“When we get back to New York …”
“Which will be in three weeks time. No, you must make an appointment immediately. I fear you may have an infection. Certainly you look to me as if you have a fever. On this I insist.”
“But … but how do I find a dentist … I mean here in Denver.”
“I believe there are websites that offer advice on finding a doctor or dentist. Or even better, ask the concierge.”
Mary numbly nodded and used the phone.
“Concierge. How may I help?”
“Hi, this is Mary Crawford in room 431. I don’t know if you can help me, but I’ve got a toothache and …”
“Of course, Miss Crawford. I know of a very good dentist nearby. Would you like me to connect you?”
Mary said yes and she was soon talking to a receptionist who said there was a cancellation that morning and she could come at 11:30. This information she relayed to Jane who promptly ordered her to get ready and that she order a taxi.
To Jane’s satisfaction, Mary readily agreed to everything. Jane enjoyed taking care of Mary and realized that being of use to others was something she greatly missed.
“You may wish to see to your appearance, dear,” Jane suggested. “You look a fright.”
“I guess I can take a quick shower.”
“Do so while I investigate what modern dentistry can do for your condition.”
“OK Mom,” Mary said.
Jane used the time to find reviews of the recommended dentist and found he was generally awarded high marks although apparently he did not rate highly for bedside manner. She also learned that removing an impacted wisdom tooth was considered routine although she doubted Mary would endure that procedure today.
. . .
In which surmise she was proved correct.
“It’s a missing filling, that’s all,” said Dr. Aubrey, who was looking at Mary’s X-rays. He was holding the strips of film to the light. Behind him Jane was fascinated at the images of Mary’s teeth, mostly unblemished by the white spots that indicated fillings.
Jane was able to hear the conversation because Mary kept her terminal in a pocket, which at Jane’s request was left on. Mary was not wearing her earbuds, however.
“Why do you want to hear me talk to the dentist, Jane?” Mary had asked on the taxi ride to the dentist’s office.
“Your health is of the greatest concern to me, Mary. First, because you are my friend and second because you represent me to the world,” Jane said. In fact, her actual interest was that it was simply a very long time since she had a personal interest in the health of an individual. And she was always sympathetic to the thought of anyone requiring a visit to a dentist.
“I never suffered the supposed English curse of poor dental health, although my poor mother and sister did, and I will not have your teeth appear in anything other than good order.”
Jane had had a tooth pulled and her father had gone to the considerable expense of a gold filling for her, but overall she had escaped her sister’s torment and that of her nieces.
“I can see why you thought it was a wisdom tooth; however, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Dr. Aubrey said.
“Why’s that?” Mary asked.
“You’re lucky, you don’t have any. Not everyone develops wisdom teeth. You’re just further along the evolutionary ladder. Nope, you just lost a filling. Eat anything sticky or chewy recently?”
Mary thought back and recalled the caramels that she’d scooped up from a hotel front desk.
“That probably did it, but we can fix you right up because my root canal cancelled.”
“You’re going to do it now?” Mary asked.
“Unless you want to go around with a perpetual toothache. Your nerve is exposed. The pain must be awful.”
Mary had to admit it was, but as she had always a fear of needles and especially dental injections, she weighed for a second the pain in her tooth against her fear. Fortunately reason won her over.
“OK, let’s get it over with.”
“Oh I always love an enthusiastic patient,” the dentist said.
“Sorry, I just don’t like injections.”
“Nobody does, but don’t worry, I’ll give you a topical anaesthetic spray before I give you the injection. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Promise?”
He merely grunted an affirmation, however.
Jane observed this exchange and wondered how far to trust the dentist. She was familiar with the lies of doctors, including the promises made by her own doctors and the treatments she now knew were ineffective.
At this point, the dentist was called away by his receptionist and Mary used the opportunity to insert an earbud.
“I hope you’re still here Jane,” she said, as she lay back in the chair, her eyes closed.
“I am with you Mary. I am glad you don’t have an impacted wisdom tooth.”
“At least you don’t have to put up … oh, that was stupid of me,” Mary said. “I’m sorry … I don’t know what made me …”
“Do not concern yourself, Mary. I was thinking the same thing. I despised doctors and dentists, or at least in retrospect I did, and I am sorry you are suffering.”
“Are you on the phone?” the dentist asked as he returned from taking a phone call himself. “I’m afraid we have a cell phone’s off policy in the office.”
“No, I was talking to …” Mary realized it was more trouble than it was worth to explain to him that her friend was Jane Austen. She removed the earbud and put it back in her pocket.
He “harumphed,” which the terminal did not translate for Jane, but she could understand his judgmental look—the look of a high priest who has found a supplicant noisily sucking a sweet during his service. He then lowered Mary’s chair and took a device that looked like a small metal gun, attached to a hose, and quickly applied it to the inside of Mary’s mouth. Jane saw Mary jump in the chair.
“Oh you’re such a big baby,” he said to her. “That didn’t hurt.”
Mary had to admit it didn’t, but the sound of the topical anaesthetic sprayed onto her gums had surprised her. If he’d simply told me there would be a hissing sound, I wouldn’t have been surprised, she thought.
“It will just take a few seconds for it to numb up,” he said, and he glanced vacantly about the room while waiting. The dentist’s assistant/receptionist then appeared with a tray, which she handed him. He silently took the tray and put it to one side and then took from it a syringe.
Jane thought it a rather alarming looking device, far more intimidating than the disposable syringes the medical profession had adopted. It was very large and the overhead light glistened off its shiny metal surface.
“Open,” he told Mary, who seeing the device approaching her, shut her eyes tightly. “Just relax …”—he glanced over to his assistant who showed him the patient’s chart—”… Mary. You won’t feel a thing.”
Jane observed Mary try to relax, but as she was in a chair with her feet above her head and awaiting the needle, she failed.
Jane watched the needle enter Mary’s open mouth and then the doctor’s hands blocked her view, but when she saw the little jerk of Mary’s body …
And then Jane realized she was on the floor and for the first time since she had died she realized that to all intents and purposes she had fainted. For one brief glorious instant her mind had shut down and now she was back. She slowly rose to her normal level and heard the dentist ask, “Now that didn’t hurt, did it?”
“Yes it did,” Mary answered back with some vehemence, but she quickly added, “but not a lot.”
Jane knew from this exchange that her … well, she had to call it unconsciousness … must have lasted only a second, but the experience unnerved her and she left the examination room and retreated to the hallway.
She had been aware of every second of every minute of every day for almost two centuries and this was the first time a second, perhaps two, had elapsed without
her consciousness. It was both glorious and so very frightening. She had heard the stories about the disembodied who had essentially forgot themselves, to have gone beyond the madness caused by their depravation and given up their being. They were anecdotal stories, of course, for like the world before the discovery of the afterlife, such an abandonment of self was a one-way trip.
She wondered if her loss of consciousness was a taste of that abandonment and what was the cause of it. Was she so concerned for Mary that the sight of the needle caused her to panic? Was this a panic attack or what in her day would have been called hysteria?
That thought revived her. I do not suffer from hysteria, she thought, even though that was arguably what happened. I ridicule women who do, she added, and she conjured the image of those characters she had created who loudly indulged in hysterics.
To soothe herself, she imagined standing and smoothing her dress and feeling the cool muslin beneath her fingers, every wrinkle disappearing with each stroke. Finally she re-entered the examination room, and saw the dentist applying his drill to Mary’s tooth and the fine spray of water and tooth enamel that issued from her friend’s mouth.
She quickly retreated to the hallway and remained there until Mary emerged a half hour later. Mary looked to her left and right, obviously trying to make contact with Jane, who connected to the AfterNet field.
“I’m here Mary. Are you all right?”
“Yes, Jane,” Mary said quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”
Mary quickly paid and practically ran outside. Once free of the building, she called the taxi company and asked to be taken back to the hotel. Then she sat down at a bench to wait.
The dentist’s office was in a small shopping area not too far from downtown in a residential neighbourhood. Most of the buildings were small and old and included restaurants, a flower shop, a bicycle repair shop and a comic book store. The dentist’s office was in the largest building, but it still looked like it was built in the 1930s with some Art Deco styling. It was a very pleasant block but all Mary wished was to see the back of it.
“Was it very painful?” Jane asked.
“Not bad, but now I’ve got whale tongue. Is it OK if we don’t talk?”
Jane had no idea what Mary meant by whale tongue, as she’d never experienced the numbness of a local anaesthetic, but she assured Mary they need not talk. They waited about ten minutes for the taxi to arrive and Mary largely remained motionless during that time except to periodically probe her numb cheek with her hand.
Mary quickly got in the taxi, barely allowing Jane enough time to enter, and not sliding over to give Jane room, who had to clamber over Mary’s body.
Jane observed the dull look on Mary’s face and thought perhaps she was overindulging in self pity.
“It couldn’t have been that bad, Mary. You had the advantage of anaesthetics, which I never had.”
Mary looked to Jane, said a silent obscenity, slumped against the door and then closed her eyes for the ride back to the hotel.
1 The Colorado Rockies professional baseball team
The Fort
Jane wears the buffalo hat
“You’re sure you’ll be OK? Melody will kill me if she finds out I let you go,” Mary asked Jane, and then to the ladies who’d just arrived, “It’s really important to always, always make sure she’s made it through the doorway. Believe me, it’s easy to forget. And if you get in a crowd …”
“Mary, you are frightening Ms Hornung and Ms Reineke,” Jane said. “I am sorry, she’s quite the solicitous mother.”
“And don’t let her go wandering off on her own,” Mary continued, trying to distil for them in a few minutes the tricks of caring for a disembodied author.
“Please, Mary, I will be perfectly fine, won’t I?” She addressed her question to Susan Hornung and Barbara Reineke, the two women from the Denver-Boulder region of JASNA, but they were too surprised to reply. They had come to Jane and Mary’s hotel room, thinking they were to collect Jane Austen and her avatar and take them to the Fort restaurant, where they would meet eight other JASNA members. Now they’d been informed that Jane’s avatar was recovering from a dental procedure and could not accompany them, but Jane herself could.
Ignoring their non-response, Jane continued: “I do not see why these ladies should suffer the loss of my company. And I am very desirous of seeing this frontier fort.”
“It’s just a replica of Bent’s Old Fort1,” Ms Hornung replied, while tentatively leaning toward the terminal Mary held in her hand. She didn’t think she was ignorant about the disembodied—she had disembodied facebook friends—but this wasn’t the image she had in mind when she suggested they take Jane Austen out for dinner. She had envisioned chatting with her avatar and not talking to a small box.
“But there will be Indians?”
“Well no, I mean I don’t think so,” Ms Reineke said. “Actually, I’ve never been there. I mean maybe there are … re-enactors.”
Ms Hornung shook her head no. “Perhaps we should reschedule this?” She didn’t much like the idea of being responsible for the famous author.
Arguing with Jane, however, was proving to be more than Mary could handle at the moment. Her tooth was throbbing and she desperately wanted to get in bed with an ice pack. She also knew how important it was for Jane to be distracted on this day.
“I’m sure it will be OK. The terminal’s fully charged and you have my cell number. OK, have fun Jane.”
The women attempted further protestations but soon they found themselves in the hallway outside the hotel room.
“Oh this should be fun!” Jane’s voice exclaimed from the portable terminal. Both ladies jumped in surprise at the sound of her voice.
. . .
Susan Hornung couldn’t stop looking at the empty passenger seat. Sitting in her car but invisible to her was Jane Austen, her favourite author. She’d read the six novels so many times—OK, Mansfield Park not so often—she could recite passages from memory and often did to the annoyance of others. She had seen countless adaptations of the novels and of course read a good deal of the fan fiction, but mostly eschewing the ones with zombies or vampires. She had been to England twice and visited Winchester and Bath and Lyme Regis and had been a JASNA member for fifteen years.
But this was not what she expected meeting Jane Austen would be like.
In the back seat, Barbara was having similar thoughts. This Jane sounded more like Mrs Bennet or Miss Bates than Elizabeth Bennet.
“What a delightful city this is. Did you know I first visited Denver in 1895? It was very different then … well naturally it would be, more than a hundred years ago, and yet I remember it very well. Some of the streets of your downtown retain the same names I knew but otherwise … it is hard to reconcile. The mountains, however, retain their majesty. They are the purple mountains majesties, are they not? but why purple? They are in no way purple, but surely it is a matter of the light.”
“It’s from the dark firs and other trees, I think,” Barbara offered. “Maybe when the forests were thicker, it was more purple.”
“They’re more purple at dawn, I think,” Susan conjectured.
The conversation lapsed for a while. Jane was enjoying the novelty of being in the care of relative strangers, although her joy was tinged with some guilt that she had left Mary alone in the hotel room.
Guilt was not her only emotion, for she also carried a barely acknowledged resentment of Mary. She was actually happy to be away from her for just a bit. Her avatar was the best of companions and a very competent representative, but sometimes she envied the life Mary was enjoying, which was in fact her life. As she gazed out the window, these complex thoughts and emotions silenced her stream of observations.
Susan and Barbara, however, were alarmed by Jane’s sudden silence and yet reluctant to restart the conversation. Eventually, Barbara said, “I want to tell you Miss Austen how much I enjoyed Sanditon.”
“Thank you, and please call me Jan
e, and I hope I can claim the honour of calling you Barbara.”
“Thank you,” Barbara said.
“And if I may also ask the favour of calling you Susan?”
“Please do … Jane,” Susan answered.
“I apologize if I am not quite the Jane Austen you were expecting,” Jane said. The second she said it she gave thanks the terminal could not really convey the self-pity behind her words.
“No, we’re quite happy to … it’s you we came to …” Barbara said.
“Please forgive me, I phrased that badly,” Jane said, embarrassed at her words. “I only meant that … it was presumptuous to ask that you be responsible for me. I am quite prepared to take care of myself and have done so for a very, very long time. But it is kind of you to take me to the restaurant … especially today.”
“You’re welcome,” Susan said. “We thought you shouldn’t be alone on July 18th.”
“You were already aware of the significance of today?” Jane asked.
“Well duh, we’re Janeites,” Barbara answered, and then was mortified she’d just said “duh” to Jane. “I mean we saw what day you’d be in Denver and we called your agent and she thought it was a great idea. We had it all planned out, but when your avatar …”
“Her name is Mary.”
“When Mary got her toothache, we assumed it was off.”
“I’m afraid we kind of forgot that she’s not really you,” Susan added.
“That is understandable,” Jane said. “There are times when I forget. But today I especially feel separate and alone and I appreciate your being so kind as to take charge of me.”
“It’s our very great pleasure,” Susan said warmly, any misgivings now vanished.
“You should be with family and friends on such a day,” Barbara added.
. . .
Jane was happy. Her new friends were the very best sort of company and not just because they were Janeites. They were relaxed and happy, fuelled partly by the mint juleps that seemed de rigueur at the restaurant, and no longer awed by the famous author. They sat on a patio table with a beautiful view, not of the Rocky Mountains but of the city of Denver and the plains that stretched out to infinity. The lights of the city outshone the stars in the sky, which made Jane realize how long it had been since she had seen a truly dark night. But the heavens were still illuminated by the aircraft that congregated by the airport, far to the east of the city.
Jane, Actually Page 27
