STING (NOT THE SINGER)*

By Catherine Crockett

The last client arrived at 5:00. I was on the dreaded Friday afternoon Lawyer Referral duty: multiple half-hour sessions of free legal advice.

I appreciate now that it’s a way of giving back to the community. But I was a young associate back then. I viewed myself as a commodity, valued by how much money I brought in to the firm. I would have to make up the Friday afternoon billables on the weekend.

I marched to meet the client on painful pointy heels. They matched my most imposing black suit, offset by a highlighter-yellow blouse. My goal was to move the final referral swiftly from office to exit.

I met the client in our three-chair reception area. Family law clients rarely travel in pairs, and doesn’t everyone prefer that spare chair between themselves and stranger danger?

I could see instantly that this meeting would not increase my billables. The client had frizzy grey hair in Roseanne Roseannadanna style. She wore a gauzy muumuu in swirls of green with pink and blue blotches. Like someone threw up Monet’s water lilies and made a dress out of it. And the ubiquitous mushroom-brown Birkenstocks (do they come in other colours?) She was knitting. Or maybe crocheting. One of those plastic needle activities with wool.

“Ms. Zellas?” I inquired.

She finished her stitch before acknowledging me. “I am Madam Zellas.”

I suppressed an eye roll. She put her yarn into a giant black leather purse and secured its brass buckle with a thunk. It was like a doctor’s bag. She had the imperious air of a doctor too.

“I’m Karla Stringer.”

“You’re the lawyer?”

Seriously? Did I mention I was wearing my power suit? I didn’t smile, and led her wordlessly to my office. I moved my half-empty coffee mug to the credenza and checked the time on my watch as I slid behind my desk: 5:03 p.m. Immediately to business.

* This story came first in the 2022 Advocate Short Fiction Competition. Entries were required to deal, if only incidentally, with legal subject matter and contain at least two of the following phrases: (a) “The wasp is only half-dead, madam”; (b) “It’s a Tweet. The truth doesn’t matter.” (or “The Truth doesn’t matter. It’s a Tweet.”); (c) “Well, I call it jazz.”

Madam Zellas told me that her daughter was not letting her see her fouryear-old granddaughter since the daughter started up with a new boyfriend. He was something of a control freak, in her opinion. She wanted to know what her rights were as a grandparent. She emphasized her “rights” by stabbing her index finger onto my desktop. She had a collection of silver rings on her right hand. One had what looked like a Dairy Queen ice cream shape on it. (Nowadays I would have mistaken it for a poop emoji.) Later I concluded it was a bee hive.

I dove into my law-on-grandparents spiel. “The courts look at this from one perspective: the best interests of the child. It’s not about your rights, or your daughter’s rights. Generally speaking, judges don’t interfere with parents’ decisions about with whom their children associate. But it depends on the relationship between the parent and grandparent, and the grandparent and the grandchild.”

I knew the law cold. I prided myself on that, and the fact that I was single and childless meant I could be objective. Too many family lawyers let their clients’ emotions affect their professionalism.

Madam Zellas told me some of the history and I explained how she could apply in court for access to her granddaughter. I concluded the conversation by handing her a photocopy of a case in which a Judge Kontrabash laid out the law on grandparents’ access in (mostly) plain English. As I leaned across my desk to hand it to her, I noticed my office was starting to smell vaguely of incense and whole wheat flour.

I was on track to be done well within her free thirty minutes. Hand off the case, tell her to read it at home, rise from my seat and … Madam Zellas gasped.

Judges’ decisions rarely evoke such reactions (okay, never, unless you’ve just been convicted of murder). I sat down again and gave her the eyebrow raise.

“Kontrabash. One of my first clients was named Kontrabash. Her avatar was a white-tailed deer.” Her focus remained on the case.

Avatar? I knew this would extend our session, but Curiosity won the arm wrestle with Impatience. “What sort of work did you do?”

She sat up tall in her chair. “I am a Medium. It is a calling. Not something you retire from.”

If she had “clients”, that was work, in my books. I didn’t pursue the point.

“So, do you predict the future, read tarot cards? That kind of thing?”

She did not suppress her eye roll. “The Sight is a gift. You can’t choose how it manifests.” She crossed her arms and looked away from me. “I do not engage in cheap parlour tricks.”

I’m ashamed to say her indignance amused me. Her being a Medium and all, I’m pretty sure she picked up on my skepticism.

“What’s an avatar, in your work? Does everyone have one?”

“It is not work!”

I waited her out.

“Yes,” she continued, “everyone has an avatar. It’s usually an animal, occasionally a flower or tree. I had one client who was a puddle, but only that one. Sometimes people know it, but mostly I find it for them.”

Of course she did. How else would she bill her hours?

“Can you tell just by looking at a person? What’s my avatar?” This would be worth it for the story to tell Friday night at the curling club bar, which I and other recent law school grads went to for the cheap beer. I was a bad Canadian, having no interest in curling or hockey.

She looked me square in the eye for an uncomfortable amount of time. I’m not one for direct eye contact, but I maintained the staring contest with my best neutral-judge face. She blinked first and shrugged.

“You gave me free advice. And that Kontrabash, she was generous. Always brought me perogies at Christmas time. They were a little doughy, but good flavour. I will try to contact your avatar. Give me your hands.”

She reached across my desk and took my hands in hers: right in right, left in left, so our arms formed an X. I noticed the left hand had only gold rings. The metal on her fingers felt smooth and warm, her hands dry. She had thick nails a drag queen would envy, but no polish. Our faces were closer now so I could smell her breath. Hints of Juicy Fruit. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply in through her nose, out through her mouth. Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out. Mesmerizing. I found myself matching her pattern.

Just when I was wondering if this is what chair yoga feels like, she spoke: “I am listening to Nature. What will she tell us?”

“What does it sound like?”

“Well, I call it jazz. There can be voices, of people, or animals, or sounds of them moving through their environment. This time it is humming—no, buzzing. Gentle, gentle.” She thrummed her fingers softly against my wrists.

“I can see bees. They touch down so softly on the flowers. It’s a blackberry bush. Such a light fragrance. No thorns, so it’s not a wild plant. This is someone’s garden, a neat row against their fence. There are blossoms, but no fruit yet. That’s why the bees are here.”

Bees. That’s when I made the connection to the hive ring.

She continued. “I hear a grunting further down the row. I’m leaving the bees behind. These are different vines—light green, more delicate, with tiny thorns. And that slightly tangy smell. Long, red, soft, juicy, ripe raspberries!”

Please, dear god, no sexual metaphors …

She smiled, her eyes still shut. “And there’s the source of the grunting. It’s a black bear. She’s gorging herself. Pulling the berries off the canes with her mouth. And lower, there—not one, no, two cubs! They are breaking the stems and pulling all the lower berries to their mouths. They are not so delicate as their mother. The owner of this bush will not be happy.”

I was losing patience with the metaphors. “So, am I the bear?”

Madam Zellas squeezed my hands tighter. Her rings dug into the undersides of my hands.

“Wait! The mother bear is standing upright. Something is irritating her? A bee? No, the bees are doing their job elsewhere. She’s swatting—it’s a wasp! Is it protecting its nest? No … it’s alone.”

Okay, we have an epic battle here, but seriously, it’s a bear versus a wasp. Is it a legal metaphor? Is the wasp injustice? Is the bear the client seeking time with her grandchildren? I’m really not good at this.

“The wasp is so angry, slicing back and forth in front of the bear’s face. That whiny noise: zzzzzz, zzzzzz, ZZZZZZ. It’s aiming for her wet spongy nose. The bear drops to her side. She pushes her face into the soil under the raspberries and rubs her paws against her ears.”

“Did it sting her?” I mean, if I’m the bear, this is bad, right?

“One of the cubs, she thinks it’s a game. She rubs her head in the dirt too. The other one wants to join in. She jumps over the first cub; her leathery paws connect with her mother’s head and … I see red, it’s smeared on the cub’s paws … ”

“Did it sting the cub?” What if I was the cub?

I felt Madam Zellas’s hands relax. She rubbed her thumbs back and forth where our hands joined.

“Don’t worry. It’s just raspberry juice. I can see that now. So funny those cubs. Their game is done. The bears are back to their raspberries.” Madam Zellas sighed happily.

I was about to release my hands from hers. My palms were sweating— awkward. Suddenly she gripped my hands so tightly I squealed. She opened her eyes and stared somewhere past my head. I did a quick shoulder check, even though there was just a bare wall behind me.

“The wasp is only half-dead, Madam,” she bellowed in a Vincent Price voice. I yanked my hands away. That seemed to break her trance or whatever you call it when people channel horror film actors.

“What do you mean by that?” I demanded. “Is that an omen or something?”

She looked amused. “The bears are fine. My avatar is a mother bear.”

“Am I a bear too?” I was prepared to be insulted. She was the Mama Bear and I was the Baby Bear? Come on…

“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so.”

“Maybe it means you will get to see your granddaughter soon?”

“No. It’s not about me. It’s about you.”

I waited. She looked sheepish and reached for her doctor bag on the floor.

“I’m not easily offended,” I assured her.

She placed her bag on her lap and fingered the hive ring.

“I am not sure, since we just met. But it seems to me you are the wasp.”

Okay, didn’t see that one coming. Now I was slightly concerned.

“You said the wasp was half-dead. That’s kind of like being a little bit pregnant or a little bit famous. You either are or you aren’t.” Was she predicting my death?

Madam Zellas appeared unconcerned. “If you are the wasp, on the bright side, you are still half-alive.” She popped her purse open and put the Kontrabash case inside. “I imagine you have plenty of stings left to deliver.” …

That meeting was fortyish years ago. I don’t believe in any of that mystic stuff any more than I believe in the Easter bunny, or God for that matter. Madam Zellas’s parting words did sting though. At first, I was angry. After she left, I kicked off my uncomfortable shoes and stomped to the break room to rinse my cold coffee down the drain. There was a sign above the sink that read “Clean your own dishes! Your mother doesn’t work here!” Why do people assume mothers do the dishes anyway? Mine didn’t.

As usual I was the last to leave the office. I stewed about my waspishness for the remainder of the evening.

To tighten up this tale, the next day I called Madam Zellas and offered to prepare an affidavit and help her fill out the court forms. No animal avatars attended our next meeting. I don’t know if I was trying to prove to myself or to her that I was not some nasty insect.

Turns out my pro bono work was, literally, for naught. The daughter left the boyfriend and needed daycare (also known as a grandmother). Madam Zellas dropped by to let me know she had cancelled the court date. She brought the granddaughter along and gave me a paper lunch bag full of what they said were cookies but I would describe as carob nut kibble.

“We put wheat germs in them,” declared Daisy the grandchild.

“Mmm! Who doesn’t love wheat germs?” I replied.

I kept working at the firm. I still dreaded Lawyer Referral Day. But I made more of an effort to get out of the office—not just for Friday beer nights. I joined a curling team in the fun league at the urging of my not-yet- but-soon-to-be husband. (Still don’t like hockey though.) He was also a lawyer, but had a better handle on the whole work/life balance thing. We have a couple of kids. I did become the Mama Bear after all—at least that’s my interpretation.

I’ll cut this short—I’m heading out in a few minutes to pick up my grandcub from school. Free daycare, that’s the ticket to grandchild time.

We’re making granola today. I’ve lined up the ingredients on the counter: honey, canola oil, large flake oats, almonds, coconut and a myriad of seeds. And of course, the “wheat germs”. It’s a tedious process of baking, stirring, baking, stirring, but there’s no other way to obtain that crackly amber perfection. The warm honey and cinnamon smell will permeate the house.

Time to grab the car keys and put on my shoes. I can reheat that half-full mug of coffee when I get back.

By the way, Birkenstocks do come in other colours: mine are dandelion yellow.