Isla at the Dentist’s Office |
Issue 13
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Isla walked into the building feeling distinctly overdressed. This wasn’t a new feeling; Jack was always telling her that wherever she went, she stood out in a crowd, so she was used to it. Of course, he meant that as a compliment, the sweet man, but this time it was different. Walking into a dentist’s waiting room at 10 am on a Wednesday morning while wearing her formal dress from the wedding party last night was a bit more than just “standing out.”
It wasn’t her fault, though, that she found herself in this predicament. She wasn’t able call a ride-sharing service, so she’d been making her way to the main street a block away to hail a cab when her right heel snapped. She figured she could just pop into the nearest commercial establishment and ask if she could use their phone, and that’s how she found herself in this dentist’s office, however reluctantly. “Hi,” she greeted the receptionist. She dropped her home keys down on the top of the reception desk while she adjusted her broken shoes and small purse on her other hand. “I’m sorry to bother you, but could I use your phone? My cell phone died, and I need to call a cab.” The woman on the other side of the partition was nice enough to turn her landline over for Isla to use, and Isla thanked her, though she was annoyed she even had to do this. Last night had been good, and she had enjoyed catching up with her old college friends, but was it worth all this aggravation? It wasn’t as fun if she didn’t have Jack by her side, and having to get around on public transportation was the worst. She wouldn’t go out while Jack was out of town again, she decided; if he’d been with her, he could’ve driven them back home and she wouldn’t have had to deal with everything going wrong. Her annoyance grew as the person who took her request for a taxi—an older-sounding woman with a thick accent and a nasally voice that aggravated Isla’s headache—told her it would take 20 to 25 minutes for her cab to get there. “It’s peak hour,” the woman pointed out, though Isla was well aware of that. But whatever. Not much she could do at the moment but wait, she figured. She decided it would be practical to remain close to the glass door that was the entrance to the office, so she’d be able to see her taxi pull up. She set her shoes, one broken and one not, down on the floor beside a potted plant that looked too healthy to be real and put her purse down atop the desk beside her keys. Looking around the reception hall, she noted that there were no TV screens anywhere. Since her cell phone was dead, that meant she would be relegated to last-century means of entertainment for the next 20 minutes or so. Isla turned to browse through a rack of magazines that stood between the glass door and the potted plant, noting that some of the issues displayed on it were years or even decades old—last century, indeed. They had a nice variety of topics, for what it was worth. Her gaze lingered over an issue of a car magazine that displayed a bright-red Corvette. An older model, to be sure, but it reminded Isla of Jack’s car. She held back a sigh, overcome with longing. He loved that car. She loved that car. She didn’t know much about cars herself, but sitting in the passenger seat of Jack’s roadster would be a thrill for anyone. That car was not only a symbol of maturity and status, but also of freedom. It was rare, too; people’s eyes strayed to it whenever it was in the vicinity. It stood out. Jack liked things—and people—that stood out. And she was drawn to that exquisite taste like a moth to a flame. Isla chuckled to herself. If anyone could hear her thoughts, they’d think she was only with Jack for his fancy car. Truth was, she missed him terribly. They’d only be apart for a week, but that was still too long for her. She needed him so much. Her ruminations were interrupted by something slamming against her side. She looked down to see that a young boy had barrelled into her—maybe six or seven, dark hair, round cheeks and, when he opened his mouth, she noted his two front teeth were missing. The boy mumbled something quick that might have been an apology and ran off, eventually disappearing behind a plastic accordion door that separated the reception area from the dentist’s workspace proper. The receptionist, somewhat amused, pointed out that the boy’s father was in the dentist’s chair at the moment, so the child had been running amok around the office for a while. Isla tried to keep her expression neutral. She hated kids: they were loud, uninteresting, and demanded attention every second of every day. Even in her mid-twenties, she felt she was too young to burden her life that way, and she’d rather just enjoy her life with Jack without being saddled with full responsibility over someone else’s wellbeing. It was an opinion she never brought up in conversation, however, because most people thought it was weird. The receptionist offered to warn Isla when her taxi stopped out front, so she didn’t have to stand there the whole time. Isla thanked her, grabbed a fashion magazine off the rack and, picking up her skirts, made her way to the closest chair on well-manicured tiptoes. Her headache only got worse as the minutes went by, because the boy from earlier decided it would be super fun to repeatedly dash between the accordion door and another door on the opposite side of the reception area that Isla assumed led to a bathroom. For some reason, the kid seemed to think this was the funniest activity in the world. And he was loud about it. Very loud. Isla’s head was throbbing. She tried to tune him out, concentrating on the New York Fashion Week article she was reading. It worked, at least for a little while. It was a cell phone ringtone that snapped her out of her focus. In any other circumstance, it wouldn’t have given her pause, but it just happened to be the same ringtone Jack had on his phone: an 80s rock/country fusion that she often teased him about because it belied his age. She hated the song, but in that moment, it tugged at her heart. Obviously, it wasn’t Jack’s cell phone that was ringing, but it was just another reminder that he wasn’t here with her. Her reverie was once again interrupted, this time by the boy bursting out through the accordion door and running across the reception area yelling at the top of his lungs until he disappeared behind the bathroom door again. Isla suppressed a grimace. Fortunately for her, that was just the moment the receptionist let her know her cab was waiting for her outside. She hurried toward the desk to get her stuff, bending down to pick up her shoes. Just as she was about to grab her purse, the accordion door shuffled open behind her. She figured it was just the annoying kid again, but she turned to look over her shoulder anyway, just out of reflex. It wasn’t the kid. “…Jack?” “Isla,” he said, sounding surprised to see her standing there. And of course he would be—she was just as surprised to see him there. Wasn’t he supposed to be out of town for work? He opened his mouth, and she waited, almost holding her breath, for an explanation. Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off when the bathroom door opened. “Daaaaaaaad!” The kid ran all the way from the back of the room and slammed against Jack’s side, thin arms wrapping around her boyfriend’s waist. The gesture read as familiar, and that’s when things clicked for Isla. She saw red. She groped around for something—anything—she could swing at the bastard. The closest object within her reach turned out to be her apartment keys, and without taking even a second to rationalize what she was doing, she threw them at Jack with a force fuelled by the bright, sizzling anger burning inside her. She couldn’t see anything but Jack. She couldn’t hear his protests, or the alarmed exclamations of the receptionist. She just wanted to hurt him, cut him down. But it wasn’t Jack who got hit. Later, she saw the paramedics loading the child into an ambulance as the cops pushed her, hands cuffed behind her back, out the glass door toward the patrol car. And as they drove around the corner to merge into the main street, she caught sight of the red Corvette parked on the opposite side of the building. And she cried. |
Carla I. Pinilla D. was born and raised in Panama City, Panama and is proud to be Latina. She currently lives in Australia while working toward a PhD and works as a science consultant, proofreader, beta reader, developmental editor, and translator for independent authors at FreakingNarnia.com.
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