Joshua Ferris - To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

When I finally got inside his mouth and had a look around, I confirmed Mrs. Convoy’s notes: bone loss, gum pockets measuring sevens and eights. I never put odds on teeth with gum pockets of sevens and eights. But I vowed then and there to do everything I could to help him resume his fifty years of flossing. I removed the explorer and smiled down on him, placing my hand on his child’s shoulder. “Eddie?” I said. “Eddie, just what are we going to do with you, I wonder.”

Connie was at the front desk doing some filing.

“Where’s Connie?” I asked her.

“I’m right here,” she said.

“Ah! My brain’s going. I mean Abby, where’s Abby? She was here this morning.”

Connie suddenly got real busy.

“Connie?”

“Huh?”

“Where’s Abby?”

“She quit,” she said.

“She what?”

“She quit,” she said. “Abby quit.”

“What the hell for?”

She wasn’t looking at me.

“Connie, stop filing and look at me. Look at me! Stop!” She stopped filing. “What do you mean she quit? What did she quit for?”

“She took a new job,” she said. “She’s pursuing new opportunities.”

“New opportunities?” I said. “Abby?”

“Yeah, Abby,” she said. “Is that so outrageous?”

“What new opportunities?” I said. “Did she give notice? Most people give notice. It would be unlike Abby not to give notice,” I said.

“She didn’t give notice,” she said. “Unless you count lunch. Which she had off anyway.”

“Is this a joke?”

“She quit, Paul. She’d had enough.”

“She’d had enough? Hold on,” I said. “Having enough is totally different from pursuing new opportunities.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said.

It was time for Abby to get serious about being an actress, Connie explained, and to do that, she needed a job with greater flexibility. This was not the first time I’d heard rumors that Abby was some kind of aspiring actress. I should have let it suffice. People quit all the time and on the flimsiest of pretexts, and intelligent people have learned not to poke at those pretexts too closely, for fear of what might come flying out. But I couldn’t shut up about it. I couldn’t comprehend Abby not giving notice. It was common courtesy to give notice. Abby was taciturn but not discourteous. I pressed Connie and pressed her until finally she admitted that among Abby’s stated reasons for quitting was that I could be a bit much to work for. No news flash there. Also, said Connie, Abby had looked at what I was posting on Twitter, and not liking what she’d found there, not liking my so-called online persona, decided to quit right away rather than give notice.

“But that’s not me! Doesn’t she know that’s not me?”

“Apparently not.”

“Didn’t you tell her?”

“I told her.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She either didn’t believe me, or she didn’t care.”

“But Abby’s not even Jewish,” I said.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“If somebody should be quitting, it’s you,” I said, “not Abby. Abby’s a Presbyterian, or a Methodist, or something.”

“A Presbyterian or a Methodist?” she said. “You didn’t even know she was an actress until five minutes ago.”

“How long has she been an actress?”

“And you don’t have to be Jewish to dislike anti-Semitic remarks. That’s a pretty universal sentiment in America these days.”

“But if anything,” I said, “if you read my tweets all at once, they’re really more anti-Muslim. Or anti-Christian. Antireligion in general, if you read them all at once.”

“When you’re hiring for her replacement,” she said, “you can post that in the ad.”

“Does Abby even know anything about the history of Judaism? Is she aware of what real anti-Semitism even looks like?”

“Real anti-Semitism?”

She looked at me like I’d lost it.

“What?” I said.

“Do you know what this bizarre little identity theft of yours has taught me?”

I sighed, then gestured for her to give it to me.

“The only people qualified to judge what ‘real’ anti-Semitism is and what it’s not are Jews. Which excludes you.”

I went back and sat across from Darla, the diminutive temp, who apparently had no objections to working for an anti-Semite. How badly Abby and I must have misjudged each other, I thought, and after so long being day after day only a few feet apart for hours at a stretch. It was inconceivable that she could be gone, and without so much as a goodbye. That afternoon, she must have just drifted out, or slipped out purposefully, and I thought nothing of her sudden absence, even welcoming it as that break in the continuity so commonly referred to as lunch. I had no idea that it would be the last chance I’d have to take her aside and apologize for being such a moody bastard. I was sorry for being so moody. I was sorry for being terse, cold, stern, dismissive, withholding, and unremittingly indifferent to every aspect of her being. No wonder she never came to me, no wonder she was gone.

Abby gone!

I worried about losing Mrs. Convoy next. I could not lose Mrs. Convoy and keep O’Rourke Dental running smoothly. In so many ways, Betsy Convoy was O’Rourke Dental.

When I found her, she had already begun the day’s sterilizing. “Betsy,” I said, “I’d like to talk to you about why Abby quit.”

She set everything down, reached out, and took me by the hand. I could feel the expert little bones inside her fingers.

“Have I ever told you what a fine dentist you are?” she asked.

During Betsy’s first year at O’Rourke Dental, when her superhuman skills still had the power to awe, I wanted nothing more than some sign of her opinion of me. I hoped that she considered herself to be working alongside a worthy partner. She was the best hygienist I’d ever known. Over time, I took her excellence for granted, and she simply became Betsy Convoy, devout R.C. and double-wide ballbreaker. But here she was, years later, giving me what I had once longed for.

“Thank you, Betsy,” I said.

“My husband, may he rest in peace, was also a good dentist. But he was not of your caliber. I’ve worked with a number of good dentists over the years. None of them has been of your caliber.”

“I’m honored to hear you say that.”

She smiled at me.

She released my hand and resumed sterilizing.

“But about Abby quitting,” I said.

“She’s pursuing new opportunities,” she said. “She’s always wanted to be an actress.”

“But that’s not the only reason she quit,” I said.

I told her what was being said in my name on Twitter. I removed my me-machine and read her my most recent posts.

“Aren’t you curious about all that?” I asked her.

“Why should I be?”

“Because those posts are in my name.”

“Did you write them?”

“No, but shouldn’t you wonder if I did?”

“What for?”

“What for? Betsy, many of these comments can be construed as anti-Semitic. Which would seem to imply that I’m an anti-Semite.”

“Are you an anti-Semite?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But the Internet sort of implies I am. Isn’t it important to you, to know if I am or not?”

“But you just said you weren’t.”

“But I had to come to you and tell you that. Once you heard why Abby quit, shouldn’t you have come to me? Shouldn’t you have voiced some concern? We’re talking about one of the ugliest prejudices in the history of mankind.”

“But I know you. You aren’t that way.”

“But shouldn’t you question just a little the possibility that maybe you don’t know me?”