Heart vs. Humbug

by MJ Rodgers

  She took one of the bar stools and gestured Brett to the other. It had been a couple of years since she had been here. She hoped things hadn’t changed. As soon as she saw the round face bob around the partition that led into the kitchen and Phoebe’s Christmas-elf-clad body appear, she was reassured they hadn’t.

  “Octavia!” the hefty, seventyish lady shouted as she threw her stout body over the counter and her arms around Octavia, nearly choking her.

  “Phoebe, please,” Octavia said, laughing with the little breath that remained in her body. “I’m glad to see you, too, but I’m out of practice on breaking your wrestling holds.”

  “You haven’t been keeping up your swimming, have you,” Phoebe asked as she released her death hold and stepped back.

  “You know chlorine was never my favorite fragrance.”

  Phoebe planted her hands on her hips, her green felt hat cocked to one side, her green-slippered feet askew. “I had hopes for you, Octavia. Best breaststroke I ever saw. You had both the wind and a natural athletic ability.”

  Octavia laughed. “And the prune skin. So, how have you been?”

  “Hale and hearty as always. I heard you were in town. Word gets around at the community center. I was going to come by to say hello, but mother hasn’t been feeling well and I didn’t want to leave her.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “Another case of a broken heart, I’m afraid. You know how chaotic her love life has always been.”

  Phoebe paused to address Brett, obviously feeling this last comment needed explaining. “Mother’s ninety-two, but she keeps insisting on going after younger men. Last one was barely eighty. I told her it wouldn’t last, but, of course, some people just won’t listen when you warn them about their actions courting disaster, will they?”

  Brett flashed Octavia a meaningful glance as he gave a small smile. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “Octavia, introduce this obviously intelligent man to me right away,” Phoebe demanded.

  Octavia chuckled. “Brett Merlin, Phoebe Winkle, Christmas elf, as well as proprietor of this establishment.”

  Phoebe extended a hefty hand over the counter. As they shook, Phoebe continued to regard him closely.

  “Brett Merlin. Your name sounds familiar for some reason. Wait a minute. Aren’t you the Scrooge’s attorney?”

  “Was,” Brett amended, drawing back his hand. “He’s...not in need of one anymore.”

  “So I heard. I’m not crying,” Phoebe informed Brett quickly and most pointedly as her hands returned to her hips.

  “It’s okay, Phoebe,” Octavia said. “Brett’s on our side.”

  “Oh?”

  “You just said he was intelligent,” Octavia reminded her. “How about something to eat? We’re starving.”

  “Coming right up. You want the usual to drink?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Phoebe turned to Brett. Her tone wasn’t exactly warm and friendly as it was when she spoke to Octavia, but at least it had lost its earlier sharp edge. “How about you?”

  “I’ll have whatever Octavia is having.”

  “Two Christmas carrot juices coming up,” Phoebe said as she turned to fetch them.

  “Christmas carrot juice?” Brett repeated with a distinct lack of enthusiasm as soon as Phoebe had left.

  “Very good Christmas carrot juice,” Octavia assured him.

  When Phoebe returned a moment later with two tall glasses, Octavia picked up hers and offered a toast.

  “To Santas everywhere.”

  Brett shook his head as he clicked his glass with hers.

  He eyed the contents of his glass suspiciously, but after his first tentative taste, he seemed to reassess his initial reaction and took a good healthy swig. And then another. When he finally put the tall glass down on the counter, it was empty.

  Phoebe almost smiled at him before once again disappearing into the kitchen.

  “That wasn’t just carrot juice,” Brett said. “It couldn’t have been.”

  Octavia moved closer to his ear. “Nothing served here is just anything. Wait and see.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Phoebe soon reemerged with two plates in her chubby hands. The wonderful aroma of whatever was sitting in the centers of those plates set Octavia’s mouth to watering immediately. She asked no questions as Phoebe set the dish in front of her. She just picked up her fork and dug in.

  “What is it?” Brett wanted to know.

  “Christmas casserole,” Phoebe answered. Before Brett could ask any more questions, Phoebe had disappeared once again into the kitchen.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Octavia could feel Brett watching her slip the first forkful into her mouth. She sighed in appreciation as the wonderful flavors exploded onto her tastebuds. Finally, he picked up his fork and tried a small taste. The look of absolute surprise that stole over his face made Octavia smile. Then she gave absolutely not another thought to him as she concentrated all her senses on enjoying the perfect lunch that had been set before her.

  When she next looked up, she noticed that not only was her plate empty, but Brett’s was, too.

  Phoebe returned with dessert and something that looked like coffee, but smelled so much better.

  “This appears to be some kind of fruit pie,” Brett said as she set the brown-crusted wedge in front of him.

  “Right. Christmas fruit pie,” Phoebe confirmed before walking up to the front of the store to wait on a couple who had been browsing for a few minutes and now appeared ready to pay for their choices.

  Octavia watched Brett take his first bite of dessert, not nearly so hesitantly this time. They both made the pie quickly disappear from their plates and then sat back to sip the rich, hot beverage that tasted like Bavarian chocolate cream.

  Phoebe had rung up the couple’s purchases and returned to the tiny lunch counter.

  “The food was fabulous as always,” Octavia said. “Now, I’d like to pick that brain of yours if you have a few minutes.”

  “Sure. What can I help you with?”

  As succinctly as possible, Octavia told Phoebe about the attack on Scroogen and the fact that it looked like Mab’s gardening tool had been used.

  “And the police are convinced your grandmother did it?”

  “Yes. Only the other members of the executive committee of the Silver Power League have keys to that storeroom where Mab put her gardening gloves and cultivator. Logically, it must be one of them. Mab is too close to these people. I thought you might be a bit more objective.”

  Phoebe scratched her scalp beneath her green felt hat. “You’ve put me in a hard position, Octavia. I know and like Constance, John and Douglas, too. Of course, I realize nearly anyone can be provoked under the right set of circumstances. And the Scrooge set up some pretty provoking circumstances.”

  “If you had to choose from among the three, who would it be?” Octavia pressed.

  Phoebe munched on her lips a bit before coming out with her answer. “John.”

  “Why John?”

  “Douglas is crude and rough, and he’s been known to fight at the drop of a hat, but he’d come at you face first, never from behind. And as for Constance, well she’s such a fussy little thing. She might employ a sneak attack, but never with such demanding physical requirements.”

  “So you’re saying John gets your vote by default?”

  “That, and the fact that I don’t know him as well as the others. He moved his ophthalmologist practice here from California only about thirty years ago, when his wife died.”

  “Thirty years isn’t long enough to get to know someone?” Brett asked.

  “With some people it might be. But John refuses to speak about how his wife died or why he left California so soon afterward. And he never has remarried. These things naturally make a person wonder.”

  “I can understand how his refusal to speak about his wife’s death would raise questions in your mind,” Brett said, “but why
would his not remarrying cause you concern?”

  “A man whose wife dies in his sixties might remain single afterward. But a man whose wife dies when he’s in his forties is a man who will marry again—for companionship if not for love. So why hasn’t John married? What is it about him that he doesn’t want a woman to get too close to see?”

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK about her picking John?” Brett asked a few minutes later as he opened the passenger door of his Bentley.

  Octavia leaned her elbow on the open car door as she answered the question. “I think maybe we should go talk to John and decide for ourselves.”

  “You don’t like the idea of it being him?”

  “And it shows, I know. Both John and Mab have been alone a long time. I suppose I’ve always expected them to get together one of these days.”

  “As in marriage?”

  “Well, neither is the type to just move in together. Mab is too traditional for that. Come on, I’m sure we’ll find John at the community center helping out.”

  She slipped into the passenger seat then and Brett closed the door behind her and circled to the other side. When they were on their way, he asked the question prompted by her last comment.

  “You say Mab is too traditional to live with John out of wedlock, and yet your mother never married.”

  “I see Coltrane got around to giving you that report on me.”

  “A few items, yes. Care to elaborate?”

  “Mom and Dad got together in the sixties, when attitudes were quite different. They were married, but in a ceremony conducted by a tribal chief in Africa.”

  “That’s not a legal marriage here.”

  “They were looking for a way to show their commitment without the formality of a legal certificate. They’ve been together more than thirty-five years. And every one of those years they’ve renewed their vows to each other in a private ceremony.”

  “If your mother is committed to your father, why didn’t she take his last name?”

  “The tradition of a woman taking a man’s name stems from the days when she went from the property of her father to the property of her husband, with virtually no identity outside of the man who currently ‘owned’ her. Neither my mother nor father believed in perpetuating the trappings of such a tradition.”

  “In light of the historical reference, I can understand why a woman wouldn’t wish to change her last name when she marries. But I don’t understand why you carry only your mother’s surname and not your father’s.”

  “Those hyphenated last names can become pretty cumbersome. Mom and Dad simply agreed that if I were a boy, I would carry my father’s surname, and if I were a girl, I would carry my mother’s. It’s a perfectly logical and eminently reasonable approach to assigning a surname to a child. The females follow the mother’s line, the males follow the father’s.”

  “I suppose there is no reason why a female line should have any less significance or carrying power than a male’s,” Brett said, finding the idea rather intriguing. “So are you a believer in marriage, like your grandmother, or in commitment without it like your parents?”

  “I think that will depend on the man with whom I eventually enrich my life.”

  “Enrich your life? You mean live with?”

  “Live with definitely doesn’t say it for me.”

  “You mean you’re going to let this man with whom you enrich your life decide whether you marry or not?”

  “No, we’re going to decide together. It isn’t the kind of a decision that only one person in a relationship can make.”

  Brett couldn’t figure her out, and every conversation they had just seemed to confuse him more.

  She was thoroughly modern in some respects. Yet in other ways, she was contrastingly old-fashioned—like the fact she seemed to thoroughly appreciate his opening doors for her and didn’t mistake the act of courtesy for condescension. And the way she always appeared so beautifully groomed and wearing high heels and suits with skirts, never slacks, all of which was definitely against the current fashion trends.

  He was beginning to think it would be a full-time job just trying to understand all the different pieces that somehow combined to make her such a confusing and intriguing woman.

  “So how did you like your lunch?” she asked.

  “It was delicious, but I have no idea what I ate. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t ask.”

  “No point to it. Phoebe couldn’t have told us, either.”

  “Now, that’s a reassuring image. Perhaps our first stop should be the emergency room to have our stomachs pumped.”

  Octavia laughed. “Phoebe views every dish as an experiment to combine good taste and good health. She doesn’t use recipes. She used to be my phys ed teacher in high school, as you may have surmised. Her love was swimming. Because of her, our team made it to the state championships.”

  “And because of your breaststroke.”

  Octavia laughed. “My muscles still ache thinking about it. That was the year I learned about the reserves of strength we all have in us, just waiting to be tapped.”

  “I learned that lesson with the first mountain I climbed.”

  “You’re into mountain climbing? Well, well. Who would have thought. You’re a risk-taker.”

  “I don’t consider mountain climbing risky. I prepare mentally and physically for every ascent.”

  “A mountain climber who insists he doesn’t take risks. I love it. I suppose next you’ll tell me the only reason you climb these mountains is because they’re in the way?”

  How did she manage that wonderfully sweet sarcasm without one iota of change in her voice inflection?

  Brett smiled. “You enjoyed the time you spent here with your grandmother while you were growing up, didn’t you,” he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  “Very. I was blossoming into the typical obnoxious teenager and my parents were pulling their hair out. Then, out of the blue, this wonderful offer came through for them to go traipsing off into the interior of the Brazilian rain forest through mud and muck to study a tribe of primitive people. They jumped at the opportunity.”

  “It’s hard for me to picture you as the daughter of two intrepid cultural anthropologists who like to rough it.”

  “Hard for me to picture, too. At first they tried to take me on some of their forays into the primitive places, but even at five and six, I was insisting on a daily bath. After a while they just gave up.”

  “And left you with your grandmother?”

  “Happily, yes. Mab and I have always been close, and I enjoyed not having to move all the time. Not that I don’t recognize that my parents are doing important work. I’m very proud of them. They’re on a South Seas island now, studying another primitive culture.”

  “You didn’t miss them when they left you while you were growing up?”

  “Very much, particularly the five years they spent in Brazil. But I’m not sure I would have such fond feelings for them now if we had been forced to try to survive under the same roof then. I’m a firm believer that the teenage years are a great time for parents to leave the country. Or the kids.”

  “Yes, I remember only too well my own struggles with my parents during those years. But as difficult as it was, I think that it would have been more difficult not to see them for five full years.”

  “Oh, my parents came home every Christmas for a week. Christmas Eve we’d all sit around the wood stove in my grandmother’s home, drinking cider and eating Mab’s amazing Christmas cookies while my parents would regale us with all their experiences. Maybe that’s why Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. I could hardly wait for Christmas morning and the unusual, surprising presents they had brought back. Those kind of presents are always the best, aren’t they.”

  “I wouldn’t know. We didn’t exchange Christmas presents. My parents didn’t believe in perpetuating fantasies for which I would later b
e disappointed.”

  “Are you telling me you never believed in Santa Claus?”

  “You obviously consider me to have had a deprived childhood. I assure you, I was quite content.”

  “What were you read during storybook time?”

  “There was no storybook time. My parents both came from very poor families. They didn’t want to give me the false impression that things could be had by the wave of some storybook wand. They wanted me to understand from the first that I would have to work—and work hard—for whatever I got. They didn’t fill my head with fantasies of any kind.”

  “Amazing. Here you are this wonderful magician of law, and yet you’ve missed out on the magic of a fantasy life.”

  “What’s so magical about fantasies?”

  “How good they make us feel, of course. Like the world is a place full of sparkle.”

  “I’ll take the sparkle of a multifaceted diamond over a multiflawed fantasy any day.”

  “I find it very interesting that you’re drawn to the sparkle of diamonds, Brett.”

  “Why? They’re a good investment.”

  “So are stocks and bonds, but they don’t sparkle, do they? Can it be that you’re drawn to diamonds because they represent all that beautiful Christmas sparkle you missed out on when you were a child?”

  “I’m surprised that your grandmother didn’t become the authority ogre when your parents were gone,” Brett said, deliberately changing the subject again.

  “Mab has always had a unique outlook on life. She believes the best rules and regulations come from within us. She told me that whenever I was faced with any moral decision, I should follow my intuition, because intuition is a whisper from the heart. I’ve used that advice all my life and found it to be excellent.”

  “Sounds like you still believe in Santa Claus.”

  “Maybe a part of me does,” Octavia admitted. “But I realize that doesn’t mean anything to a man who doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of a heart.”

  “I acknowledge the existence of a heart. Even mine.”