Calling All Dentists (Calling All... Book 2), page 27
“Lovely,” replied Ruby, smiling in admiration. “You look really nice.”
Emma smiled back, slapped her hands down to her sides and then shrugged, Well if he doesn’t like me anymore, because of my teeth, it’s his loss,” she stated firmly, with a stiff upper lip.
“He will… he does like you Emma, I’m sure. Just remember, he has wanted to see you all the time – it was you that called it all off.”
“Yeah, I know.” Shrugging her shoulders again in an exaggerated gesture of ‘oh well, we’ll see’, Emma picked up her black bag, rummaged through to check she had everything and then left the flat.
The town centre was already buzzing with bargain hunters, looking to pick up a new outfit or some cheap shoes in the January sales. Large, red letters and numbers jumped out from every window display and nearly every single one showed a percentage sign reduction in varying degrees. Single people, couples, small groups and families all hurried from one shop to another, wearing cheesy grins at having bagged a bargain. They all held on to their branded carrier bags, proudly swinging them backwards and forwards, just to prove that they’d been in the best shops.
Emma nervously made her way through the precinct towards Jimbo’s café, her dry mouth and rapidly beating heart made her feel even more worried about the pending rendezvous with the most handsome man she had ever met – even though he was a dentist. Trying to catch a glimpse of herself in the shop windows, she almost bumped in to several passers-by. Just up ahead, she could see the illuminated sign of the café and felt like her heart had rushed up to her throat to play music with her tonsils. She paused, looked around and then suddenly changed direction, heading straight for the Littlewoods store and more so, the shop’s toilets to check herself in the mirror yet again.
Two elderly women were standing chatting at the sinks in the ladies room. Emma hesitated before turning right into a vacant cubicle, closing the door behind her. She didn’t want to use the lavatory – she only wanted to check in the mirrors before she went into the café to meet Andrew. Her doubting fear had raised its ugly head yet again and the self-images flickering through her mind’s eye were appalling.
Seated on the lid of the toilet, Emma waited until the two women had left the room before she flushed the toilet needlessly and exited the cubicle. Time was ticking by and Emma noted that it was 11.55am. Looking up from her wristwatch, she stared into the mirror – she had to hurry up. She looked fine, why had she worried so much? Why did she always have a grotesque image in her mind of how she must look to others? Her nightmares really did haunt her all of the time.
The café was packed full of hungry and thirsty shoppers. Emma peered around the edge of the window, scanning the circular tables, covered in red and white checked cloths. Then she scoured the two-deep queue at the serving hatches. No Andrew. Casually, she strolled along the length of the four large paneled windows and door, to the other end, peering inside all of the time. Halting on the other corner, Emma turned around and surveyed the precinct, as far as she could see. No Andrew. Maybe he is inside, she thought as she began to feel a little embarrassed by her strange behaviour hovering outside of the café like she was stalking someone.
Again, Emma strolled back past the front windows, peering intently in to the café, searching… searching. Anger began to bubble away in her stomach as she realised how stupid she was probably beginning to look. Why hadn’t she just gone inside and ordered a coffee? That way, she could have looked around and waited for him if need be, while looking totally normal, drinking coffee in a coffee shop.
Unable to bring herself to stop, turn and enter the café, Emma moved swiftly across the precinct to the Specsavers shop opposite and walked straight inside. Cursing under her breath, she stood by a rack of glasses frames and pretended to look at them while peering straight past them and out of the window towards the café.
“Hello, can I help you at all?” A man’s voice made Emma jump and she turned around to face the scrawny looking, smartly dressed, young man.
“Err… no… thank you… I’m err… I’m just looking thanks,” said Emma. She felt flustered and slightly pathetic. The young man smiled and stepped back, nodding his head in acknowledgement.
“Just let me know if I can help at all,” he said, with a puzzled expression on his face. “We have got some good deals on those frames today.” The young man pointed to the frame rack behind her.
“Oh ok… err… good… yes, thank you.”
“May I ask? Do you currently wear glasses madam?”
“Err… no… no I don’t.”
“Ah, I see. We have some excellent offers for our first time customers. Would you like to book an eye test madam?”
“Err, no thank you… well not at the moment thanks. I would just like to look at these,” said Emma, turning and pointing to the frames in the window display.
“Ok, that’s fine madam. Please let me know if I can help at all.”
Emma nodded her head and then grinned wryly, “Yes, thank you.” Then she turned back to the frames rack.
Averting her eyes from the rows and rows of frames of all different colours and designs, she stared back out of the window and across the precinct to the café on the opposite side… and there he was. Andrew stood just in front of the doorway peering up and down the precinct in just a short sleeved, green checked shirt. He looked just as handsome as she’d remembered him and her heart fluttered in her chest as she turned around, smiled at the young, male assistant and left the opticians very quickly.
Chapter 25
“Hi,” said Andrew, softly. Emma almost swooned at the tone of his voice – he sounded incredibly sexy. “Why did you go shooting off? I saw you walk past a minute ago and then you disappeared.” He laughed and then hesitantly, leaned over to peck her on the cheek. Emma reciprocated with a twist of her lips onto the side of his face before pulling away coyly. “Come on – I’ve got a coffee in there,” he said, indicating the café door with his eyes. Grabbing her hand, Andrew pulled her in to the café and they weaved through the tables, full of dining customers, to the far end where his padded jacket hung over one of two chairs at a small table tucked away in the corner.
He is a true gentleman, thought Emma as he pulled the opposite chair out and offered a seat to her.
“Coffee?” he asked with that same glint in his eye that always seemed to turn her to jelly.
“Yes please and sorry, I… I just panicked and ended up going in the opticians. Silly of me really,” she replied quietly and smiled straight into his eyes. Andrew winked a lash-laden eye before he turned and walked over to the queue.
Emma watched his every move, his muscular build was appealing to most young women who caught a glance of him and likewise, the men too seemed to take a second look at his tall and strapping figure that stood out in the crowd. He really does not look like a dentist, thought Emma, or maybe she had a warped view of what dentists should look like. Perhaps her nightmarish image of a crouching Gollum-like figure, leaning over a murky pool of filth and dripping saliva from its rotted teeth was imprinted on her conscious mind and lived outside of her dreams as well as in them. But then, wasn’t that hideous figure her subconscious portrayal of herself, not the dentist.
Emma shook her head to dispel the vision and pulled her arms from her coat and hung it over the back of the chair. Looking up she noted that Andrew was gazing across the café, in her direction. He smiled and Emma’s heart skipped. Smiling back through tightly clamped lips, she shifted uncomfortably and realised that the awkward ‘you never told me you were a dentist’, conversation was inevitable.
“I wasn’t sure if you would be here already so I just popped over to the opticians to have a look at their frames,” said Emma, as Andrew placed 2 large mugs of frothy coffee on the table.
“Ah, I did wonder where you went off to, do you need an optician as well?” he laughed.
Emma froze unsure whether he was joking or whether the ridicule was just starting.
“Ok,” he said shaking his head, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that – I am sorry.”
“It’s fine, don’t be sorry.”
“This is my second one,” he said, raising his mug. “Wasn’t sure if you would get here early or not and I had nothing else to do so I thought I would have one before you arrived.”
“Oh, I see”
“I think we need to talk about things don’t we?” The tone of Andrew’s voice had lowered even more as he spoke.
Emma nodded her head and curved her mouth downwards, before reaching for the handle of the mug – she didn’t want to drink it yet, it was far too hot but she needed something to hold on to.
“I had no idea Emma –it never occurred to me that you didn’t know what I did for a living, I thought we had been through all of that at the Christmas do. I certainly would never have imagined that you might have a problem with it,” Andrew half whispered, while leaning across the table.
Staring deep in to his eyes, Emma realised that he was absolutely right. How could he have known she was petrified of people in his profession?
“I got your text on the morning I bumped in to you… you know, the second one about what did I do for a living?” Emma nodded her head, remembering that she had sent it. “I was too busy to answer it and had decided to text you later that day. But then, obviously, it was too late and everything bad happened and it all went to rat shit.” Andrew drew a breath and sighed. Gripping the hot mug, he looked deep in to Emma’s eyes as if he was wondering what her response was going to be.
“I’m sorry, I know it all sounds… well, it sounds totally crazy but I really can’t help it. I am sickeningly terrified by dentists and haunted by my own teeth.” Emma pulled the mug to her lips and tried to hide behind the milky froth, precariously balancing around the rim.
A momentary silence fell upon them as Andrew followed suit, picking up his coffee mug and gently slurping the creamy froth from the top.
“I really didn’t know Emma. I’m so sorry that we’ve ended up like this.”
“So am I,” whispered Emma, blinking away the prickling sensation that comes just before a teardrop. Although she felt like she just wanted to burst in to a flood of supersize tears and fall in to his embrace in a faint, like on the old black and white movies, she just couldn’t let herself weaken in front of him. “It’s not going to work is it?” Emma swiftly glanced at his surprised expression, “I mean… well, surely it can’t. I am the one with a big problem here Andrew.”
“I would like it to be my problem too.”
That was it, there was no way Emma could stop the well of watery droplets that seeped onto the rims of her eyes. Blinking quickly, she looked across the café and noticed that everyone else was engaged in conversations, engrossed in eating their food or staring dreamily out of the large windows at the front, watching the busy shoppers rushing by. No one had actually noticed that Emma was having a major crisis right here, in the corner of the café. She was just a table number, another person sitting in a café on a Saturday afternoon, drinking coffee. She really wasn’t the grotesque monster that she thought she was. Placing her mug back on the table, Emma looked in to his eyes – they were pleading eyes, seductive and loving.
“Please come back to my place when we’ve finished these,” said Andrew, holding up his mug and eyeing it. “We could talk about it much easier there. No strings, I promise. If you really feel there is no future for us, I’ll… well, I’ll leave you to decide that but you are welcome to come back to mine even if it is just as a friend, for one last time.”
“I can’t… I’m different. I’ve changed.”
“What do you mean, how have you changed?” asked Andrew, looking puzzled again. Emma pulled her bottom lip down, revealing the small gaps in between two of her teeth. “I hadn’t even noticed Emma, so how have you changed?”
“I’ve lied to you Andrew. It just won’t work – it can’t work – one of my teeth fell out last week. I’ve been avoiding you and that was before I even knew that you were a dentist.” Emma sighed, “I’m sorry, I’ve got too much of a hang-up Andrew. I can’t even go back to that dentist now. I just don’t know what to do anymore.” Emma began to sip the hot drink hastily, burning her lips. If she was going to leave, it had to be very soon. Now or never…
“Look, we’ll go back to mine and then you can start back at the beginning and tell me everything. What do you say?”
Emma gave in very easily and nodded her head while the rim of the mug remained attached to her lips. What else could she do? She didn’t really – not for one minute – want to walk out of the café and never see Andrew again. She had to tell him every gory little detail about her secret fear and what it had done to the health of her mouth and teeth and her state of mind, if this was ever going to work.
Aware of Emma’s anxiousness and sensitivity, Andrew reached across the table and took her hand in his, “I care enough about you to help you through this Emma. Please don’t push me away when I can really help you.”
“Ok,” agreed Emma and pulled away from his hand to retrieve a tissue from her coat pocket, “I’ll come to yours,” she said, nervously. Andrew smiled, then cupped both of his hands around his mug and drank the sweet coffee, with a warm and sincere smile on his face.
Andrew was already indoors by the time Emma parked her car in front of his on the side road. Nausea had hit her as she drove to his flat. She was incredibly anxious and decided that she had spent most of the New Year feeling this way and more so during the short time that she had known the real Andrew – the dentist. As she stepped out on to the pavement, she inhaled a deep breath of crispy air in to her lungs and held it there, hoping the sickness would go when she let it out. It didn’t.
The communal door had been left slightly ajar so Emma pushed it open and entered the building. The familiar smell of cleanliness helped to make her nausea disappear. Tentatively she began to climb the stairs to Andrew’s flat, her heart pounding with every step.
“Come on in,” called Andrew as Emma reached the open front door and hesitated, she was sure that her heart was beating in her throat. “I’ve just put the kettle on if you’d like another coffee.”
Slowly, Emma inched her way through to the small kitchen and leaned against the fridge door, coat wrapped tightly around her with folded arms.
“Shall I take your coat?” he asked, holding out a hand.
Emma shook her head and pulled the coat even tighter, “No, it’s fine. I’ll keep it on for a minute thanks.”
“Do you want another coffee? I’ve got some biscuits too; they’re in that top cupboard behind you. Custard creams I think. I never did get around to buying you that cake that I promised you, did I?”
Emma smiled. “That’s ok,” she replied and then turned around to search for the custard creams in the cupboard. She was hungrier than she’d realised when she saw her favourite biscuits – she wondered if that was why she had felt sick, a few minutes ago. Passing the unopened packet to Andrew, she slowly removed her coat and hung it over the back of the chair. Her heart was galloping at a pace but she knew she had to go through with this revelation and the outcome would simply be a case of ‘kill or cure’, as far as their fragile relationship was concerned.
“So… start at the beginning,” said Andrew, placing the cups on to two black, leather coasters, on the glass coffee table, “I want to know everything, that’s if you’re sure that you want to tell me everything.” He looked at her and smiled warmly. “Or at least tell me enough, so that we can get over this and carry on seeing each other.”
Emma sat and stared straight through him, wondering exactly where to start and what to say – it all seemed a bit silly now.
“I know one thing for sure,” he smiled again and laughed, “After all the years of study and training, I can’t possibly change my job.”
Thankfully the awkward atmosphere had been broken and Emma laughed too.
The daylight was dimming so Andrew switched the table lamp on which cast a warm glow across the room. “Another one?” he asked, picking up Emma’s cup. She smiled and nodded.
They had been talking for over two hours and Emma’s mouth felt quite dry. Things really weren’t as bad as Emma’s warped mind had made them seem. Yes – she did have a big problem with her teeth, or as Andrew pointed out, her gums, not the actual teeth, and yes – it was not going to get any better unless she took action and yes – he completely agreed with her after much deliberation and offers of alternative treatments (such as, having her teeth removed and screwed back in, at a cost of around £10k) that if that was what she really wanted (to have all her teeth removed), then that was the right thing for her to do.
Andrew had worn his ‘I am a dentist and our ethos is always to save your teeth’, hat from time to time but realising the extent of Emma’s fears, he backtracked slightly and eventually understood that she just couldn’t go through any other type of treatment unless she was completely unconscious every time and that would not happen on a regular basis. He even offered to help speed up the process by contacting the right people and getting her seen as soon as possible at the local hospital, by an orthodontic surgeon. “If this is truly the route that you want to take Emma then I completely understand you, but it will not be an easy one,” Andrew had said in a gentle and kind way.
“I know,” she’d replied, suddenly realising just how real it all was.
Feeling warm and cosy, Emma pulled off her boots and curled up on the comfy sofa, while listening to the clattering of cups in the kitchen. She began to muse over their long conversation and wondered how their relationship actually stood at this present time. Were they still in a sexual relationship or had it become more of a friendship and supportive practitioner/patient bonding? Unlike any other time that Emma had been with Andrew, the lustful excitement and insatiable appetite to tear each other’s clothes off hadn’t been there over the last couple of hours. Maybe the subject of conversation wasn’t exactly a turn-on. Or had it gone deeper than any of that?
