BINDING ARBITRATION FOR BEGINNERS

ACT THREE

Jeff wasn't surprised to find her waiting for him. Sadie Parker-Edison stood in the hall outside his first class after lunch, smiling to herself and playing with her phone. She looked up as Jeff approached, and beckoned him closer. When Jeff instead slowed his pace and stopped, standing twenty feet or so away from her, she shrugged and closed the distance between them herself.

"Hello, Jeffrey," she said cheerily. "You're looking very sharp. Do you often wear a suit to your community college courses?"

"Sometimes," he answered. He tried to guess at what she wanted.

Her eyes were hard. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. And yourself?"

Screw it. "What do you want, Sadie?" Jeff asked her.

"Oh, so many things." She tilted her head. "Walk with me, Jeffrey. I want to offer you something."

"Whatever it is, I don't want it."

Sadie snorted. "At least hear me out. For my daughter's sake — this concerns her, after all."

Jeff stiffened. He didn't want to spend any more time in this woman's presence, but, after all, what more could Sadie Parker-Edison do to him? "Fine."

"I suppose by now you've encountered Lelia Gilman," Sadie said, as though it were occurring to her for the first time. "Not for the first time, I assume."

"Not for the first time, no."

"You and she hashed out the ridiculous terms of your situation with the bar association, I think. She must like you, to be so generous."

"Maybe she's just a generous person."

"Oh, she is. You see, I've known Lelia Gilman a long time." Sadie thrust her phone in Jeff's face and began scrolling through photos. "Here we are at the Muppet Movie. We were, oh, I want to say twelve at the time. First time we were allowed to go to a movie without adult supervision, her mother dropped us off… and here we are graduating high school. Class of 1985. Here we are moving into the dorm together… here she is at my wedding, you see, maid of honor, very regrettable hairstyle choices for both of us… and here she is at my daughter's seventh birthday party. Auntie Lelia, that's what she used to call her."

"So I gathered," Jeff said shortly.

"Lelia likes you, I'm sure," Sadie said. "But she loves me. And she loves my daughter."

"Then that makes two of us," Jeff said, "out of you and me and Lelia Gilman."

Sadie made a parody of a wince. "That's an awful thing to say. But then, you're an awful man. At least you're awful in one major respect: you're not suitable for my daughter."

Jeff considered speaking, but instead just waited for her to finish.

"You're lazy and you always take the easy way out. You're instinctively dishonest. You take advantage of people, her most of all. You've pulled her away from her proper path to this ridiculous law school plan. You've encouraged her to drink and debauchery. You've mooched off her studious, generous nature… I blame you for our inability to reconcile over Thanksgiving."

"Why did you even try that? Showing up, out of the blue?" Jeff asked. He'd wondered for weeks.

Sadie shook her head slightly. "No. You don't get to ask questions." She drew herself to her full height (five feet, two inches in heels). "This is the deal. You'll break it off with her. Disappear from her life. You won't return her calls, you won't visit her, you won't speak to her if she tries to visit you. In fact you'll leave town. You can move to Pueblo, or Colorado Springs. Get away from here."

For a moment, Jeff and Sadie just stared at one another. Then Sadie looked away.

"In exchange for making a permanent improvement in Ann's life by leaving it," she said, "you'll be reimbursed for your relocation, and, of course, you will once again be admitted to the Colorado state bar. I'm sure you'll be able to chase all the ambulances you like in Colorado Springs. The people there are very litigious."

"Listen," Jeff said. He felt dizzy.

"You're a liar and a womanizer," she said flatly. "A monster who craves young flesh. In a few years you'll turn forty. You'd be a man in his forties dating a woman in her twenties. Even you must be self-aware enough to recognize that cliche. My daughter has all the potential in the world, and you're standing between her and eventual happiness."

"Listen," Jeff said again. Bad enough someone else was saying all these things, but that the someone else looked and sounded uncannily like Annie...

"Do you disagree?" Sadie raised an eyebrow. "Do you think you are good enough for her? Do you think you know better than me, what my daughter needs?"

"Listen." Jeff's fists were clenched.

"You think you're what she needs?"

"Listen! Christ!" Jeff snapped. "You're not even talking about me, you're talking about Annie's father. Or, I don't know what you're talking about, but, what do you know about me?"

Sadie's left eye was twitching. "I know you're a liar. You lied to your own mother. You lied to the bar association. You lied to the law firm that hired you on the mistaken belief that you were capable of earning a bachelor's degree from a real school. You lied to me within minutes of our first meeting. I know you're a womanizer. You slept with my daughter's friend. You slept with a professor at Greendale. You slept with literally dozens of women between 2005 and 2009. I know you're a user of people. You…"

"Okay! God! Shut up!"

"Mmm-hmm." Sadie let out a low, mordant chuckle.

"I don't… you can't… it's not… dammit!" Jeff slapped a locker, the closest thing at hand that would make a satisfying bang.

She nodded. "Clearly I'm mistaken, given that well-reasoned argument."

"You just…" Jeff rested his head against the locker, suddenly out of breath. "I'm not going to argue with you."

Sadie folded her arms. "Yes, why change a winning strategy?"

"You can tell Lelia whatever you… I'm not going to…" Jeff shuddered. His mouth felt full of cardboard. "You think she'll listen to you?"

Sadie played with her phone for a moment, then held it up for Jeff to see. "You see this picture? This was taken the day my daughter was born. There's me," she said, pointing. "There's little Annie-pooh, and there's Lelia."

"Fine! If you're… fine!" Jeff sputtered. "I'm not going to play your game!"

"Then you'll never practice law in Colorado or anywhere," Sadie said. "Years of your life wasted. A further demonstration of the futility of pursuing her, as she grows discontent with your endless stream of failure. Or else she sticks with you, to spite me, and you can live with the knowledge that you've ruined her life."

Jeff shuddered involuntarily. It was like having a conversation directly with the part of him that hated himself.

Shirley and Annie sat in the study room, in their usual seats. Annie's hands were neatly folded in her lap and her face was serene, betraying none of the anxiety Shirley knew she felt.

"Ready to get started?" Lelia asked, clicking her pen and making a note on her legal pad. She sat in Pierce's usual seat. Her pen was purple, Shirley noted, and wondered if that was a good omen or a bad one.

"Of course," said Shirley.

Lelia reviewed a sheet of paper in front of her. "So, you are Shirley Bennett, right?"

"That is correct," Shirley said carefully.

"And you've known Jeffrey Winger for about three and half years?"

"To the best of my recollection…" She shook her head, remembering. "Wait, no. We actually met as children. We didn't stay in touch, though. Can I retract my answer?" she asked nervously.

"Shirley, Shirley." Lelia raised her hands in reassurance. "It's okay. This isn't a deposition; you aren't under oath. This is just me asking some questions to get an idea of how Jeff has spent his time here."

"Lelia…" Annie began.

"I've told you, Annie, you can still call me Auntie." She smiled. "I can't believe it's been five years… I hardly recognized you. You look great."

"Thanks, Auntie," Annie said, her tone cautious. "So, um, this whole thing is something Jeff is really… invested in? And you know how Mother can be…"

"Oh, don't I know it." Lelia chuckled. "I've known Sadie longer than you have. Since we were a couple of junior high school girls. And it's true, she was the little bird who suggested I take the time to do this, which is just a funny coincidence that she would… Maybe that was as much about giving you and me a chance to reconnect as anything else… but if she knew you were here…" Lelia frowned. "And I know Jeff Winger. I've known him longer than you have, too… although perhaps not as well." She winked.

"Jeff has really changed since he started at Greendale," Annie said. She started fidgeting with her pen, which Shirley took to be a bad sign. "He's not the man he was, Auntie, and…"

"I know, I know, I know," Lelia cooed. She glanced at Shirley, who was still sitting quietly. "We can talk about that later."

"Or now! I mean..." Annie blinked a few times. "We can talk about whatever in front of Shirley, she's… you're one of my best friends," Annie said, turning to Shirley.

"Of course." Shirley nodded. "We should do this interview thing first, though."

"So, Shirley," Lelia said, turning back to her. "Can you tell me a little about how you and Jeff met?"

"Oh, okay." Shirley cleared her throat, and spoke in the sing-song voice she sometimes used when she was nervous. "I had started at Greendale, and I was taking Spanish 101. Our friend Abed put together a study group. That was me, and Annie, and Jeff, and some other people…"

Lelia checked her notes. "Abed is Abed Nadir, right? Jeff listed him as a reference, too."

"That's right."

"Who else was in the group?"

Shirley swallowed. "Our friends Troy Barnes and Pierce Hawthorne, and Britta Perry."

"And Pierce is the third reference, so that makes sense…" Lelia raised an eyebrow. "Is Britta Perry not a friend?"

"Of course she is!" Annie interjected. "She's one of my best friends!"

"Absolutely, yes," Shirley agreed. "I just, initially, she was only part of the group because… Jeff arranged it with Abed, because he, uh, Jeff wanted to…"

Lelia's eyes narrowed. "Jeff saw a pretty redhead in his Spanish class, lied and said he had a study group to get her to meet with him, and had his friend Abed… whom apparently he's close with since he's a character reference… His friend Abed threw together a fake study group at the last minute?" Her tone was light, but there was something menacing in the way she clicked her purple pen.

"No!" Shirley protested. Despite the lack of blood tie, it was suddenly much easier to see Lelia Gilman as Annie's relative. "Britta's a blonde," she said lamely.

Lelia let out a chuckle that ended in an embarrassing snort. "Okay, his tastes have obviously evolved," she said. "Setting aside Jeff being a player, because it's not technically relevant…"

Shirley noticed Annie shift uncomfortably in her seat.

Lelia doubtless noted it, too. Her tone quickly softened. "Then you all became actual friends, and you've stayed together as a group this whole time?"

"Uh huh." Shirley nodded.

"Would you say you know Jeff well, at this point?" Lelia asked.

"Oh, definitely. I had him and his mother over for Thanksgiving dinner. And we went to the Ren Fair together…"

"The group did," Annie said, jumping in. "We do a bunch of things together like that. It's fun. We have fun. We're friends."

Lelia made a note. "Note to self," she said, "Annie has fun without me." She winked at Annie.

Annie repressed a grin. "Auntie!"

"I mean, you've had, what, five birthday parties without inviting me?" Lelia asked wryly. "I didn't even have your contact information and Sadie was sooo tight-lipped about you…" She shook her head ruefully. "I'm sorry," she told Shirley. "You were saying?"

"Um, just that Jeff and I have been friends for a while now."

Lelia reviewed her notes. "There was an incident of some kind last spring. Jeff was expelled from the school?"

"That was rescinded," Annie said.

"Yes, it was." Lelia nodded. "Shirley, can you tell me anything about that?"

Shirley considered. "It's kind of a complicated story." She swallowed. The study group, the dean, the board — they had all agreed to keep omertà about Chang's reign of terror.

"Okay then. That's fine; I don't need to hear it if that's a problem." Lelia waved away her concerns. "The upshot is, is it a story that Jeff comes out of smelling like a rose, or is there something in there that would give the bar pause?"

"Oh, he didn't do anything wrong. None of us did!" Shirley leaned forward. "The whole group was expelled. For a little while. But Annie's right, it was rescinded."

"Yes, I've read Jeff's transcripts… he sends me a copy every semester, as per our agreement…" Lelia made a note. "Okay," she said brightly. "Is there anything else, anything at all, that you think is relevant at all to the question of whether Jeff should be reinstated to the bar?"

"He's a good man," Shirley said. "He's changed a lot since that first semester. Like, last summer, there was this dispute between me and Pierce, about Shirley's Sandwiches…"

"They co-own a lunch counter in the cafeteria," Annie supplied.

Shirley nodded. "And it was really silly, just a question of whose name went on the contract with the school, but it really hit a nerve with Pierce because of the way he'd been forced out of Hawthorne Wipes and Hawthorne Napkins and Hawthorne Paper Products, and he brought in this lawyer Alan, who it turned out used to work with Jeff…"

"Alan Connor?" Lelia asked sharply. "Nasty boorish little white guy?"

Shirley nodded. "You know him?"

"The legal community in this town is not huge," Lelia explained.

"So we had a mock trial kind of thing, with the dean presiding. Jeff was my attorney and Alan was Pierce's," Shirley continued. "Jeff ended it with this very lovely speech about friendship and how much he'd learned about caring for other people, and how it didn't matter that he was throwing away his chance to go back to his old firm, and… it was nice."

Lelia grunted appreciatively and made another note. "He still makes the speeches, then?"

Shirley giggled. "Oh my yes."

"It's kind of a running joke, really," Annie said.

"I'm sure he's great at mock trials," Lelia said. She smiled. "Debate and model UN and all that, too."

"Oh, yeah, actually," Annie said, grinning despite herself. "We, um, we did some of that stuff together, he and I." There was a faraway look in her eyes for a moment. She blinked it away, but not before Shirley — and presumably Lelia — spotted it.

Lelia repressed a grin of her own. "Okay, great," she said, straightening up in her seat. "Let's say I'm willing to believe that Jeff Winger has become a wonderful human being who deserves to be accepted back into the legal fold. Even that he's as close to being good enough for Annie as any mere mortal man could be… Let's say I'm willing to go along with that… but let's also say I'm on the fence. Is there anything else you want to say, Shirley, to tip me one way or the other?"

Shirley shook her head slowly, then nodded vigorously as she remembered another possible point in Jeff's favor. "Oh, he drew up a contract between Pierce and me, about how we run the lunch counter… which is that I run the lunch counter and Pierce keeps his damn fool mouth shut… and he didn't charge us anything for that."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah, he's done a few things like that for us, just free of charge. The lease with the school for the space, he negotiated that, and he wrote the, I forget what it's called…"

"So he's been acting as your attorney?" Lelia asked, incredulous.

"Oh, no! No, no no," Shirley assured her. "He's been very clear about that. He's not a lawyer; we're not his clients. He doesn't give us legal advice. He always reminds us of that before he does anything."

"Does anything?" Lelia repeated.

Shirley shrugged. "You know, answer questions, settle disputes, write or review documents, clarify things…"

"Legal advice, in other words."

Shirley blinked. "Is that wrong?"

Lelia pursed her lips. "If you have a leaking pipe, and you call me, and I come over with tools, and I tell you I'm not your plumber, but then I fix your leak… am I your plumber?"

"Uh…"

"If you have a cavity, and I'm going to drill it and give you a filling, but right before I inject the novocaine I tell you I'm not a dentist, does that mean that if I screw it up and you lose all feeling in your jaw I'm not at fault and I don't owe you doctor-patient confidentiality?"

Shirley tried to shrug off a sinking feeling. "…I'm guessing not?"

"Definitely not. It's the same with the law." Lelia glanced nervously towards Annie.

"So… that's not how it works?" Shirley asked.

Lelia shook her head. "No, it's not."

"Is this a problem?" Annie asked, visibly worried. "It's just been a couple of things, for friends, and it's not like he was taking money for it…"

"That's true, that's true." Lelia sounded pained. "The rules about practicing law without a license are pretty cut and dried, though. A key part of having your license to practice law suspended is that you stop practicing law. It'd be one thing if he were just doing it on his own behalf, that's fine, but…" She trailed off with a rueful shrug. "And Jeff knows that, or he should. At least he should have told me."

"Does this mean…?"

Lelia grimaced; she clearly didn't want to give Annie bad news. "It's… I don't know. It's not great, but… I'll talk to Nadir and Hawthorne and his instructors, and, well, we'll see. We'll see."

END OF ACT THREE

TO BE CONTINUED...