Lexicon

helping.”
    “
Moof
,” she said, which was supposed to be
My tooth
. The man’s fingers invaded her ribs. He went away and she felt lost. He came back and snapped something around her neck. She tried to rise but he said, “No, no,” restraining her with one hand. All she could see was his hair, which was long and the color of sand. He slid something beneath her butt, which turned out to be a trolley. “Muh toof,” she said. He ratcheted her up and sailed her across the parking lot to a white van that she knew passed for an ambulance out here. Before he closed the doors on her, his eyes scanned her in a quick, professional way.
    By the time the vehicle stopped and hands began to unload her, she wasn’t sure where she was. “Pub brawl?” someone asked, and the man said, “Girl fight out back of Tangled Threads.”
    A woman bent over her face. “She’s lost a tooth.”
    “It’s in my mouth,” said her rescuer. This sounded funny to Emily, and she smiled, and after that she didn’t remember anything. Time must have passed, though, because she was sitting in a hospital bed in an open ward with morning light streaming in. She was wearing a thin gown and her neck was encased in a brace. Her back was full of golf balls. She had a loose tooth in her mouth and probed it with her tongue but thought she should probably not do that. Her head was glass but otherwise she felt pretty okay.
    A nurse stopped by. Emily had seen her buy soy milk at the local supermarket sometimes. “Morning, darling. How are you feeling?”
    “Good,” she said.
    The nurse put her hands on Emily’s face. “Open up. Good. You’re leaving that tooth alone?”
    “Yeth.”
    She released Emily’s mouth. “What happened?”
    I lost control. I proved that I belong here.
“Nothing.”
    “Gary wants to talk to you.”
    “Whoth Gary?”
    “The police sergeant.”
    She tried to shake her head. She didn’t want to press charges. She had no identity. “How long do I wear this?”
    “Six weeks. And count yourself lucky.”
    She did. It could easily have been worse. “Who picked me up?”
    “The para?”
    She didn’t know what this meant. “The man with the ambulanth van.”
    “Paramedic. That’s Harry. He kept that tooth viable.”
    “Can I thank him?”
    “He’s off duty,” said the nurse. “But I’m sure you’ll see him around. It’s a small town, if you’ve noticed.”
    “Yeth,” said Emily.
    • • •
    She had seen that van around. White with yellow and orange stripes; she must have seen it twice weekly since she got here. But, of course, now that she was released from the hospital, leading with her chin because of the brace, it was nowhere to be found. Sometimes she caught a flash of white and turned to see if it was him, pain spiking through her neck, and when she was too slow, she thought,
I bet it was
.
    It was very junior high, being attracted to an ambulance driver. Falling for a man who had rescued her. She felt girlish. But her thoughts kept returning to how he had carried her tooth in his mouth. Also his hair in the ambulance headlights. She felt hot and restless, and went for lots of walks, during which she might encounter a white van with yellow and orange stripes.
    She decided to buy him flowers. She would just buy flowers and a card and if he wasn’t at the hospital when she dropped them off, that was fine. She would just leave them. She sweated over what to write, firmed on THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY TOOTH, stared at it in horror, and went back to the store for a new card. On the second attempt, she went dignified. THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME. EMILY RUFF. Maybe it wasn’t completely dignified. Because she couldn’t resist writing
saving me
. Or supplying her full name. But she didn’t include a phone number. She managed that.
    She drove to the hospital, the flowers on the passenger seat with air blasting at them to stave off the heat. The woman at the front desk thought she was there for an appointment, which Emily guessed was logical, given the brace, and once that was straightened out, said, “Did you want to see him or just leave these?” Emily panicked and said, “Just leave them.” She got as far as the doors. “Is he here, though?” The woman looked at Emily like she had seen it all a million times before and said, “I’ll see.” She picked up the phone. Emily waited and tried not to feel fourteen years old. The woman replaced the receiver. “I’m sorry.”
    In the car, she