Ginny said “yea,” as long as he promised to return to the folding chair and didn’t mind her tying him up and covering his eyes with the bandanna again.
“If you tie me up and put on the bandanna, I won’t be able to eat,” Dr. Faux complained as Ginny freed him and he squinted in the dim light of the storeroom.
“I’ll sit right here without you don’t come back from doing your business, and on the back of that, I didn’t come over for to tell you nothing.” It was Ginny’s way of saying she’d leave him alone while he used the toilet, unless he tried something sneaky, like escaping, and in addition, she had no intention of giving him any sort of information.
While the dentist headed to the bathroom, she settled herself on a box of free antibacterial soap samples and ruminated about the speed traps, NASCAR taking over the island, and what the trooper had suggested about the Islanders’ criminal dental care. She and several other women had convened at Spanky’s and set out to spread the word to the entire Tangier population by posting signs on chainlink fences and all the shops and restaurants. They had even told the ferryboat captains, who promised to incorporate the NASCAR news and dental fraud alerts into their guided tours as they carried visitors back and forth between Crisfield and Reedville.
Dr. Faux returned to his folding chair and asked Ginny how her dentures were holding up.
“The same,” she said. “And now and again I feel a bit squamish from when you pulled them last teeth the other week. I spewed up the evening ‘fore last.”
“If you’re feeling nauseated and throwing up, it must be a bug of some sort,” Dr. Faux misinformed her. “And it sounds to me like your new dentures are clacking a little bit.”
“When the cream wores off, they do.”
“Well, if you need another tube of adhesive cream, you can pick up one while you’re here.” Dr. Faux hungrily ate a crab cake. “They’re in the middle cabinet in the examination room.”
Ginny silently watched him eat and began to struggle with deep resentment that was inching toward hate. She was a solid church woman and knew that hate was a sin, but she couldn’t seem to help herself as she watched the greedy, indifferent dentist stuff food into his mouth.
“I always thought you was the best I ever knew at teeth, Dr. Faux,” she finally blurted out. “But now I seen you for the truth, and you learned me we shouldn’t trust neither one neither more. We’re of a mind what things you been doing on us. I’m just so out of heart about it, and was thinking as much when I was renching the dishes right afore I brung your dinner. We gave you all what we could, mostly food and good words, when you come here to help us, and then what you did! Why bimeby, you got aholt of each and ever one of us and mommucked up our mouths so you could get mor’n you was supposed to from the gov’ment!”
“My dear Ginny, you know that’s simply not so,” Dr. Faux said in a cajoling tone. “For one thing, government officials audit dentists constantly and check for things like that. I could never get away with it, even if it would ever enter my mind. And I swear and kiss the Bible,” he tossed out one of the Islanders’ favorite exclamations, “that what I’m saying to you is true!”
“That’s all over!” Ginny declared, indicating she’d heard enough of his tales.
Huh, Ginny bitterly thought. A cold day in Heck it would be when some government agent took the ferry out here and tried to poke around in the Islanders’ mouths, looking to see if certain work had really been done or was necessary. She tried to pray away the hate in her heart by reminding herself that were it not for Dr. Faux, she wouldn’t have dentures or adhesive cream or free samples of mouthwashes. She supposed she would have no teeth of any sort, except for the real ones that Dr. Faux had claimed he had no choice but to extract because of abscesses, root fractures, bad enamel, an over-bite, and she forgot what else.