Dating Without Novocaine (19 page)

I wondered what a computer engineer with gold-painted toes would cook for dinner.

“You should be making your own line of clothes, that's what you should be doing.”

“I don't think it's that easy,” I said.

“Start small. Make some dresses like you're wearing, for those frou-frou shops down in the Pearl District, or some of the funky ones on Broadway.”

“I'm sure they have their own lines they like to buy.”

“Can't hurt to try.”

“Maybe.” And maybe I could like someone who saw a seamstress as a talented person with a lot of potential. Maybe I could get used to the toenails. At least they weren't pink.

Sassy came into the kitchen, followed closely by a gray and white cat, whose name I couldn't remember. “Here, kitty, kitties,” Tyler said, bending to pet his cats. “Whatcha been up to? Kitty kitties,” he cooed, as they arched under his hands, enjoying the attention. Little bits of cat fur and dander floated in the air.

“You had them long?” I asked.

“Since they were kittens. They're my buddies. You like cats?”

“They're all right. I'm more of a dog person, I think. Growing up, we always had both.”

He brought cheap plates and silverware over to the chrome-and-fiberglass table. “Sorry about the lack of china. The kitchen is way down on my list.”

“That's all right.” Maybe I could be the one to choose how to redo it, traditional female task though it sounded. I arranged the silverware on the table as he went back for the salad and dressing, and a cutting board with a loaf of bread.

“First course,” he said, sitting.

I looked in the salad bowl for tongs or oversize forks, and there were none. “Uh…” I said, making salad-grasping gestures with my hands.

“Damn, that's right.” He reached into the bowl and took a double handful of the salad, then paused, lettuce and greens mid-flight. “You don't mind, do you?”

“Uh…no,” I said, thinking of those two cats that he'd just been petting.

“Inelegant, I know. Sorry about that.” He dumped the salad on my plate.

“Thanks.” I peered at it for cat hair, trying to not wrinkle my nose and wondering if I could put a single leaf in my mouth without retching. “Is that kale?” I asked, spotting the leathery green.

“Yeah.”

“I didn't know anyone actually ate kale. I thought it was just used as decoration on salad bars.” Oh, bad Hannah.

“It's got lots of beta-carotene.”

I smiled and doused my salad with the oil and vinegar dressing. Maybe it would neutralize the cat dander. The bread looked as if it had about forty different grains and seeds. The main course was in a Crock-Pot: some sort of Spanish-style ratatouille.

“You aren't a vegetarian, right?” I asked. He'd claimed not to be, via e-mail.

“No, I'll eat any animal I could kill myself.”

“Like what?”

“Fish, eggs,” he said. “And of course I eat dairy. You've got to have ice cream.” He smiled winningly.

“That's it?”

“If I was really hungry, maybe a chicken,” he conceded.

“Have you ever killed a fish or a chicken, personally?”

“When I was a kid, I went fishing and caught a few things. Never a chicken, though.”

“When I was little I went fishing with my dad,” I
said. “We caught a trout, but Dad had misplaced the club, so he beat it to death with a coffee mug.”

“God, that's awful.”

“It left a certain impression on my mind. Still, if I were really hungry, I don't think I'd have trouble taking down a cow.”

He grimaced. “But you couldn't eat all that.”

“Sure I could. Eventually. Or I'd chop it up and feed it to my friends and family.”

He shook his head. “Beef consumption is destroying the earth.”

“All the more reason to kill one.”

He laughed, as if he wasn't sure whether or not I was joking. I myself wasn't sure why I was suddenly making an effort to be unpleasant. Yes, the man wore toenail polish, and yes he had served me dander-infested kale, but that hardly seemed reason enough to send out those “don't get close to me” signals.

There was nothing that was truly wrong with the guy, no major red flags, so what was my problem? No one was going to be exactly like me, and any guy was going to have quirks that were annoying. Tyler seemed basically nice, and like a responsible man.

I really should try harder to like him.

“Do you ever nude sunbathe?” he asked.

“What? No!”

“Never? You should try it.”

“Do
you?
” I asked.

“At Sauvie's Island, sure.”

“No, I just couldn't see myself doing that,” I said.

“Too shy? There's nothing sexual about it. Whole families go out there.”

“Too shy, but also it's just not me. That's…” I waved my hand around, trying to find the words, “that's just not a Hannah O'Dowd activity.” It's a fake-o-Bohemian-kale-eater activity, is what it was. “I think I like to stay a little further within the social norms, much as I hate to admit it.”

“Hey, that's cool. It's good to step out of the comfort zone once in a while, but I can understand a need for boundaries.”

“Where'd you get the bread?” I asked, picking up a heavy slice and smearing it with butter. It looked like bird food.

“A bakery on Broadway.”

I bit into the bread, and two chews later bit down on something hard, something that jarred my jaw and shot pain into a tooth on my right side.

I whimpered, and worked the mushed bread around my mouth with my tongue, looking for the offending item, but there were so many seeds and grains I couldn't tell which it had been. And then I found something ragged, and spit it into my palm.

It looked like a piece of metal. I spit the rest of the bread into my hand and dumped it on my salad plate, and that's when my tongue found it.

The hole. In my tooth. It had been part of a filling I'd spit out.

I whimpered again.

“Hannah?”

A flush of panicked heat washed over me, and I felt sweat break out. Fear and horror ran in waves over my body, as my tongue retreated, then touched lightly again upon the gaping maw at the top and side of one of my
lower molars. It wasn't even the cold-sensitive tooth, or the one that felt weird after I clenched my jaw for too long. It was a different tooth entirely.

Oh, God. My tooth. I had a huge hole in my tooth. I felt sick.

“Hannah, what is it?”

“My filling,” I said. “My filling fell out. Oh, God. What am I going to do?”

“It's Saturday. I wonder if any dentists are open?”

I whined.

“Does it hurt? Can you wait until Monday, do you think?”

“You don't understand! My tooth!” I shoved back from the table and ran to the bathroom, and then was afraid to look in the mirror. I started to open my mouth, but I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know how bad it was. It didn't hurt, but the hole, the ragged hole, oh, God!

I was trembling and sweating, the heat of panic still washing over me in waves.

“Hannah, get a grip,” Tyler said, standing in the bathroom doorway. “People lose fillings all the time. It's not that big a deal.”

“You aren't the one with the crater in your mouth!” I said.

“You can't do anything about it now, so just chill.”

“Your stupid fifty-grain bread did this. Who eats food like that? And kale?” If he weren't a vegetarian rodent in nail polish, this wouldn't have happened. My tooth would still be whole. I hated him, and his stupid vegetarian food.

“Hey, that's good bread. It's six bucks a loaf.”

“Well excuse me for wasting twenty-five cents' worth, breaking my tooth,” I said, on the verge of tears. I pushed past him and lurched back to the kitchen, where I'd left my purse. I dug out my cell phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked, following me. “You can use my phone if you need to make a call. I have an emergency number for the dental clinic I go to. Do you want it?”

I ignored him, and dialed.
Be there, be there. Please be there.

“Hello?” Scott answered.

“Scott! My tooth, I broke my tooth, this big chunk of metal fell out and now half my tooth is gone.”

“Hannah?”

“My tooth!”

“Hannah, it's okay. It's okay, whatever it is, I can fix it.”

“It's going to hurt,” I said. “Are you going to have to pull what's left? Do a root canal?”

“Hannah, it probably feels a lot worse to your tongue than it actually is. I deal with this all the time. You're going to be fine. And nothing is going to hurt, I promise you.”

“When?” I asked.

“There's probably no hurry. I can look at it right now, if you want, and then we can take care of it on Monday.”

“I can't go all night like this,” I said, turning toward the kitchen wall for privacy, my voice almost a whisper.

He was silent a moment, and then, “Okay. Meet me in front of my office building.”

“Fifteen minutes, I'll be there,” I said.

“Don't get in a wreck on the way. Or do you want me to pick you up?”

“No, I'll meet you. It's faster.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, well, you'll owe me dinner.”

We said goodbye and I hung up. I turned to Tyler. “I've got to go,” I said.

“Hey, look, I'm sorry you broke your filling and all.”

I couldn't concentrate on him. Tyler, who was Tyler? Nothing mattered but my tooth, my gaping-holed tooth. I got my purse and took out my car keys, heading for the door. “Sorry, I have to go,” I said in his general direction.

“Was that a dentist you were talking to?”

I nodded, still walking.

“That's good luck, having a friend like that,” he said.

“Yes.”

He got ahead of me and opened the door, then walked me to my car. “So, you know, before the bread thing I thought things were going pretty well. Can I call you, you know, after you get your tooth fixed?”

I paused at my open car door, ready to get in. “I can't think about that right now.” What was he talking about? Another date?

“Oh, okay, I understand. You look pretty shaken up. Call me.”

I stared at him a moment longer, this stranger with an earring—why would I call him?—then shook myself and got in the car.

My tooth…

 

“You're shivering,” Scott said.

“I know,” I said, my muscles jittering. “I've got to use the ladies' room.” I held my stomach and dashed across the semidark waiting room and around the corner to where I knew the rest room to be. I'd been to his office before, but never for more than a few minutes, and never as a patient.

I locked the door behind me and went to sit on the toilet, still shivering, my bowels feeling ready to let go. But nothing came. I sat there, shaking, bent forward with my face and arms resting on my knees, until Scott knocked.

“Hannah? You okay in there?”

“Yes.” I got up and flushed, and ran water in the sink, letting it rush over my fingertips, postponing the opening of the door.

“You don't look so good,” he said when I came out.

“I don't feel so good.”

He frowned. “You're afraid, aren't you? I mean, really afraid.”

I nodded. “I know it doesn't make sense. I know you can give me novocaine and I probably won't feel too much, but I can't help it.”

“What is it that you're afraid of?”

“I don't know. I really don't,” I said.

“If this is just a bit of broken off tooth or filling, I promise you, it's not going to be hard to fix. I'll either patch it, or if enough is missing, put on a crown.”

“Will you have to drill?” I asked.

“I don't know yet. I might not. But if I do, I'll get out the lidocaine and numb you up until you drool, I promise.”

“Lidocaine?”

“No one uses novocaine anymore.”

He opened a hall cupboard and took out a synthetic blanket, the type they have in airplanes. He shook it out and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“You want to see my toy drawer?”

“Is that some kind of come-on?”

He laughed. “Not hardly. You don't think I want a lawsuit on my hands, for inappropriate behavior with a patient, do you? No, these are real toys.”

He led me to a large drawer low in the hall wall, and motioned for me to open it. I did, and inside found several dozen cheap toys, from plastic dinosaurs to super balls to fake jewelry.

“These are for the kids?”

“It gives them something to look forward to—choosing one at the end of the visit. Positive reinforcement for the dentist experience, you know. They also get a toothbrush and floss, of course.”

I picked out a pseudo-pearl bracelet and modeled it on my wrist. “Affordable, yet elegant.”

“But you don't get it yet. Put it back, or I'll tell your mother.”

“Ooo! Dire threat!” I smiled up at him, and shut the drawer, bracelet inside. My shivering had lessened.

“And this is Elizabeth,” he said, leading me to a bird cage that had been converted into a lion's den. He opened the wire door and lifted out a stuffed baby-blue lion with a silky white mane. “Elizabeth is going to come with you to the big chair, and sit in your lap.”

I took the lion in the hand that wasn't holding the blanket closed around me. “She's very soft.”

“And clean. She gets regular baths in the washer.”

“Poor Elizabeth.”

“She's a dedicated professional. She can handle it. Actually, most of the time she stays in the cage. I discovered pretty quickly that while she might help keep kids quiet in the chair, they throw a screaming fit when I try to take her back. She's only for the hardcore cases.”