Dating Without Novocaine (11 page)

“A
ren't you going to measure my inseam?” Scott asked as I knelt at his feet and pinned the cuffs of his pants.

“No, I don't need to.”

“Damn. I was looking forward to that all day.”

I raised a brow at him. “Shouldn't your lawyer lady be taking care of all those sorts of needs?”

“There's no fun in thinking about that. But a seamstress, with a tape measure, reaching up your leg, now that's something to fantasize about.”

“I'd think that would frighten the average man, having a ruler so close.”

“Not me.”

I snorted. “No one would ever suspect that dentists were such horn dogs.”

“We're good with our hands,” he said, leering.

“Next,” I said, and he stepped behind his kitchen counter to take off the pants and put on a new pair. “I've got a joke for you.”

He groaned.

“This dentist is looking at the films from his female
patient's mouth, and he says, ‘Uh-oh, cavities. We're going to have to do a lot of drilling.' The woman sort of moans, and says, ‘Oh, God, I'd rather give birth to a child.' So the dentist says, ‘In that case, let me adjust the chair.'” I grinned at him.

“Where do you
get
these lame jokes?”

“Off the Internet. Where else?”

He came back over to me in the new pants.

“You know, Scott, you could have had the store hem these for you. I'm sure it was included in the price.”

“I trust you to do it. I wanted to talk to you about making some pillows for my couch, too. My living room looks too…I don't know. Cold.”

I looked over my shoulder at the area in question. “You've got a black leather couch and a glass coffee table. Of course it looks cold.”

“You'll help me, won't you? And maybe one of those cover things for my comforter.”

“A duvet, you mean?”

“I guess. Maybe you could help me choose paint, too? You're good with color.”

I finished pinning and stood. “I'd be glad to help, but I don't know that you'd like what I chose. I look at a room, and I'm more likely to think of how I would want to live, rather than how someone else would.”

“That's okay.”

He went back to the kitchen to put on his old pants, and I sat on the couch, kicking my shoes off and putting my legs up, to enjoy the leather and the view from his windows, which looked out over the northern end of the city, with a glimpse of the Willamette River. I could get used to a view like that.

Louise and I had browsed the shops on 23rd for a while, then she'd gone home on the streetcar, and I'd driven to a specialty trim and fabric store that I'd heard about but never visited, and killed an hour there until it was time to come to Scott's.

I looked around, checking for signs of the lawyer. There were none apparent, no stockings trailing out from under the couch cushions, no mushy card on the mantel above the gas fireplace, no forgotten pair of feminine sunglasses on the counter. The real place to check would be the master bath, but I didn't have any reason to go in there.

Not that it mattered if she'd left signs behind. What did I care?

“So how
is
it going with Ms. Law?”

“All right,” Scott said, coming over to join me. I pulled my feet up, but he stopped me. “It's okay,” he said, and sat and pulled my feet into his lap. He tickled the sole.

“Knock it off!” I said, punching his thigh with my free heel. He started massaging my toes, and it felt too good to protest. “So, things with her are moving along?” I asked, resuming the topic. I wasn't going to let him escape it.

“She doesn't have a lot of free time, so we go out maybe once a week. Her job's pretty demanding. She has a lot of funny stories to tell, though. A lot funnier than I have, looking in mouths all day.”

“She's outgoing?”

“She's entertaining, and opinionated. You know she's not going to take any garbage from anyone.”

I wondered if I took garbage, and if so, just how un
attractive it was. My overused dentist jokes could hardly compare to courtroom dramas for entertainment value, either.

“Do you think there might be a future with her?”

“I don't know.”

“Still?”

“Still,” he said.

“Is she pretty?”

“She looks like Lucy Lawless.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm not.”

“Huh,” I said, and felt the need to compete. “I had a date with a cop.”

His hands on my toes stopped. “When?”

I told him the story, skimming over the part when Pete had his hands on my breasts and where I'd tried to feel if he had an erection hidden in his jeans somewhere, but letting Scott get the gist of what had occurred.

“No harm done,” I said in conclusion. “A little kissing and groping, he falls asleep, never calls. Oh, well. Move on.”

“You know, you can get herpes from kissing.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I said, not meaning it.

“Did he have any sores around his mouth?”

“You think I would have kissed him, if he did? So at least I should be safe. It's not contagious when the sores aren't there, right?”

“They could have been inside his mouth. Or maybe he was at the beginning of an outbreak, and they weren't visible yet.”

“Are you trying to freak me out?” I asked.

“Tuberculosis. Hand, foot and mouth disease.”

“What the hell is that? Isn't that something sheep get?”

“That's foot and mouth, or hoof and mouth. Hand, foot and mouth gives you blisters on those parts. It's a virus.”

“I've never heard of it.”

“Mostly kids get it,” he said.

“I'm not going to be French kissing any kids.”

“Then there's syphilis.”

“People still get that? Didn't it go the way of smallpox?” I asked.

“Not hardly.”

“You're going to put me off kissing entirely. I'm going to be reduced to hugs and holding hands.” I was beginning to get a slimy feeling, as though maybe I should have rinsed with a shot of whiskey when I'd gotten home. Not that we had whiskey in our house. Cranberry juice?

“Hugs are probably safer, but I don't want you picking up scabies.”

“For God's sake. The more you talk, the less I believe anything you say.” I lightly kicked him on the thigh, then sat up. “I should probably get going.”

“You don't have to. I have stuff for dinner.” I looked at him, and he quickly went on, “I'll feed you as thanks for coming over and doing my pants. It's bribery, is all, since I want you to fit my pillows and duvet into your schedule, too.”

“Do you have any idea of a color scheme? Or a style?” I asked, although what I really wanted to know was what was going on here. We had known each other for so long, I could not tell if he was coming on to me
or just being friendly. Maybe he didn't want to spend the evening alone, and wanted company the same as I might enjoy having Louise over for dinner, or might like drinking tea and chatting with Cassie.

And maybe he was flirting a little bit, the same way I flirted a little bit with him, because we both knew nothing would ever come of it. It was safe. He was Louise's ex, and would always, in some way, belong to her.

I couldn't come right out and ask him if his interest went beyond the platonic, as whatever the answer was, the question itself would put a bruise on the friendship, creating a tender spot we would have to avoid. So, I might as well try to not think about it.

Easier said than done, of course.

“I don't know, something warm,” Scott was saying. “I don't like these ones I have, they're ugly,” he said, slapping one of the light green linen-covered pillows on the couch. “I don't know why I bought them.”

“I don't, either,” I said. He had them in green and in white, with dull metal buttons fastening the open end. “I could use the pillow forms you have, and just recover them. It'll be cheaper. Price limit?”

“How much can pillow covers cost?”

“Louise and I saw some pillows in one of the shops on 23rd today that were over two hundred dollars.”

He gaped at me. “Each?”

“Aaa, don't worry. It won't cost you quite that much,” I said, grinning. “Maybe you'll have to pull a few extra teeth to pay me, though.”

“I could always trade you dental services. We could barter the price.”

“I don't think so,” I said, my stomach doing a sickening flip at the mere thought.

He gave me one of those looks parents use on children who have given a particularly lame excuse for why they don't need to eat their Brussels sprouts, and then got up to make dinner.

I offered to help, but he shooed me away, and instead I examined his living room and thought about what types of fabrics I might want to use on the pillows. Tapestry would be nice, and a rich gold fringe.

“Mind if I go in your bedroom?” I asked. “To get ideas for the duvet.”

He stopped where he was, a bowl of something from the refrigerator in his hands.

“I won't pry,” I said. “And I promise not to notice any dirty underwear.”

“Just…just let me do a quick cleanup,” he said, putting the bowl on the counter and dashing ahead of me into his room. I listened to him rooting about, closet doors opening and closing, footsteps thudding across the hardwood floor. I frowned, wondering why, if he'd known ahead of time that he wanted me to make a duvet, he hadn't picked up his room so I could look at it.

Finally he emerged. “Okay,” he said, looking frightened.

“Got the porn stashed?”

His eyes widened.

“That cop said all guys look at porn.”

“Not
all
guys.”

“That's not a denial.”

“I refuse to testify against myself,” he said.

“Oh, for heaven's sake. Go make me dinner,” I said,
and slipped past him into his room. He stared after me, and I shooed him with my hands until he left.

And I was alone in the sacred male bower.

I felt the temptation to pry, to dig through drawers and medicine cabinets, to look under the bed, but it was a small temptation and easily resisted. I couldn't betray his trust like that, without feeling dirty.

Although I
would
like to know if there was a sealed box of condoms somewhere, inching toward its expiration date, a latex and cardboard symbol of hope and disappointment. I didn't want to imagine Scott having sex with someone, but I did want to think he at least wanted to do it. For some reason, I liked the image of him pining away in sexual frustration.

If I wasn't getting any, no reason for him to be, Lucy Lawless the Lawyer be damned.

There wasn't much to see in his bedroom, beyond the usual scattering of unnecessarily complex electronics: the bedside clock radio/CD player that projected a digital image of the time onto the ceiling, the TV and DVD player, the contraption that made soothing sounds from raindrops to surf to crickets, and that I assume he used for getting to sleep. If he used it at all. Scott had a love for gadgets, and the stores that sold them like Brookstone and The Sharper Image. He wasn't materialistic, he just liked the sheer gadgetry of the stuff. He'd once claimed it went with being a dentist.

His bed had no headboard, just a Hollywood frame under the boxsprings, and an uncovered ecru comforter on top of the sheets. There was one small Oriental carpet on the floor, and two framed museum posters of art-
works by Klee on the walls that looked as if he'd had them since he'd been in college.

I wondered, if I opened the folding closet doors, if a pile of dirty clothes would tumble out. I was guessing yes.

The bathroom was similarly without interest, except for the ionic hair dryer, the electric nose and ear hair clipper, the Razor Care System and a CD player for the shower. The sink showed traces of soap and shaved whiskers. A basket of magazines sat by the toilet, holding back issues of
Men's Health
and
Bicycling,
a token issue of
The Smithsonian,
and a wrinkled
Victoria's Secret
catalog. I wondered which he actually looked at while in there.

Guys' bathrooms were so very different from women's. No jewelry in piles, no makeup, no bottles of lotions and hair products, no combs and clips, tweezers and nail scissors, curling iron and hot rollers with cords dangling and getting caught in the door. No matching bath rug and shower curtain, no half dozen shampoos and conditioners and bath gels and scrunchy body sponges. However did they groom themselves?

I was guessing, as with the closet, that if I pulled open a drawer in the cabinet I would find a treasure trove of shaving lotion, styptic pencils, aftershave, and probably more dental products than anyone could use in a year. And maybe that box of unused condoms. I nobly resisted the temptation to check, and to check for long hairs in a brush that might give away the lawyer's presence, and instead considered color schemes.

I was back in the living room, alternately contemplating the view of the darkening city and the possibil
ities of the room, if I were given my way and a platinum credit card, when Scott called me to dinner.

Dinner was pasta with a spicy red sauce, Caesar salad, kalamata olive bread and ice water with lemon.

“Pretty fancy,” I said, impressed. “And here I was expecting hot dogs.”

“Most of it was already made. You know, from the deli department at Zupan's.”

“But it looks impressive. Better than the peanut butter and jelly I'd have had at home, if I was up to it.”

“I was going to open a bottle of red wine, but…”

“I wouldn't have drunk any,” I finished. He knew I wouldn't have anything to drink if I was going to drive. I have no head for alcohol.

We went to work on the food, chatting about possibilities for his duvet and pillows, and then the conversation wandered through work and eventually back to my perennial favorite, human relationships.