The Fake Out by Sharon M. Peterson

CHAPTER 2

“When life gives you lemons,

give them back and ask for grapes.

You can make wine with grapes.”

—MIMI

On my list of Places I Hated, the dentist’s office was firmly at number two. Slightly worse than shopping with my mother, but not as bad as a visit to my gynecologist, who was also a family friend. My parents had him over for barbecues and I couldn’t quite look Dr. Sullivan in the eye without remembering where his eyes had been. I was, of course, a fully-grown woman who could easily change doctors, but then my mother would find out, I’d have to explain, and the battle would be lost before it began.

All that to say, it was late morning on New Year’s Eve, and I was perched in a pink reclining dental chair waiting to get the filling I’d procrastinated over until the last possible hour.

“How’s your mouth feeling? Numb?” Dr. Kelly peered down at me, a blue mask covering half her face. I couldn’t remember ever seeing more of her than two fiercely tamed dark eyebrows balanced over blue eyes.

I nodded and slid my phone under my thigh.

The corners of her eyes crinkled. “We’ll wait five more minutes and get started. How’s your mom?”

Yes, Dr. Kelly was Mom’s dentist too.

“You know Mom, she keeps busy.” She also kept herself firmly planted in the lives of her daughters. Not quite like a tree with widespread roots that nourished; more like vines that were suffocating and impossible to kill.

“And that sister of yours? I saw her on the morning show last week.” Her eyes took on a dreamy, wistful look. “Such beautiful teeth. I bet she flosses every day. Her dentist must be so proud.”

“They’re very nice teeth.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Flossing prevents cavities. You wouldn’t be here today if you did it a little more.”

My cheeks flamed. “You’re right. Sometimes I fall asleep or forget. One time I dropped the whole package of floss in the toilet and—”

“How are you today, Ms. Mayfield?” Callie, the hygienist, sank into the stool opposite the dentist and smiled. “Getting one last thing taken care of before the new insurance year, hmm?”

“Yes, actually I—”

Dr. Kelly interrupted me. “Turn up the radio. This is my favorite segment.”

Callie leaned and fiddled with the radio on the counter. A second later, a voice filled the room.

“Folks, listen up! Today for Friday Cry Day, we’re giving away two sets of tickets to Houston’s most popular local band, AB/CD, an AC/DC cover band.”

“Bro, they’re awesome,” another voice said, sounding like the Texas version of a surfer dude. “Here’s how this works. You call up and if we choose you, you break up with your significant other right here on the radio. That’s all you gotta do and the tickets are yours. Phone lines are open now.” The radio cut to a power ballad by an 80s hair band.

Dr. Kelly rubbed her hands together. “These are always hilarious.”

I smiled with the part of my mouth that wasn’t numb. It seemed a horrible way to break up with someone. If I was going to break up with my boyfriend, Brent, I’d write him a gently worded letter, or we’d meet over coffee and discuss our issues like rational adults. Perhaps an email with clear, logical reasons for the proposed split.

Not that I’d thought about it much.

Brent was a great guy—smart, driven, handsome in the slightly-balding-dad-bod sort of way, and exactly who my mother wanted me to marry. As she liked to remind me. Daily. By text. In person. An occasional email. If she could get her hands on a billboard…

“Let’s get this party started.” Dr. Kelly gloved up, slipped on giant plastic protective glasses, and picked through her instrument tray. All of this with a bit more glee than seemed necessary.

Sweat beaded on my forehead as the chair reclined. Dr. Kelly adjusted the light with its police-interrogation-level brightness until it shone in my eyes. Blinking to clear my vision, I could just make out the posters plastered on the ceiling of the room, meant to keep us captives entertained. Each featured an animal—an eagle soaring, a lion roaring, a giraffe… giraffe-ing—along with an inspirational, if slightly lame, quote.

I paused on one with a bird, a scruff of feathers sticking up on its head, and bulging, wild eyes like he’d walked in on his bird-parents in a compromising position and could not unsee it. The quote below it read, Always be yourself. You’re the only one who can.

Like I said, lame.

“Open wide,” Dr. Kelly said. She placed a contraption in my mouth to prop it open. A moment later, a cloud of tooth dust accompanied the whir of the drill, the sound scraping my nerves. I reminded myself this would be over soon. If I could survive monthly mother/daughter brunches, I could survive anything.

The song on the radio ended and the announcer, his voice deep and dramatic, returned. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have our first contestant. Tell us your name, where you’re from, and who you’re breaking up with today.”

“I’m Sheila from Houston and I wanna break up with my boyfriend, Todd.”

“What’s Todd done to deserve this?”

Sheila harrumphed. “What hasn’t he done? He’s lazy, doesn’t pay me any attention. For Christmas, he got me a vacuum cleaner. Who does that?”

Callie rolled her eyes. “I would totally kill my boyfriend if he did that.”

The whirring stopped. Dr. Kelly balanced the drill on my bottom lip. “One year, I got a toaster for Christmas. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Aaat ih errble.” My eyes crossed as I focused on the drill. What would happen if that thing slipped?

“Don’t talk, dear.”

Nodding, I twisted my hands in my lap until my fingers went as numb as my mouth.

“There’s a reason I divorced that man.” The whirring resumed. “He forgot our first anniversary. Completely forgot it. Not one single word.” She met my eyes. “Should have been my first clue, don’t you think?”

“Aaa cooos.”

Dr. Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “No talking.”

One of my hands formed a fist in frustration but I didn’t make a sound.

A voice from the radio cut in. “Okay, Sheila, stand by. We’re calling Todd now.”

The phone rang three times before a sleepy, gravel-laden voice answered. “Who’s this?”

“Todd, it’s Sheila.”

There was a pause like Todd might have been trying to figure out who Sheila was. “Yeah?”

“Here it comes.” Dr. Kelly’s hands paused. “Turn it up a bit more.”

“I’m breaking up with you. You never pay any attention to me, and I think I can do better,” Sheila said.

The radio hosts snorted in glee and then silence reigned as they waited for Todd’s reply.

“All right.”

Sheila gasped. “Th-that’s it?”

“Yeah. That’s it. I’m going back to bed now.” There was a click and the radio exploded in laughter.

Sheila sniffled. “He didn’t even try to change my mind.”

“Our phone lines are still open. We’ve got one more pair of tickets for a lucky guy or gal who wants to break up with their significant other right here, right now. Don’t go away, we’ll be back after this.”

Dr. Kelly chuckled as she pulled the drill out and picked up a pointy silver instrument. “Let’s make sure I got it all.”

I winced as she poked and prodded.

Callie patted my shoulder. “You doing okay?”

“Uh aum finn.”

“Try not to talk, please.” Dr. Kelly shot me a glare. “A bit more with the drill and we’ll get the filling in and you’ll be all set.”

My eyes squeezed tight, and I tried to ignore the strange, pungent smell that accompanied the whir of the drill on enamel. I vowed I would never have another cavity, even if I had to floss five times a day and never eat jelly beans again.

“And we’re back with Friday Cry Day. We have time for one more call and we have someone on the line. Can you tell us your name?”

“Brent.”

My eyes snapped open.

Dr. Kelly set down the drill and poked at my tooth. “That did it.”

“Good morning, Brent. Tell us whose heart you’re breaking today?”

Callie passed the filler material to Dr. Kelly without a word, both listening to the drama unfold on the radio.

The man coughed. “I’m breaking up with my girlfriend.”

That voice. Surely there were other men named Brent who sounded like that and made that stupid little cough before they spoke.

“You’ve come to the right place. So, what’s the deal?”

Cough, cough. “We’ve been together almost a year and I think she expects me to propose soon, but I just can’t do it. She’s a nice girl and all but maybe she needs to be with someone more… I don’t know, boring. Like she is. She’s not adventurous. She doesn’t argue with me. She’s always worried about making everyone happy and—”

“A people pleaser,” Callie said with a sage nod.

“—I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with her.”

The bottom dropped from my stomach because I knew that voice. I’d heard it order extra onions on his cheeseburger. I’d heard it say my name at midnight when its owner had heartburn and needed an antacid because of those extra onions. It was his voice. Brent. My Brent.

Dr. Kelly stuffed the filling into my tooth, jamming it in with a sharp instrument and a bit too much enthusiasm. “He sounds like a jerk,” she muttered.

That jerk was saying those things about me.

Brent continued. “I’ll die of boredom if I stay with her one more day. And it’s New Year’s. A good time for change.”

My heart threatened to burst through my chest, run across the room, snatch up the radio, and toss it out the window.

“Let’s get her on the phone right now.” There was a pause before the sound of a phone ringing. Under my thigh, my phone vibrated. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.

Dr. Kelly’s brow furrowed as she pulled her hands out of my mouth, carefully removed the mouth prop and sat back on her stool. “You doing okay?”

Now that I could talk, I didn’t want to. Why weren’t fillings done under general anesthesia, so I couldn’t talk or hear or feel anything?

The ringing again sounded through the radio and again my phone vibrated under my thigh.

“I hope she answers and tells him off,” Callie said.

Ring. Vibrate. For Pete’s sake, how many times before voicemail picked up?

A click sounded, and my voice blasted out like a trumpet announcing how pathetic I was. I was going to eat so much ice cream after this. Screw my plan to never get a cavity again. “You’ve reached Perci’s phone. Sorry I’m not in right now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

Cough, cough.

“Hi, it’s Brent. Look, you’re a nice girl and I’m sure you’ll make someone really happy one day, but I don’t think we should see each other anymore. If you have any questions, you know where to find me.”

Dr. Kelly snorted. “What a jackass. Poor girl.” She laid a hand on my shoulder and my breath seized, waiting for her to remember my name, to realize I was that poor girl. “You’re all done. I’ll see you in a few months for a cleaning.”

Callie moved the tray of instruments and raised the chair. I opened and closed my mouth, trying and failing to shake the numbness. Strangely, that feeling seemed to have moved from my mouth down my throat to my chest.

I shot out of the chair and snagged my purse, moving out of the small open exam room, phone clutched in my hand. My fight response might be underdeveloped, but my flight response was highly tuned. Right now, it urged me to get the hell out of the dentist’s office, the city of Houston, the state of Texas, and possibly the country.

Dr. Kelly stood and pulled off her gloves. “Tell your mom I said hi.”

I didn’t answer because that’s when my phone vibrated again—this time with a voicemail notification.

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