Waiting Room

Jennifer chewed the end of her pen delicately as she tilted her
glasses and glanced over at the next patient. The young man - about
twenty-two, she guessed - was slumped in the chair, idly flicking
through a magazine, pausing occasionally to stare at the ceiling, or
cast a brief glance out of the window. He sat there, listless, as if
waiting for a bus. It seemed unnatural... and she had seen enough
people waiting by now for her to know better.

"You look nervous," she told him, breaking the silence that had reigned
for ten long minutes.

"How do you mean?" he asked, sitting up, startled.

"Because you don't look it."

The patient appeared confused for a minute.

"According to my notes, you're having a tooth extracted this morning,"
Jennifer continued, flipping through some papers on her desk. "And I've
seen some people break a sweat over a simple check-up. So you must be
nervous... you just don't look it."

He laughed, tossing the magazine back onto the pile. "Okay, I admit it,
I am a little... anxious."

"Well, I'd offer you a cigarette, but I'm afraid the whole building is
non-smoking."

"Was there a fire here a couple of years ago?"

"I don't know, I haven't been here that long. All I know is, Dr
Benedict can't stand people smoking."

"Fair enough," he shrugged. "I'd get fed up with it too if I had to
scrape nicotine stains off teeth for a living."

Jennifer smiled warmly, glad that the vague air of tension in the room
had dissipated. He seemed to be relaxing now - for real, this time. And
she was starting to relax, too.

That was the strange thing. Jennifer knew that she ought to be the most
carefree person to ever inhabit the waiting room. She didn't suffer
from toothache, didn't have to undergo an operation. All she had to do
was make phone calls, and fill in forms, and make the coffee. All the
simple, mundane jobs that no-one else wanted to do. It was dull... but
it was easy. So why did it seem so terrible? Why did she find it
necessary to sit at that desk, projecting a cool facade just like the
patients, when all the time she felt as if a knot was twisting inside
of her, a screw turning too tightly? So many people came through that
room, and she offered reassuring smiles to all of them. It was her job.
But it was insane to try to calm the anxieties of strangers when she
felt so on edge herself.

Sometimes it was just too much to take. Sometimes she felt as if her
whole life was a waiting room. Hanging around, counting the minutes,
never really getting anywhere... and all the while smiling, chatting
and making conversation. But this time, something felt different. This
time she was talking to someone because she wanted to. For the first
time in ages, she could feel some small sense of peace. How long it
would last, she didn't know. Trying not to appear too eager, she
pressed on.

"So this is the first time you've had a tooth out?"

He nodded. "Until now, I never really understood this universal fear of
the dentist. Personally, I always found the barber shop a more
traumatic experience. Sitting there, staring at your reflection and
trying feebly to make conversation. At least the dentist doesn't expect
you to do the talking while he's spraying mouthwash down your
throat."

Jennifer found herself pushing her notes to one side, leaning on the
desk and resting her chin in her palm. Having watched him sit in
silence for the past few minutes, she felt surprise - pleasant surprise
- that this stranger could be so effusive. It was refreshing.

The patient ran his tongue across the tips of his teeth, and pressed
two fingers against the side of his jaw. "I suppose this day had to
come sometime..." he was saying, as he gently adjusted the loose tooth,
"...I just never gave it much thought." He glanced at the door with a
slight impression of awe. There was no sound from the other side, no
warning of what to expect. "It probably won't be too bad when I get in
there. It's the waiting...the anticipation...that's the worst
part."

As he spoke, the buzzer on Jennifer's desk sounded. Jarred from her
casual pose, she bent her head slightly to respond. "Yes, Dr
Benedict?"

"Miss Winters, would you ask the patient to wait for another ten
minutes?"

Jennifer couldn't help but look sheepish as she opened her mouth to
pass on the message.

"I heard," he told her. He checked his watch quickly, and she noticed
his left knee tremble slightly, before he looked up and spoke to her
again.

"You said you haven't been here long?"

"About seven months. I took time off after college. I'm supposed to be
going to law school, but I just needed a break. I needed... time to
myself."

"I can understand that."

"I wish my mother could. She's not too happy about it. Says I should be
trying to build some kind of a future."

"Have you talked it over with her?"

"No... we haven't really talked for a while. I moved in with a friend
just after I got out of college."

It felt good to be speaking these things aloud, but still Jennifer
wasn't sure why she was sharing so much with this man. Better to turn
the conversation round. She didn't want to bore anybody with her
problems, and anyway, most people seemed to enjoy talking about
themselves.

"So... do you and your mother talk a lot?"

"Not much. She died last summer."

"Oh..." Suddenly she felt angry with herself. Everything had been going
fine - why had she brought this up? "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," he replied, in a voice free of sarcasm. "It was
nobody's fault. Cancer. They gave her six months. She lasted
eight."

Jennifer bit her lip, searching for the next thing to say, something
soft, cushioning. But where words had flowed easily before, now they
felt stiff, stilted. Finally, she stammered: "I suppose it must have
been a bit easier... knowing it was coming."

He shook his head. "Not really. You see, you can get used to waiting.
Knowing it's coming, but never expecting it to get here. I woke up
every day expecting her to be a bit closer to death... but not dead.
Not gone."

Silence hung over the room again, and Jennifer could feel that dreaded,
knawing emptiness growing on the inside. God, it was awful. The silence
was screaming at her. She shuffled papers, clicked the nib of her pen
in and out - just to hear something make a sound. Then, at last, she
heard him stir and rifle through the pile of magazines.

"Vogue, Cosmopolitan... no FHM? No Playboy? Have you forgotten that men
go to the dentist too?" He picked one out from the pile and unfolded
it. "I was looking at a questionnaire in this. Want to try it?"

"Sure," she replied, desperate to lighten the mood once more.

"Okay... imagine this. You've got one day left to live."

"Why, do I have cancer or something?" she asked, and felt an instant,
horrible taste of regret. She had meant it - really meant it - as a
serious question. Her hand went to her mouth, and her voice crumbled
into a whisper. "I'm sorry, I didn't think..."

"It's okay," he said, hesitating just for a moment. "No, you don't have
cancer. There's a meteorite coming down... it will destroy the world...
and you're the only one who knows about it. Everyone around you is
carrying on as normal, as if nothing mattered. But you know you've only
got one day to live"

"Umm... if nobody else knows... shouldn't I be trying to warn
them?"

"What, like those lunatics who wander around with sandwich boards? This
is your last day on earth. Why waste time telling people something that
nobody will believe?"

She thought about this, and then nodded. "Go on."

"Okay, it's your last meal. Your last ever meal. What would you
have?"

"Pizza." She surprised herself with the speed of her reply.

He looked down at the page. "Most women say something more exotic...
caviar and a nice glass of Dom Perignon, something like that."

"I don't think I ever tried caviar."

"You could be missing something. And it's your last chance,
remember."

She shook her head. "Pizza never let me down before. A Meat Feast...
with mushrooms... and a stuffed cheese crust... mmm... and garlic
bread... and Coke. Not Pepsi or Diet. The real thing." She could almost
taste it, there and then.

"You can choose one film to watch. Just one."

Jennifer's forehead creased slightly as she struggled with the
challenge. It was getting harder now. She should probably say some
Hollywood classic, like Gone With The Wind... but she hadn't seen it.
It meant nothing to her.

"Okay, we'll come back to that one. This is the important bit. It's
your very last night on earth. You can choose who you spend it
with."

Sighing thoughtfully, she stared at her desk in dreamy contemplation.
"Anybody?"

"Anybody. Who would it be?" he persisted. "Who would you want to be
with?"

"Brad Pitt," she answered at last. "But with his hair like it was in
Legends Of The Fall, not like in Se7en. At one time I would have said
Keanu Reeves, but -"

"No," he cut in suddenly, as if she had misunderstood the question.
Leaning forward, he looked her in the eyes. "Who would you really want
to be with?"

She blushed, just a little, and glanced down at the desk again. "His
name is Michael. We were at college. He's older than me."

"Does he know?"

"I don't think so... No, he doesn't. I never really said
anything."

For a moment, silence threatened to intrude again. Then the buzzer
sounded.

"Miss Winters, send the patient in, please."

The man who had been waiting all this time stood and walked to the
door. He hovered there for a moment, reached out tenderly and grasped
the handle. Then he glanced quickly over his shoulder. "Bye..." he
said, and left the room.

Jennifer was left alone, enveloped by silence. But instead of the loud,
penetrating silence that she expected, it was calm, quiet, like the eye
of a storm. Rising, she wandered to the staff room and made some
coffee. Warming her hands on the cup, she closed her eyes and let her
mind drift, as she breathed in slowly, savouring the aroma... savouring
the moment.

* * * * *

As she slid the key into the lock, Jennifer expected her hand to
tremble slightly, the way it always did when she arrived home from
another dreary and terrifying day at work. It didn't happen. The key
turned smoothly, easily, the door opened and she took a few tenuous
steps inside. Sometimes her legs would tremble too, and she would sink
onto the sofa and start to cry. But today she couldn't cry... to cry
meant to let everything out, to stop thinking... and right now, she
couldn't stop thinking. About the man who had passed through her
waiting room... but mostly about herself. Her life. Where she had been,
where she was going. Where was she going? She didn't know.

She took a look around the flat. It was empty. Samantha was still at
work. She hadn't noticed it was empty until now. Lifting the phone,
Jennifer called her mother and asked her to come over. Then she called
Pizza Express, ordered a large Meat Feast with all the trimmings, slid
a copy of Pretty Woman into the video, and settled down to wait.