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the wrong cavity

      My, how his practice has grown!’”

      Louise laughed, but Scott put his hands over his face and shook his head. “That one’s older than George Washington’s dentures,” he complained. “I have to listen to this type of lame humor all day at work. Why do you have to inflict it on me after hours?”

      “Because dentists deserve punishment. They’re evil people.”

      Louise put her hand on my knee and gave me her mock therapist look. “I’m sensing a deep childhood trauma, Hannah. You’re safe here. You can talk about it.”

      “The memories, I only see flashes of them, a man in a white coat, the whine of a drill—no! No!”

      Louise turned to Scott. “She’s repressed the memories. We’ll have to try hypnosis. This woman has been deeply scarred. Your presence obviously brings up painful feelings for her.”

      Scott was about to respond when Cassie swept in, bringing a wave of patchouli and sandalwood with her that temporarily overwhelmed the chili pepper odors of the restaurant. “Sorry I’m late! Practice ran later than expected.” Cassie belonged to a semi-professional belly dance troupe, and her first public performance was coming up in a few weeks.

      Louise waved her hand in a gesture to say it didn’t matter. “Our table isn’t ready yet anyway.”

      The teenage hostess called Louise’s name just then, and we followed her swaying, tiered gathers of orange skirt with pink bric-a-brac into the dining area, Scott and me falling behind Cassie and Louise.

      “Did I tell you about the Japanese exchange student I saw last week, the one who hadn’t been to a dentist in over ten years?” Scott asked. “One of his molars had cracked, and the nerve was exposed. I had to—”

      “Stop it! Stop it!” I cried, putting my hands over my ears. Hearing about dental disasters was even worse to me than listening to stories about someone getting their eye poked out. This, however, was Scott’s usual revenge for my dentist jokes: his most revolting cases recounted in excruciating detail for my torture. I don’t think he knew how very real my fear of dentists was, under all the joking.

      And it wasn’t that anything truly horrible had ever happened while I was under the gas and drill: no wrong tooth accidentally removed, no hygienist slipping with her little metal scraper and gouging my gums, no near-choking experience with those tooth trays of drool-producing fluoride I got as a kid.

      It was instead a lifetime’s worth of anxious dread, of the taste of topical anaesthetic before the needleful of novocaine went in, of spitting out small chunks of tooth after the drilling was finished and the filling put in.

      I hated going to the dentist, I hated dentists on general principle, and since I had no insurance I was enjoying the relatively guilt-free thought that I couldn’t afford to go to one for quite a long while.

      We gave our orders and settled down to a fresh basket of chips, two types of salsa and kidney-straining quantities of diet soda. Except, that is, for Scott, who rode his bike about forty miles every other day and didn’t have to worry about the dimensions of his derriere. He eschewed diet soda for a Dos Equis.

      “I can’t believe I’m going to have a normal life,” Louise said, her straw making loud suction sounds at the bottom of her ice-filled glass. Scott flagged down a passing busboy, who took away Louise’s empty glass for replacement. “My life will no longer revolve around sleep! I can go out in the evenings, I can see the sun on weekends. I’ve already taken the blankets down off my windows.”

      “You’re like a plant, ready to grow,” Cassie said. “You’ve been in the dark too long, getting yellow.”

      “Exactly!” Louise said. She held out her pale, freckled forearm for us all to see. “This is not the color of a healthy human being.”

      “Now you won’t have an excuse not to start dating,” I said.

      Louise made a duck face with her lips, her eyes narrowing. “I’m sure I could think of one.”

      “How long has it been since you broke up with that guy who worked at Intel?” I asked.

      “I wouldn’t call it ‘breaking up.’ We only went out a few times. That doesn’t constitute a relationship.”

      “But how long ago was it?” I persisted.

      “Three months, give or take, and I’m in no hurry to repeat the experience. I just don’t do well with technical men—I think it’s a basic personality conflict. They’re all Sensing-Thinking types, and I’m an Intuitive-Feeler, like Cass. But of course the only available guys work in computers. Why is that?”

      “It’s a major industry in the region,” Scott said, “so of course there are lots of guys around who work in computers.” We all gave him dirty looks. Sometimes he failed to catch the true substance of a discussion.

      “No, I think it’s because they’re the only ones left who are single,” Louise said. “And there’s a reason for that, in terms of their emotional development—or lack thereof. They’re all geeks, who’ve put all their efforts to learning about things instead of people.”

      “Geeks have their advantages,” I said. “They usually have good jobs, and they treat you well, they’re so glad to have you.”

      “Have you ever dated one?” Scott asked.

      “Well, no.”

      “I didn’t think so. They don’t seem to be your type,” he said.

      “What is my type?”

      “I don’t know. Someone edgier.” He widened his eyes. “Dangerous.”

      I snickered. “Yeah, right. The muscle-bound sort, with long hair and tattoos. Motorcyclists who ride without helmets. Bad boys, the type who group together to rent a house in northeast Portland and wouldn’t know a lawn mower if it ran over their foot. Probably don’t vote, either. That’s the type for me!”

      “Hannah, dear,” Louise said, “I don’t know a single woman who finds a man who avoids yardwork attractive.”

      “And long hair is only nice in fantasies,” I said. “In real life, it’s the sign of a guy who has to sell his motorcycle to find money for this month’s rent.”

      “I like guys with long hair,” Cassie said. “They don’t have to be losers—I know several emotionally aware ones in my yoga class, one of whom teaches English at Portland State. I think long hair’s sexy.”

      I looked at Scott, trying to imagine him with long hair, the heavy mass of it pulled back in a ponytail while he walked around his office in blue-green scrubs. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant picture, but it was pretty funny.

      He caught me looking at him, and saw the smirk on my face. “What?” he asked.

      “Nothing.”

      Our food came, platters of fajita fillings sizzling and steaming in dramatic fashion. For a few minutes all thoughts were turned to tortillas and sour cream, as we filled and rolled. With my first bite I felt fajita juice drip out the bottom and run over my hand.

      “I don’t know why I should be the only one pestered to start dating,” Louise said after we’d all downed the first crucial mouthfuls. “Not a one of you is doing so yourself. You’re projecting onto me.”

      “I’m trying to date,” I said. “God knows I’m trying. I just can’t seem to find anyone suitable.”

      “Her sex chakra is blocked up,” Cassie said.

      “What?” Scott asked, his pristine, undripping fajita halted halfway to his mouth.

      “My sex chakra,” I said, and leaning back pointed to the area just below my navel. “Cass was trying to help me free my sexual energy by taking me to a belly dance class.”

      “Men

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