The Heart Exposition

[InkWren]

Phoebe hadn't felt right settling in his bedroom, and since there was no other beds in the place, she had found sheets and a spare pillow and set them aside for the couch. She had raided his bookshelves and occupied her mind with fiction and hot tea. At first it had been enough, but soon she was up and almost subconsciously, straightening up the disarray of a single man.

She was in the middle of washing up the scattering of dishes she had collected from around the house when the knock on the door came. Wiping her hands on a towel on her shoulder, she listened for the shrill voice of her neighborly nemesis. The firm and businesslike voice surprised her but she moved to the door quickly. She didn't even think to look through the side window to see if it really was the dapper little man who stood before her as she threw the door open.

A look crossed her face of startled recognition. Where there were moments of déja vu with James, meeting Mr. Mercroft was not only familiar; she knew him. Knew what made him laugh and that he had a weakness for fine machines.

His name fell from her lips with a gasp of delight and easy recognition that no doubt startled the poor fellow, but her hand was taking his and pulling him into a home that was not her own as easily as if she were the mistress of it. "I am so glad to see you. They won't tell me anything about James at the hospital, and being here alone leaves me so restless." She drew him to a chair in the living room and busied herself making a fresh pot of tea. It was so right that James had such a delicate bit of china among his amalgamated collection of tableware. She loved the delicately painted butterflies that seemed almost alive on the thin porcelain antique service.

"That dreadful woman came to the hospital and forced her way into James' room. He asked me to call you, which of course I did. Who else would I call but our dearest friend?" She was back in the living room in a moment with the tea service on a mismatched wooden tray that suited it with surprising perfection. "Do you still take two sugars and a twist of lemon?"

Somehow a past she didn't remember and a present that was equally fraught with tangled emotions and events had melded in her mind in the humble form of James Dillinger's attorney, and had done so with such precision, she could not even see how mad she must sound to this stranger.

 

[Justric]

Shylock Mercroft entered the home with a baffled expression. Jim had been a friend and client of his for years, and one single phone call had brought lawyer out of Albany in an instant to reach Buffalo. He had driven most of the night. A quick hour's nap in his hotel room, another at the hospital to speak with Jim, and then he had come to the house straightaway to meet with this mysterious Phoebe person, a person who didn't appear to have a last name that anyone knew of! Even Jim, adamant as he had been about his wishes in regards to the woman, had been completely ignorant as to what the young lady's last name might be. It was a mystery to be solved.

And that mystery became all the more complicated when she met him at the door like an old friend! Their dearest friend. Phoebe acted as though he should know exactly who she was, as though she had known Shylock all of his life. While there was… something familiar about her… his logical mind could not pin down any time when they might have met. And while Jim was a friend, yes, Shylock didn't think of him as his best friend or such.
One thing was for sure. This mystery woman knew how he liked his tea. Which was, again, strange, because he couldn't imagine being in any situation with Jim Dillinger where he would have been drinking tea!

"Yes, two lumps and a twist, thank you," he faintly replied at her offer. Shylock looked about the house carefully. He hadn't been to Jim's house in Buffalo, but it was a far cry from the austere and often spartan modern designs of the various high end apartments he'd had over the years. Oddly enough, it looked more fitting to Jim's personality, though. It was the sort of place he had expected to walk into the first time he had called on Jim at home, back in New York well over a decade and a half ago. The place was tidy if not zealously cleaned. The lawyer could spy nothing about the place that might lead him to think that his client was unstable.

Yet what Jim wanted was… odd. In the best interests of his client, Shylock had to find some reason for the bizarre request.

"Miss… Phoebe," he began as she bade him sit. As unobtrusively as possible, he set his leather briefcase upon his lap. "Jim asked me to come over and talk with you, and… Well, there's some papers he'd like you to sign. Before I can honor my client's request, however, there's a few questions I have to ask you in turn. Legal formalities and the like."

Looking at the tea service set, Shylock's reality blurred for the briefest of moments. The tea cup… It looked… the pattern…

Shaking off the peculiar feeling as merely being tired from a long car drive, he pushed on. "In answer to your questions, he's stable and in what I can only call a bit of an odd humor. His instructions to me are to bring you to the hospital once our business is concluded."

The lawyer settled back into the comfortable chair to take in whatever he could learn of the mysterious Phoebe just by looking at her. "I have contacted Ms. Pendergrass' lawyer to advice them of the incident at the hospital and of her violation of the restraining order that James has against her. Whether she will still heed their counsel?" Shylock shrugged. "The hospital is aware to be on the watch for her, and further incursions on the part of Ms. Pendergrass will involve the police."

"And hopefully a psychiatric evaluation."

This last part was muttered under his breath.

"Which," he then continued, "brings me to the point of this visit, Miss Phoebe."

Shylock clicked open the tabs on his briefcase to then pull out several document. "Jim wishes to give you what amounts to limited power of attorney. In the event of his being medically or mentally incapacitated, you would have control over his estate, finances, and medical care. I say 'what amounts to' because his wishes are somewhat… out of alignment with the practicalities of the situation. Which lead me a rather pertinent question, one Jim was surprisingly unable to answer for all that he insisted you should be regarded, for all intents and purposes, as his wife."

"Miss Phoebe… What is your last name?" Shylock held up a hand before she could answer. "And are you able to shed any light on this situation for me as to why he wants to give you this when he doesn't even appear to know anything more than your first name and that you enjoy photography?"

 

[InkWren]

For a moment, her young face took on a wounded look which shifted into confusion as his question drew the present out of the past and left her looking at him as if seeing him for the first time. The teacup on its saucer shook as she handed him his drink. The proper lady's posture cracked into a more natural ragdoll form as she sat back and drew her bare feet onto the seat, encircling her slender legs with dark arms.

"Phoebe LeBere. What is James trying to do?" The lawyer, whose face was so painfully familiar, was speaking in riddles. Riddles that left her heart racing like a frightened child's. "Is he alright? He isn't dying. The doctor said all he needed was a pacemaker." The thought of holding another person's life and goods in her hands was terrifying.

She shook her head. "I can't...he shouldn't be giving me anything." Their conversation just before James had collapsed played through her mind. "I'm sorry. I barely know him." Her forehead dropped to her upturned knees. "But, it's like we've known each other. Knew each other." Her head jerked up. "I swear I am not after anything. I didn't ask for any of this. I just...he's going to be alright! You don't need to give me anything. I'll talk to him. I'll change his mind."

 

[Justric]

This, sadly, was more familiar territory for the lawyer. The panic and worry in the woman's voice read the same as many another client that he had dealt with in his years of experience, the dread of having the situation start to spin out of control until all one could see were the worst case scenarios and fears. Shylock held up both hands soothingly towards her.

"Mis LeBere. Phoebe." The words were gentle and calming. For all that he was a practitioner of law and just as subject to the cliches and stereotypes of his profession, he was not an unkind man. "Jim is… I won't say fine, obviously, since he is in the hospital, but he is stable. His heart, however, has troubled him for some time. And while heart surgery and pacemaker technology have no doubt gained significant ground since I was a boy, it is still a tricky business. Jim's odds are good, but there is always a chance that something may go wrong. He is merely seeking to prepare for the worst while fully expecting the best. Somehow, you have become tied up in the 'best' part, it seems, although how that has come about neither of you seem quite clear on."

The documents were set aside on an end table for the moment while he closed his briefcase. Despite the situation being peculiar, he had to continue as though it wasn't. There were no short and easy answers in this life, certainly none that he could give. "Jim did tell me that… there was some connection. That he felt he had known you for some time. And when I asked him how this was possible for someone he had just met a week ago, he told me flat out that he didn't know. All that he knew was that he loved you."

Shylock gave a helpless little shrug. "For my part, what my client wants is what my client gets so long as he proves to be of sound mind. As a friend, I had to find out for myself what was going on." A memory flittered behind his eyes and cause him to close his eyes as though in great pain. "The last thing I want to deal with is another Pendergrass case. God, that woman…"

He rose then, gesturing to the papers. "If you would at least look over the documents, first, Miss LeBere? Just to acquaint yourself with them and what it entails? You don't have to sign anything if you don't wish to, and we should have your signature notarized properly anyway. Then we can go and talk to Jim together. Will you see me that far?"

"Besides, James is rather anxious to see you again," he suddenly commented, and the smile upon his face was less professional and far more genial. The voice was slightly accented now with the cadences and rhythms of Yiddish. Shylock Mercroft laughed ruefully. "He's currently tied up with financial matters regarding the Expo, some last minute ado regarding the plans for McKinley's upcoming visit and who exactly is paying for them. The man is the President of the United States, and such a fuss over who pays his bill I never saw. Shall we take my coach?"

 

[InkWren]

Phoebe felt caught up in a storm of emotions that both were and were not her own. How could a man she had only meant once before his collapse love her? How could there be a part of her that felt the same toward him? And now, to give her such power over his life. Clearly his attorney thought it as strange as she did, and yet even that relationship was now a part of the storm; the knowing and not knowing.

She forced herself to calm down, pressing her palms against her thighs for a moment. THe mention of Olivia Annabelle Pendergrass galvanized her and she was quick to scoop up the documents. She had no experience with contracts, but did have a quick mind. Her eyes read through the documents rapidly and she had to force herself not to be overwhelmed by what was being entrusted to her.

It took a moment or two for the strangeness of the lawyer's final words to sink in. She tore her gaze from the documents. "The Expo, Mr. Mercroft? That happened over a century ago." She felt a deep sorrow at the mention of McKinley, a patriot kind of mourning which bled into that deeper sense of lose she had felt when Jim had collapsed. "It...it doesn't matter. Never mind. I want to talk to Jim before I sign this. And...I need to talk to my Nanna."

Words that her grandmother had said over her more than once came back to her. "You're an old soul, babygirl. And one day, you'll look in the mirror and know why." Nanna would know what to do.

"I'll just get my jacket. Excuse me." She rose then and offered a weak smile. "I don't have a car, so I would appreciate the ride. It's a long way by bus. Maybe on the way you can tell me what happened with the crazy neighbor."

 

[Justric]

Shylock blinked as the young lady reminded him that the Exposition was over a hundred years past, and a brief moment of disorientation came and went. "Oh, yes. Sorry, don't know what I was thinking. I read 'City of Light' a year ago and it sort of… stuck in my mind. Something about this house reminds me of the book, I think." He gave her an embarrassed smile and spread his hands wide. "Except for Jim's eclectic taste in furniture, doesn't this place look right out of the 1900s?"

He was more than glad to drive her over to the hospital in his car, and playing the gentleman he opened the door for her and closed it behind her as well. Once they pulled out of the driveway, he began to relate the tale of Olivia Pendergrass as he knew it.

"The woman's been a thorn in Jim's side ever since he moved here," Shylock explained as he smoothly drove them out of the Parkside area and headed for Delaware Avenue. "He'd been moved in for no more than two days before she came knocking at the front door to greet him. The way Jim tells it, it was right out of the some bad fifties sitcom, the neighbor coming over the welcome the newcomer to the neighborhood. Only instead of bringing a cake or casserole or Jell-o mold, she brings this fruitcake. Store-bought, hard as a concrete brick and probably just as tasty. No telling how long she had it. Jim actually kept it as a door stop, and it ended up being evidence later on. You know, we actually opened it and tried to cut off a slice? Two ruined carving knives later and we gave up. Anyway…"

The car moved along further, hitting one of the traffic circles downtown and getting bogged down in the morass of vehicles. Shylock muttered under his breath at the delay and then continued.

"Jim was pleasant enough, thanked her, invited her in for a cup of coffee. And that was it." The lawyer chuckled bitterly. "Until a day later. She came over and asked if he would give her a lift over to the mall later that afternoon so she could pick up her dry cleaning. Miss Pendergrass claimed her car was in the shop and she needed to get her garments back for an engagement that night, you see. Well, Jim, being polite and not thinking, says, 'Sure, it's a date.'"

Mercroft scowled. "And it all went downhill from there. What was supposed to be a simple trip to get her dry cleaning and back turned into a full fledged shopping spree with Jim as her pack mule. He wasn't happy about it, but not having any other plans he saw no reason to abandon her. But that 'date' work stuck in her head and she kept coming around again and again and again to ask for favors and such. Her house is just down the block, and she began sunbathing in rather revealing outfits. That alone should have garnered the outrage of the neighborhood's combined sensibilities. Especially when she would then walk down the street in said outfits to ask Jim to help with a few things here, a few things there, to put lotion on her back…"

A shake of the head as traffic began to move once more conveyed his own opinions on the matter. "After that, not a day went by when she wasn't at his door for something or other, sometimes three times in an afternoon! And she began to follow him whenever he left his house. She would just 'happen' to be grocery shopping at the same time and place as him every week. Jim tested this once, driving all the way over to Orchard Park to do his shopping… and guess who just happened to be there, all surprised?"

"The final straw was that damned dog. It was always at her heels or in her bag, yapping at him. Every visit, it would shit in his yard and she never, ever cleaned it up. The final straw was when her dog pissed all over his shoes." Leaning his head towards Phoebe confidentially, he muttered out of the side of his mouth. "Never piss on Jim's shoes."

He leaned back upright and pulled into the hospital parking lot. "The rest is history, as they say. Or at least a restraining order. Miss Pendergrass, however, seems to remain convinced that she and Jim are dating and have been for since he moved here. She is certifiable in my professional opinion as a lawyer, but mental health care has been gutted in New York state for the past thirty years. Easy for the courts to just slap a restraining order on her than even trying to have her committed. She also managed to get a good legal defense team, too, top notch outfit that only the very wealthy can afford. Thankfully one of their crew is a former colleague of mine and we were able to work things out mostly behind the scenes. She remains at large, but she's not allowed anywhere near Jim or his house."