“He’s lying,” I said. “He’s hiding something, I just don’t know what.”

“Always the skeptic.”

“Come on, Beth. You’ve heard it enough from me. What’s the first precept of the legal profession?”

“Clients lie.”

“Very good. There are some things I’m going to want to check out.”

“Like what?”

“Like the records of the divorce proceeding. And I’ll need to visit that club he talked about, Marrakech.”

“You think you might find something there?”

“No,” I said, “but it sounded like a pretty good place to pick up women.”

Beth laughed as I fiddled with the scab.

“But first,” I said, “what we need to do is to talk to Mia Dalton about… arrgh.”

“Victor? What is it, Victor?”

I gagged on something and searched around futilely for a tissue. In desperation, I spit whatever had come loose into my hand. I couldn’t help but give it a look.

An uneven circle of blotchy scab, about the size of a tooth.

“Victor, are you okay?”

I gagged again before gaining enough control to say, “I think so.” I took a deep breath and a pure, scorching pain buckled my knees.

“Victor,” said Beth, rushing over to me. “What is it?”

I grabbed hold of her arm and felt the blood rush from my head as a great white wooziness overtook me.

Next thing I knew, there was music, lush and ethereal, and a white light lay an arm’s length before me, like a vision of another and better world.

And strangest of all, it shone into my mouth.

26

“A dry socket,” said Dr. Bob. “See, the clot is gone, and now the bone of the jaw is exposed, with all its jangling nerves. I warned you, Victor. Didn’t I warn you? But apparently you were too bullheaded to listen. Now we have a problem. You were worrying the clot with your tongue, weren’t you?”

“Arrghighahoo.”

“Of course you tried not to, everyone tries not to, but some are too weak to resist. You had a soda pop, I’d wager, or a beer. Didn’t I give you explicit instructions? Even with my best efforts, the failures of others sometimes get in the way and the unexpected happens. It is hard to describe how frustrating that can be. Yet this, too, can be solved, have no fear.”

Telling me to have no fear while in a dentist chair was like telling Marley’s ghost to look alive.

“Any changes in your medical or personal situation since last we met?”

“Ayyaaw,” I said.

“Other than the pain in your jaw, of course. No? Good. So I assume that means you still are not in a fulfilling sexual relationship. I know, these things take time, but maybe I can help. Open wider. We’ll need to clean the hole before I apply the dressing. The water might tingle a bit. Yes, yes, very good. Why is your leg shaking like that? That didn’t hurt too much, did it? Stop nodding your head, please, you’re making it hard for me to see. Now, let me just dry it with a quick burst of air.”

He reached in with his air nozzle and blew dry the hole. My shoe flew against the wall.

Dr. Bob turned his head to inspect the scuff mark. “Second time that happened this week.”

He opened a small, squat jar, and the smell of cloves wafted through the room. He took a long piece of gauze off his tray with a metal forceps, dipped the whole thing in the jar. It came out smeared thickly with a brown ooze.

“Now open wide, this is sometimes a bit tricky. Yes, I’ve managed to help many of my patients find more than just a bright, shiny smile. Hold on, now, I have to pack this tightly in, section by section. The smell is rather nice, but the ointment tastes suspiciously of earwax. Tense your neck as I push down. Excellent. I’ll wipe away the tears from your cheek. It will be over very soon.”

He turned toward his tray, fiddled.

“I’ve had some success in matching up my patients. It is not something I do as a matter of course, I am not a busybody, heavens, but I do like to help. And I must admit, from my chair has dropped more than one acorn that has grown into the mighty oak of marriage.”

He leaned over me, brushing my chest as he adjusted the light. “Open up now, let me get a good look. Ah, yes. Now tense that neck.” As he worked, all ahs and ohs, my head bobbed up and down like a baseball giveaway.

“I had a patient in Baltimore with a rather unfortunate overbite who was, as one would expect with such a mouth, a rabid Republican. Whenever we talked, as I worked like an overmatched jockey to rein in his teeth, it was all politics politics politics, and always mindlessly doctrinaire. It was like having the Fox News Channel in my chair. Except for his bite, he wasn’t a bad-looking man, but needless to say he didn’t date much.”

He took out his hands, adjusted the light again, peered so closely into my mouth I could count his nose hairs.

“Nice. Okay, almost finished. Tilda,” he called, “can you come in, please?”

The hulking figure of the hygienist appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Doctor.”

“I’m almost through here. Get Mrs. Winterhurst ready, please.”

“Very good, Doctor.”

“Make sure her entire dress is covered with toweling. She’s a bleeder, and we don’t want to ruin another Givenchy. And, Tilda, I think we’ll need to paint that wall again.”

She leaned inside, observed the scuff on the wall, my shoe on the floor. She sneered at my weakness before she left.

“Open wide,” said Dr. Bob. “At the same time, I had a patient with two impacted wisdom teeth. A small woman, always angry. She, too, would constantly discuss politics, but she was a raging liberal, a bleeding-heart Democrat to the core, and incensed at everything the Republican Party had perpetrated – her word – upon the country. And she seemed very anxiety-struck about the deficit for some reason. Her calendar, too, was pathetically empty.”

“Ayaheeay,” I said.

“Absolutely. I’m not much one for politics, it all seems so grubbily self-interested. And it tends to take on the reflexive quality of rooting for a sports team, don’t you think? Democrats hate the Republican Party the way Phillies fans hate the Mets. Not much considered thought in that, is there? Although how a mere political party could be more loathsome than the Mets is beyond me.”

“Ayahee.”

“And don’t get me started on Don Young.”

“Ooh?”

“I said don’t get me started. One person’s miracle is another person’s disaster. I could hear the groaning from my backyard. But both Baltimore patients had answered question sixteen much as you did, Victor, and I could see in each, along with the loneliness, a certain overwrought sensitivity. They were, perhaps, made for each other. But how to get them together, how to get them past the blindness of their politics?”

Another press into my jaw that sent my neck into spasm.

“I think we’re pretty much done,” said Dr. Bob. “How does that feel, Victor?”

I rubbed my neck, took a deep breath, gently rested my tongue against the now dressed wound, pressed harder. “It feels fine,” I said, slightly shocked that it actually did. “The pain is gone.”

“That’s the point. It’s rather simple, really. Now, try not to disturb the dressing, though I know it might be hard for someone such as you. And under no circumstances should you eat lamb’s bladder.”

“Why? Will that hurt the wound?”

“No, but it’s disgusting, don’t you think?” He laughed, I winced. “And now, Victor, it’s time to decide how to handle the missing tooth on a more permanent basis. What I’d like to do,” said Dr. Bob, “is to drill into your jaw.”

“Oh, I bet you would,” I said.

“I would drill a hole and screw in an implant. If all goes well, the implant will graft solidly into your bone, something called osseointegration. After about three to six months, depending on the success of the integration, atop the abutment I would attach a restoration, which is that part of the implant that looks like a tooth. It is the most permanent solution. It’s also the most painful and most expensive.”