Neil asked her if she could come over for a while, and she replied, “I’ll be there within the hour, so leave your back door open.” Thirty-seven minutes later, she walked in the rear sliding door of the house and immediately came to him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed against him while giving him a long passionate kiss. They made love and then talked for a while until it occurred to her that Jules might be finished soon with his eighteen holes and she had better get home.
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Just nine days after Bloom’s discharge from the hospital, Todd Stern, dentist extraordinaire and one of the four golfing partners, was shot at by an unknown assailant with a high-powered gun. Two shots were fired; both missed him but hit the front façade of his home. Why did Bloom’s golf partner Todd barely escape being another shooting victim?
Dr. Stern was forty-years old, with prematurely light-gray hair. He lived in Sedona, was divorced, an avid golfer, and the second youngest of the four golfers. He and his wife married just three years after graduation from their respective colleges. Luckily for them, they had no children at the time of their divorce for irreconcilable differences. His wife had reached a point of self-discovery. Coincidentally for him, arriving home early one afternoon, he ran into his own discovery. Next to his nude wife in bed was another woman. After doing some research for the divorce, his lawyer was able to enlighten Todd that his wife had been a closeted lesbian when she first married him.
Thirty-two months after the divorce was finalized, remarkably for him, he earned his first half-million dollars in one year alone, none of which had to be shared with his ex. Thereafter, his income doubled after two additional years, capping off at two million per year. The assets from their marriage included their rented apartment, Ikea furniture, $1200 in the bank, plus a 2010 Toyota Prius and a 2019 Honda Prelude. The older car was hers and the newer car became his. At the divorce mediation, he agreed his ex could have almost everything they owned. He happily continued paying the rent on the apartment until the lease was up, since she had left him for another woman, rather than a better-looking, more virile younger man. He no longer lived with her, since her girlfriend had moved right in. He certainly bore her no grudges, because in all other respects she was a good wife. But he kept the Prelude.
A few months after the divorce, he became a state licensed RDA (Registered Dental Assistant) by assisting a local dentist. Todd’s duties were to prepare cements and impressions, take patient histories and assemble dental charts. Other duties included sterilizing and cleaning dental equipment in addition to managing the supply inventory. He created mouth guards, orthodontic retainers, impression trays and temporary crowns. He continued his education with the end goal of becoming a full-fledged dentist.
He started his own practice after finishing dental school and receiving his dentistry license, opening an office near the center of Sedona and building his clientele to fifty-two hundred patients within two years. Most of his patients remembered him from the time he was an RDA working for the other practice. Stern became a notably accomplished dentist to the Hollywood elite, who flew to Sedona just to be treated by him while vacationing in one of the country’s most beautiful locations.
His reputation was ordained when one of the most popular Hollywood movie stars, Charlene Fenette, broke a tooth while vacationing in Sedona. She was referred to him by her hotel concierge. Recognizing her from the movies, Todd convinced her to return for three days and he would make her look more spectacular than she already was. She agreed because she found him somewhat attractive and sexy. He took the three days and implanted better veneers than the ones she had first installed at the beginning of the veneer era. Her originals were both tea and cigarette stained; she had them for more than thirty years.
When she got out of his chair, the new veneers made her look twenty years younger. They were hard and elegantly white, but not so inordinately colored as to make them look fake. She was entranced with her new look. Overcoming her insistence to pay him, which at the time was money he could have really used, he told her that he would not charge her out of his admiration for her performances in the movies and his being such a huge fan of hers.
“You are one of my all-time favorite movie stars!” he gushed. That was pure unadulterated bullshit, but it had the desired effect. As a result, when she returned to Hollywood, her recommendations to friends and colleagues became his calling cards to success. Some of Stern’s patients included Carla Merone, who starred in a real tearjerker, A Part of Me. Tom Marquise, star of the sci-fi blockbuster Earth’s Enemies was another top gun in the movie industry; and Jacob Houseman from the television law series, It Takes Only One, was another prized patient. These entertainers were but a few
