Who: Jenny & Open! Someone who needs dental work? Someone in the waiting room? When: Tuesday, December 18th. 9:30AM. Where: Sherlie's Dental Office. What: Jenny working at the office, someone coming in for an appointment? Warnings: TBD but presumably N/A.
Tuesday mornings were often slow, people seemed to prefer afternoon appointments, and it wasn't like they had a particularly huge variety in their customer base. Jenny knew who most of the people in town with bad teeth were. She called them series regulars. She knew who was due to have their braces tightened, and when. Or who had a root canal coming up. It was predictable, people were predictable when it came to taking care of themselves. Especially in a little town like Crows Landing. They liked Dr. Devers and they liked their routines. They hated change.
People who came in a lot, for whatever reason, usually preferred the same appointments; similar days of the week, same day each month, same time of day, so on. For those who could afford it or those with good insurance, there was scheduling regular cleanings and simple procedures like x-rays and fillings. It was getting to the point that when certain people called the office, Jenny could assume what they were going to ask her for, or when. Harold Mason, who lived on Maple street, preferred Thursdays at eleven. Kristen Burke, who Jenny had gone to school with, liked Mondays at three-thirty. In general most teenagers, which the majority of their patients with braces were, predictably preferred afternoons and abhorred mornings.
A lot parents preferred to schedule appointments for their children at noon and after, to avoid them missing too much school. Likewise, it always seemed to Jenny that the same parents preferred to schedule their own appointments around similar times, to avoid missing too much work. It made for quiet mornings and a crowded waiting room at times during the afternoon.
Tuesday mornings were slow, that was a fact that she would put money on. One glance at the appointment book confirmed it. Learning in the in-and-outs of the dental hygiene and scheduling preferences of Crows Landing residents, just some of the useless information she had acquired since starting work for Sherlie Devers two years ago. Twelve and after was when the bulk of their appointments were made, in her experience. It was experience which was growing each day she worked and would probably continue to grow for most of her foreseeable future. She wasn't going anywhere.
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate her job, or appreciate Dr. Devers for giving it to her. It wasn't even that everything she had learned through secretarial work was useless or trivial. It was quite the contrary, in fact, she loved working with Sherlie and she had been coming to the woman for her own dental work all of her life. She even loved her job, getting to greet everyone as they came in and make small talk with them, get to know them better, help them out. She even loved filing, organizing, keeping on top of Sherlie's paperwork and appointments. There were people that came in, of course, that were rude or snobby to her. Or people that she would just prefer not to see or be around, if it were her personal choice. But Jenny was nothing if not professional while at work, and she met every patient with a smile and politeness, no matter how she felt. Kill them with kindness. She could bitch to Ian about it later.
But if she had been asked ten years ago, she never would have said working for Sherlie was where she pictured herself at twenty-three. Still in living Crows Landing and working as a humble secretary with an online degree under her belt. Jenny's dreams had always been big, bigger than Crows Landing and bigger than Oregon. She had wanted to be a lawyer when she was a very little girl, often making her sister reenact the best cases they saw on Judge Judy after school, pretending to be her twin's defense attorney. But by the time that she had been a teenager, Jenny knew that she wanted to work with words. Journalist, reporter, writer, something big, bettering herself was a must. She kept her grades up and her mind sharp, but then she had one little slip up, one little mistake..
Pregnancy had put an end to a lot of things for the bubbly blonde; cheerleading, education (for a little while anyway), her good name (or the town's idea of a good name at least), respect from half the town, not to mention the loss of those dreams. It had ended those pretty promptly. Forget leaving town. Still, she didn't hold it against her son. It wasn't his fault that his mother had made bad decisions. He was her happy accident. In fact, she was just hanging up the phone with his elementary school as the door to the dental office swung open, letting someone inside along with a blast of cold air that reached her even as her desk behind some plexiglass. She had been checking in on him, since he had been complaining about feeling sick to his stomach this morning but she was often skeptical of his so-called belly-aches.. but one never knew. She'd feel awful if she had made him go to school and he was genuinely sick.
She was out of mom mode and into secretarial mode though as soon as she realized there was someone else there. "Good morning!"