The French Dentist

When my first dentist finally retired - none too soon for his patients, I thought - my mother found another to take his place, a statuesque, dark haired woman with a pronounced French accent who favored stiletto heels and diamonds.This was my very first visit.

Her name was Francine and her practice in an upscale Brookline neighborhood was thriving. Nonetheless, she was a dentist and she inspired terror in me. I was old enough then to travel to and from her office on my own, the public transportation system in Boston being nothing if not widespread, and those afternoons on the train were long and dreary with no prospect of survival. By the time I arrived, I was undone - shaking with fear I couldn't articulate and often in tears and unable to breathe by the time I reached the elegant waiting room - there were oriental rugs and

impressionist paintings, loveseats and antique chairs, soft lighting and classical music in the background. Incense burned to cover the smell of antiseptic and I would huddle in a corner chair, trying to be brave, hoping for invisibility, and failing miserably at both. An assistant would lead me into a treatment room and Francine would appear, looking like a fashion magazine cover model and chattering in French, a language I did not find reassuring. She would smile at me with her perfect teeth and gesture with her immaculately painted nails while I contemplated the likelihood of suffocating from her perfume. It seemed an acceptable and even preferable alternative.

In the chair, I closed my eyes and desperately recited (in my head) every prayer and psalm that I could think of, lyrics to the current rock and roll hits, the alphabet, the state capitols, the presidents, anything that I could think of to distract me from the smells, the sounds of metal instruments with sharp points, the god awful drill than sprayed cold air on sensitive teeth and in an instant could make me rigid with a kind of nightmarish terror. This was the stuff of

emotional breakdowns and psychotic breaks. I was too frightened to speak and could only grip the arms of the chair with an iron intensity, keeping myself in place by sheer will which I feared would give way the moment I was told to open my mouth. I heard stilletto heels approach, Francine's multi-charmed bracelets jingled in my ear, the wrapper was torn off a hypodermic and blessedly and finally, I fainted. My last conscious thought was to silently blame my mother for not caring about my teeth.

I survived the Francine years, more or less intact, and thanks to the kindness and understanding of the dentists who followed, have made some progress with my phobia. Forgiveness, however, is out of the question.