Dating Without Novocaine

“What on earth could you possibly learn from that?”

“It’s like the cards. You can find the parallel in your own life, if you look for it. Maybe I’m dating a guy who reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt in some way, and the synchronicity is telling me that he is bad for me, that he’s a villain. I don’t know. It depends.”

“Cassie, sometimes you’re a very weird chick, you know that?”

“Am I?” she asked, sounding pleased.

“Definitely.”

Louise got up and went to the refrigerator, returning with a two-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi. She refilled our glasses. “Have you outlined a plan of attack for finding Mr. One-in-a-Million?” she asked, capping the bottle and setting it on the coffee table, then sinking cross-legged onto the carpet.

“Somewhat.” I told her about the events I’d found in the papers, and asked if she’d want to go to the free concert in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

“Jazz? I don’t know,” Louise said. “Maybe Cass will go with you.”

“No way,” Cassie said. “Guys who like jazz take themselves way too seriously.”

“Or you might be able to get Scott to go,” Louise said.

“What would be the point of going to a concert to meet guys, if I’m with a guy already? No one would approach me.”

“Oh. That’s right.”

“Maybe I’ll just do the gorge hike. Even if I did find a single guy at the jazz concert, he’d probably make me a tape of his favorite music, and then be all disappointed when I didn’t like it.”

“They’re so cute when they try to share,” Cassie said.

“I was also thinking of trying Internet dating. It seems like an efficient way to look for what you want. Sort of like shopping.”

Louise made a face. “Are you sure about that? It’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it?”

“I shouldn’t think it was any more so than meeting someone at a dance club.”

“But people can lie when they’re hidden behind their computers,” Louise said.

“They can lie in real life, too. I’ve looked at a couple of the sites, and they seem pretty safe. You get a code name, and they give you a mailbox on the site, so no one has your real e-mail address.”

“I don’t know, Hannah, you hear all sorts of stories…”

“You hear good stories, too.” I lowered my voice to a confidential, persuasive level. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious about it? There might be a college professor or an artist on there right now, just the type you’re looking for.”

“You don’t want me to try it, do you?” she asked.

“Why not? We all could, you, me, Cassie and Scott. You’d do it, wouldn’t you, Cassie?”

“Yeah, sure, for a lark. Why not? I see plenty that goes on at the pub, and I wouldn’t mind having a computer screen between me and some of the snakes out there while I’m looking for a date.”

“Some of the sites are free,” I continued, “and others give you a trial membership. Think of how many ‘possibles’ we could sort through, from the comfort of our own homes! And if they’re all weirdos, we don’t have to meet any of them in person.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“If you can get Scott to do it, too, then maybe I will.” She sounded far more reluctant than enthusiastic.

I grinned, victory within my grasp. “This is going to be great.”

“Is it?” Louise asked weakly, and reached for the bottle of Diet Pepsi.

“It’ll be an adventure!”

“Wonderful.”

Four

Black Leather

“H ey, Hannah, you should have stopped by my office today,” Scott said, closing our front door behind him. It was three days after our dinner at the restaurant. “This woman came in with an abscess under one of her molars. The infection went all the way down into the jaw, where it had eaten out a pocket of bone—”

“Oh, God, Scott, shut up!” I said, covering my ears and ducking my head toward my lap in an effort to shut out the image he was conjuring.

“I had to drill through her tooth, and when I did, this spurt of pus—”

“I’m going to throw up.”

“And the smell—”

“Stop it!”

“I second that,” Cassie said. “That is beyond gross. Jeez, Scott, you’ve been sucking ether too long if you think that makes interesting conversation.”

“We don’t use ether. That went out in the fifties.”

“You get my point.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s safe, Hannah. The beast has been silenced.”

I glared at Scott, then spun ninety degrees in my desk chair and stood, going to snatch the grocery bag out of Scott’s hands. “What’s in here?” I asked.

“Greedy thing, aren’t you?”

“You went to Zupan’s? We’ll have to get out the linen tablecloth.” Zupan’s was the aesthetically pleasing grocery store a few blocks down from our house. Cassie and I usually shopped at Safeway, assuming that any supermarket as attractive as Zupan’s must be beyond our means.

“That’s me, Dr. Deep Pockets. I picked up some things to make this torture more endurable.”

I dug through the bag. Purple grapes, store-made brownies, red wine and Tater Tots. I pulled out the bag of frozen potato product and held it up, making a questioning face.

“Don’t you like Tater Tots?” Scott asked.

“Don’t they remind you of school lunches from grade school?”