I went to the dentist and it was more expensive than I was expecting, though I was expecting it to be expensive because I don’t have dental insurance. So after my appointment, I held the gift bag with my complimentary floss close to my body and approached the receptionist’s desk. She told me the total for my visit and I stared at her, waiting for a punchline and when one didn’t come I suddenly became very aware of my pulse. I reminded myself that I really loved my dentist.

“Excellent number,” I said to the receptionist and pointed my card at her.

She took it and without looking at me said, “While I have you. What day is convenient for your next appointment?” She was chewing a stick of gum. I hoped for the sake of my dentist’s reputation that it was sugar-free.

“Whenever works for my dentist,” I said.

“As of five seconds ago your dentist no longer works here. She moved to Denver to be closer to her family and also the mountains. She loves high-altitude locations and artisan beers.”

“How wonderful,” I said, though I could hear my brain screaming.

“Yes, we all believe this to be wonderful.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. I will schedule you with our other dentist. The man one.”

Horror. I’d experienced the man one once, when my dentist was on vacation. The man dentist had a single long mustache hair that tickled my face as he leaned over to inspect my mouth. He kept asking if I had a boyfriend and told me that my mouth was too small for his hands. I apologized to him and ever since have wondered if my mouth is too small for my body, proportionally speaking.

I stared at the receptionist. She was mentally far away and clacking on her gum. “No,” I blurted at her. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done.

She looked up at me for the first time. “No?”

“I will schedule my next appointment at a later date using your online portal.”

“It would be better and more convenient for me if you called instead.”

“I will do no such thing,” I said with confidence. And then I turned and burst through the glass doors, or I tried to, but they were the kind of doors that opened slowly.

“Wait, you forgot your card,” said the receptionist who didn’t care.

The card machine was beeping a warning at her. “Keep it,” I said. “There’s very little money on it.”

The door opened enough for me to push my body through. The receptionist didn’t chase me. She wasn’t paid enough for that sort of thing.

I walked with power and importance down the sidewalk back to my car which was parked far away. Actually, it was outside my apartment. I had taken the bus. I’d probably have to sell the car to pay for the dentist and all my other expenses, then my body would be next. I was wondering how much blood was going for those days when a man came toward me on the sidewalk, probably because I was acting so important and walking so fast. He was carrying a very large, very old, very heavy-looking suitcase. We made eye contact and he asked me, gasping and out of breath, “How far is it to the Salvation Army?”

I said it was many blocks away, at least seven, in the opposite direction.

“Well that’s just great,” he responded in a snarky tone. Then he huffed away as if it were my fault that he’d been walking in the wrong direction. His conviction that I was to blame convinced me that I was, so I offered to help him carry the bag the rest of the way. He said that would be fine. We walked, each holding one handle, in the correct direction.

I looked at him and he looked back at me. Unlike the receptionist, he was very present.

“Smile for me?” I asked him. He did and his teeth were excellent. “Your teeth are excellent. Like thirty-two Chiclets.”

“What are Chiclets?”

“A kind of gum they sell near the register at drugstores like CVS. It’s very minty but loses flavor fast because it’s cheap.”

“I think I’ve been told that compliment before,” he said.

“I could see that.”

We were quiet, and then suddenly we were not. “I’m looking for a new dentist,” I said. “Would you recommend yours?”

He sized me up. “How old are you?” he asked.

“I’m in my mid to late twenties.”

“Be more specific.”

“I’m thirty-nine.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He didn’t answer my original question regarding who his dentist was, which made me think his dentist was special and high-status, someone he wanted to keep secret so that booking appointments with them wouldn’t be too difficult. I loosened my grip on the handle to punish him into giving me answers. He grunted against the added weight.

“Ok, ok, I’ll tell you who my dentist is,” he relented.

I regripped the handle.

He sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyways, she’s leaving for Colorado and I’ll have to start seeing the man one from now on.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“I agree.”

“Did you love your dentist?”

“I did.”

“Did she tell you many stories about her husband who was always getting concussions?”

“He had an uncommonly soft head.”

“I think we had the same dentist,” I said, feeling wistful.

“That makes sense, we’re only several blocks away from her former office.”

“It does make sense, but also, how strange that we have met this way.”

“I have only ever met one other person this way and we were married for just a short while.”

“How serendipitous.”

“Truly.”

“Should we go to Denver?” I asked. “To be with our dentist, who we love?”

“That makes so much sense to me.”

“And I too.”

We were two blocks away from the Salvation Army and it took me one block to get up the courage to say the rest of what I had to say. “But actually, I don’t have any money. Not even enough to cover a gingivitis exam. All I have is a gift card to Denny’s that someone I no longer speak to once gave me but there are no Denny’s in this city so I’ve never used it.”

“That’s how they getcha,” he said, and that’s how I knew he understood me.