turn the tooth into a post to hold a crown.

“Why don’t we take a few moments to rest before I start again?” the doctor suggested, rinsing my mouth with a water nozzle before retrieving the vacuum hose from my mouth.

“Okay,” I eagerly relented.

“So, tell me what Margie has been saying to you,” he prodded.

Wow, now Dr. Bester was the one obsessing on Margie, I thought.

“It wasn’t so much anything she said,” I tried to explain. “It’s more a sense I got.”

“You got a sense that she was upset?”

“Yes.”

“About work?”

“Yes.”

“And about me specifically?”

“Possibly.”

“You get a lot of these senses, do you?”

“I guess so.”

“And based on these senses you feel the need to pry into Margie and my life?”

I was struck dumb by the sudden accusation.

“Ah yes, I’ve heard about you. You’re the famous amateur detective. You must get odd feelings about everyone that you meet.”