The Best for Last

I sat drumming my fingers against the wooden chair arms, waiting in this panelled outer office for Auntie’s lawyer. The air breathed in is reminiscent of old after-shave.

Alice wasn’t actually my aunt, just a lady I’d befriended after meeting at the market, her hands full of bags as she trudged along in the rain. I shouldn’t say “just a lady,” as we’d gotten close, a bonded pair, you could say. Well, Auntie and niece anyway. A fortunate stroke of serendipity our meeting

Along came the lawyer’s Adonis-like assistant, dressed in a pinstriped business suit and shoes shined to a mirror finish, not a hair astray. Smiling fellow, couldn’t fault that, though I’d find a way, as he’d never given me a sideways glance since our first meeting. However, I’d hoped he would.

“Miss Fairfax, he’ll see you now.”

I rose from my seat, one cheek of my ass asleep. Felt like he’d called me for an audience with the Pope as he paraded off in front of me. I stifled a grin because I thought of the comic routine ‘walk this way.’ Mr. Lever motioned me to a chair . My numb left leg wanted me to stand, but that seemed rude. Instead, I gave my leg a surreptitious shake, avoided rubbing my buttock, smiled and sat.

“Good morning, Miss Fairfax. Thank you for meeting me this early.” Lever offered his hand, clasping mine in a hearty shake and then sat behind his desk. “Alice Benz, as you may be aware, had no close contact with her family these last few years and considered you her next of kin. She has left you almost all her worldly goods with one proviso.”

Alice often said I was more niece to her than any real blood, but this turn of events surprised me. Dear old Auntie most likely didn’t have an overabundance of worldly goods, so her generosity wouldn’t pump up my retirement plan.

One thing I knew, Skittles, her yapping little terrier, would continue to be my new roommate. Taking him home in the car after leaving Alice cold in the hospital did help assuage my grief. Fiddling with the knob, I lowered the car window a crack. Skittles stuck his snout out and howled all the way. We both were bawling, and in the end, that made me smile and stop crying. Shared grief, halved, and his soft little body beside me comforted me as tears streamed down my cheeks. He tried licking them off, but I pushed him over as the car needed driving.

Lever shuffled papers, bringing me out of my reverie. “I’ll tell you about the proviso.”

“Proviso?” How peculiar the English language is. That word sounded more like something to put on pasta. “Try this new Proviso, marvellous.” Alice would laugh at that.

“You inherit her house outright, but the twenty thousand she set aside for you comes with a strange stipulation. A request that on your honour, in-person, you distribute her letters to select people from her little black notebook.”

He handed me five envelopes, one with my name on it and the tiniest black book. “Little black book, all right,” I said, rolling it in my hands and thought of Alice and her contagious sense of humour. The book was about two inches square. She was eccentric, but this was strange, even for her.

“Good Luck with your task,” Mr. Lever said with a grin.

In one hand, I held the letters, the black book in the other, and left the office. A little shiver crept up the nape of my neck as I wondered what the letters meant. Other peoples’ names were on the remaining four letters, so surely, I couldn’t open them. Could I?

The one inscribed to me, I opened immediately, once out of the lawyer and his secretary’s sight. In her lacy, delicate hand, plenty of twirls on the upstrokes stared back at me. My heart faltered as her message spoke to me in her sweet voice:

“Now Bertie: No tears, I’m gone, and that’s that. Remember me on my birthday with a glass of red wine and carry on.

My great joy these last few years has been making your acquaintance—the best friend of my life. You have a task at hand, with four envelopes to present. Thank you for honouring an old gal’s request.

Each envelope is named and numbered one to four. When you plan to deliver them, check my little black book, and you will find the address. Dispense the notes in order, please. Love for eternity, Alice.”

I attempted to wipe the tear stains off the page, but the ink smeared on her beautiful script. My hand stopped, as of its own volition, and ran over my eyes, smudging my mascara instead. Making my face up wasn’t usually my style, but the way Lever’s male-secretary smiled at me when I came in person to make the appointment thrummed a small tune on my heartstrings. Since then, he hadn’t glanced my way. Never mind, my work was cut out for me, no time for daydream dates.

Skittles’ vocal wo-wooing when I arrived home earned him a treat and a belly rub. I sat down to examine the first envelope, but I refrained from opening it in deference to Alice. The address was the nursing home where she used to volunteer. In dark ink and near calligraphy script, the name ‘Charlie Simms’s meant nothing to me. But I shook my head at Alice’s instructions.

Early the next morning, I hastened to fulfill them before meeting Mr. Simms in person. With a dozen red roses in hand, I entered Charlie’s room, and following Alice’s orders, a card in her script accompanied them. “We’ll always have Valentine’s day.”

He lay slumped in bed, but his eyes travelled my way, and they twinkled a sapphire smile that pale pink lips echoed. His left leg and arm lay on the chair beside him, plastic and inert.

“Wrong room, Miss?”

“Charlie Simms?”

He nodded.

“Right room, these are from Alice Benz.”

His smile faded. “Ah, poor Alice.”

But when I set the roses on the bedside table, and he scanned the sentiments, in Alice’s distinctive script, his smile flamed brightly.

“There is this letter as well,” I leaned over to slip it in his right hand. “Do you want me to open it for you?” Wanting to know what it said motivated my offer more than kindness. He declined but went on to say all I needed to know.

“Alice and I were to wed, but when the war sent me home like this, not desiring to trap her into looking after me, I refused to go through with it, though she wanted to marry.” He paused and lifted his head, taking a deep breath, inhaling in the fragrance of the roses. “Still, Alice tended to me all these years.”

“Valentine’s?” I asked indelicately.

“Have you found yours?” Charlie asked back without divulging a thing.

Alice and her secrets—Bless her. Charlie and I parted on my promise to visit often.

The names on the next two envelopes revealed an address in Niagara Falls, a distance away from Toronto, so I planned a trip for Skittles and myself. Not likely dogs were allowed on the Maid of the Mist, but I couldn’t bear to leave the poor dog home because he was mourning the same as me. The trip might prove an excellent distraction.

It did, but what greeted us at the door while delivering Alice’s missives certainly went beyond diversion. Our man, a Mr. Archie Benz, answered my knock.

“What the hell are you doing pestering me?” He stopped shouting then blew his rather deeply veined bulbous nose into a soiled hankie. A look of disdain travelled from his mouth to his bloodshot eyes. Skittles barked and jumped behind me.

“This is a letter for you from Alice Benz.” I probably should have followed Alice’s advice that if he answered the door in a miserable manner, drop the note and leave. “A relation?”

“Crazy old coot of an aunt.”

He tore the letter open, skimmed it and spat on the floor. “Twelve thousand if I’m sober for a year. Tell the old bat to shove off.”

“She’s passed.”

“So much the better.”

“Is Alison Benz available?” I’d hoped for better luck with her.

“That little trollop is at the Sunrise Motel last I heard.”

“Here in Niagara Falls?”

“Straight up Ferry street, and you can be gone now, messenger girl.”

I fished Lever’s business card from my wallet and offered it to him. Archie’s hands stayed at his side, so I dropped it by his feet. “Her lawyer’s card if you change your mind.”

Skittles pranced down the stairwell in front of me. Turning my head slightly, I saw Archie pick up the card and pocket it. So, there was that.

Skittles and I got takeout then ate on a nearby bench before we enjoyed a Falls view. Spectacular, all that water tumbled down with the sound thundering up in the foam and spray. Unlike the disconnected Benz clan, two countries, Canada and United States, joined in such holy splendour. The bellowing noise that could drown out even Archie’s insults followed us on our stroll back to the hotel, and the mist dampened our hair. Skittles was in my arms as the echo proved his undoing.

One Benz remained, and with faint hope, I knocked on the door of a rather run-down hotel, wondering what relation Alison was. A girl no longer petite because of her advanced pregnancy peeked out through the partially opened access. Upon discovering our mission, she motioned us in, indicating a threadbare couch for seating. I gave her the letter. She opened it gingerly and read, crying.

“Great Aunt Alice had no idea about the baby. She put money aside for me to enter nursing training.” She progressed from crying to sobbing. My arms closed around her shoulders to give comfort as Skittles reached to kiss her cheeks.

“That’s still possible when the time comes.”

“I can’t live in a nursing residence with a child. Oh, I wish Dad had let me move in with Auntie Alice when she asked years ago. He kicked me out when I got pregnant, and I was too ashamed to contact her.”

“Your father is Archie?”

Her quiet downcast expression said it all. My mind was, in an instance, made up.

“I eventually will live in Alice’s house. It’s plenty big enough so that you could live there as well. Go to school when you’re able.”

“An air of disbelief came over her face. “Really?”

“You betcha. Pack up, and let’s go. Alice would never forgive me if I left you here.”

As she’d lived out of a suitcase, it didn’t take her long to pack, and we were off to Toronto. I had only one remaining letter to deliver, the address, Lever’s law office.

With a wish to complete my task, the next day, I entered the office and told Mr. Handsome Secretary that Alice’s last note was for Mr. Lever. He held up his forefinger and read the salutation on the envelope.

“Actually, Miss, it’s for me. I’m William Lever, Junior, articling with my father.” William took only a moment to digest the letter. His piercing deep dark eyes quickened my pulse as he came out from behind the front desk. “Your aunt has given you and me a night on the town. Dinner at the CN Tower and a show. How lovely.”

He glanced my way then stared straight at me with those heavenly eyes. “Seeing you come to the office, I’ve wanted to ask you out, but I’m too shy. Will you join me, Miss Fairfax? After all, it is your aunt’s wishes. The cure to my inhibition.”

“Just Bertie, and yes, I’ll come, happily.”

How like dear Aunt Alice to save the best for last.