“Oh, will you ever forgive me, Bedford?” Mrs. Crimm begged and sniffed.
His magnifying glass caught the edge of the napkin and he yanked it out of his collar and flung it to the floor, his worst fear realized.
“Just tell me how,” he said as cramps seized his submarine. “How did you find them? The phone book? Dinner parties?”
“Never at dinner parties.” She was stunned that he might think she would go to a dinner party and steal a trivet. “I would never do anything that low. Nor do I need to,” she added somewhat indignantly. “I found them on the Internet, if you must know. You can find anything on the Internet these days, and the temptation has been overwhelming. Oh Bedford, I just can’t help myself. No matter how ashamed I feel, I know it will happen again. I suppose there are much worse flaws I could have.”
“There is no worse flaw you could have! And Pony must be in on it, too,” the governor said breathlessly as his submarine cut through the dark, convoluted surface of his well-being, the periscope up and spying on the enemy, which in this case was his unfaithful wife. “That scoundrel Pony had to know what you’ve been doing since he’s here waiting on you hand and foot all day. And I doubt they’ve been sneaking into the mansion at night. Please don’t tell me they have! That would be the most vile of degradations if you’ve been sneaking them in at night while I’m sleeping in the same bed! Go back upstairs this instant!” he ordered his daughters. “We’re having a fight, and you know we never fight in front of you!”
“Never at night,” Mrs. Crimm swore as her daughters’ heavy footsteps sluggishly shuffled around and thudded back upstairs. “After I get them, they always arrive the next morning, sweet husband, and I’ve been hiding them in a linen closet.”
“Well, you can rest assured I’ll check every linen closet the moment I arrive home today,” the governor thundered, and he would have checked now, but his submarine was in distress and headed straight for a mine. “And if I find them there–or even one–that’s it. I mean it.”
“You won’t,” she said, dabbing her eyes and calculating where she could hide the trivets after she snatched them out of the linen closet the instant he left. “I promise on my life. You can check the linen closets all you like forever, my dearest, and they’ll have nothing in them but linens. All of our pretty linens, neatly pressed, folded, and stacked.”
The governor broke out in a heavy cold sweat as the first explosion reverberated through his hollow organs in an awesome, foul wave and rolled with gathering momentum toward his orifice. Bedford Crimm IV’s submarine armed its torpedoes and slammed shut its sphincter muscle hatch as he fled with great commotion to the nearest powder room.
Six
Once a week, Dr. Faux took the ferry to Tangier Island, where he donated his time and skills to people who had no local physicians, dentists, or veterinarians. It was his mission in life, he often said, to help the less privileged watermen and their families, who were unaware of his unusual billing practices and creative coding that routinely defrauded Virginia’s Medicaid program.
Dentists, Dr. Faux thought, had no choice but to supplement their incomes at the expense of the government, and he sincerely believed that subjecting the Islanders to unnecessary or shoddy or fake procedures was only fair in light of his great sacrifice. Who else would come to this forsaken island, after all? Well, nobody, he reminded everyone he worked on or pretended to work on. He adjusted a lamp and moved a mirror around Fonny Boy’s back molars.
“Seems to be a lot of commotion out there,” Dr. Faux commented, deciding that the tooth he had just filled would require another root canal. “Now Fonny Boy, I strongly remind you to cut back on the soda pops. How many a day are you drinking? Be honest.”
Fonny Boy held up five fingers as Dr. Faux looked out the window at all the women and children washing a mysterious painted stripe on the street.