My Hungry Friend

2. Black Tooth

The name of my practice is "Show Me Your Smile!" and before lunch I repeated this catchphrase to six different children, including one exceptionally unlucky eleven year old who I had to schedule for a root canal. My own smile was hiding somewhere back between my ears, and forcing it out for an appearance made the muscles in my cheeks hurt. I burped almost nonstop—sick, anxious burps that poisoned the air in my mouthmask. When Lucy, my receptionist and dental assistant, offered to pick up Indian food, I declined. Instead I went down Beacon with a fifty dollar bill rolled up in one fist, thinking this will take care of it, this will more than do. The corner under the marquis was empty except for a few scattered coins. Mom was nowhere to be seen.

"The lady who sits over there," I asked Napkin Guy. "Where is she?"

"Left."

"Where did she go? Do you know?"

He sniffed a lacy white paper rose. Deeply. This was getting me nowhere. I told him I liked his flower, then I went back to the office. For the rest of the day my guilt was like a cavity in the back of my mouth. Until I got it filled in and capped, I wouldn't be able to focus on anything else.

That's why I took the girl in, mostly. I needed to feel good about myself again.

I had finished my last appointment and was putting on my coat when Lu poked her head in through the door. "Mike, there's a young lady here hoping to see you."

"Tell her to schedule an appointment."

"I tried to, but she said she's in a lot of pain. I think"—Lu dropped her voice—"I think she's had things pretty rough."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like on the street. She has money, though. A whole wad of it. She must have saved up for a long time to come here."

The clock above the door read 4:28. I was already going to be late to relieve Cassie from watching my mother. What did an extra half hour matter? Besides, the later I left the more time the old woman would have to return to her corner (if she hadn't already). More than anything, I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to make things right. I wouldn't get any sleep if I had to take her cup of change to bed with me tonight. "All right, send her in."

"Really?"

"Really. Just get her info first if she's got any."

The girl walked in as I was getting my lab coat back out of the closet. She was tall, slim but not starved, and dressed in yesteryear's clothing: boots with holes in them, blue jeans with ripped knees, and a pullover sweatshirt about five sizes too big. One glance at her face, pulled tight from the ponytail she wore, told me that I'd be pushing if not exceeding the limits of my pediatrics' specialization by seeing her. I'm more than capable of peeking into an adult's mouth, of course, but doing so takes business from the general practitioners and is a great way to lose their referrals.

"Hello, Dr . . ."

"Dr. Roberts," I said. "But you can call me Mike. Everyone else does. And you are?"

She paused briefly. "Tiffany."

"Nice to meet you, Tiffany. What's bothering you?"

Her mouth worked silently, as if she was sucking on one large and painful gumball. "I don't know, but there's something wrong."

"Well, let's have a look." I nodded at the chair while putting on latex gloves. She took an anxious seat. Nobody, except for children too young to know better, gets into that chair looking comfortable. Most treat it like a medieval torture device, and that's pretty much what it is underneath the cushions. "All, right, Tiffany. Show me your smile."

Until then Tiffany hadn't given me more than a glimpse of her teeth and, to tell the truth, I wasn't expecting a pretty sight. The homeless have bigger concerns than dental care. But I was wrong. Her smile was beautiful—straight, clean, and perfectly white. Even pained, it made her face light up.

"Did you have braces?" I asked out of pure reflex.

She shook her head.

"You're lucky then," I said, and winced inwardly, glancing at her worn, baggy clothes. They smelled as if they had been washed in men's body spray, and I guessed that was more likely than a laundromat. "Okay, Tiffany, open up wide."

She opened up wide, and I leaned over her, not realizing until it was too late that I had forgotten to put on my mask. Thankfully, her breath matched her smile and not her outfit. I smelled peppermint and some faint citrus that might have been lemon or lime. I've got a good nose. My mother used to make me sniff her wine back when I was a kid. I would start off by listing what was there—blackberries, granite, so on—but I'd always finish with something absurd like "wet teddy bear," or "baby pillow." My mother would laugh, and then . . .

"Dr. Roberts?" said Tiffany. "Do you see anything?"

"Sorry. It's been a long day." I turned my eyes forward to the present. A quick scan of her teeth showed nothing out of sorts. No nasty brown spots, no lesions. "Well, we're not dealing with a cavity. And you're not showing any signs of gingivitis."

Then I saw it. A tiny lump behind the 29th and 30th posteriors—in laymen's terms, the teeth set halfway back on the lower left side of her mouth. The gums there had begun to climb the enamel, and under them something bulged. A supernumerary tooth? They usually presented themselves in children, but a late erupter wasn't out of the question. This one had probably been camping out down in the roots of her posteriors, and now it was getting ready to show its ugly little head at long last. Strange, though, that her other teeth hadn't been displaced at all.

I glanced at Tiffany. Her eyes were watching me closely, with what struck me in that moment as cold interest. For a second I felt as if I were the one in the chair under examination. I looked back into her mouth. Blinked. The lump had risen closer to the surface . . . unless the gums covering it had crept back ever so slightly, and wasn't it odd that those gums weren't swollen or bleeding? I gave them a poke to test their tenderness, but instead of squishing beneath my fingers, they moved. No, that is only halfway to the truth. Her gums didn't just move under my touch; they shrank from my touch, sliding down like a clingy red robe. Something pricked me—something that looked like a baby canine tooth but completely black, and I pulled my hand out with a gasp.

Tiffany shut her mouth. She got up out of the chair. "Thank you, Dr. Roberts, for seeing me. I feel so much better now. How much do I owe you?"

I was too bewildered to answer.

"Come on, Doctor, you don't work for charity. Everything's got a price." She thumbed a few bills out of her pocket. "One hundred dollars. That's ten a minute. Does that seem fair?"

"What—what was that?"

"What was what?" she said, smiling a thin bright smile. She dropped the money on the chair. "Goodbye, Doctor, and good luck." At the door she paused and gave me a long, thoughtful look. A look with no warmth in it whatsoever.

"Everything's got a price," she said.

Then she left.

I stood there staring after her until I became aware of the tingling, throbbing heat in my right hand. A drop of blood welled from my forefinger, spreading between my skin and the skin of my glove.