GOOD TIMES... Summer (Part 119e)

GOOD TIMES... Summer (Part 119e)

I’d hoped that the check with the proceeds of the second loan I’d made against my trust account would’ve arrived on Thursday so I could’ve deposited it in the bank on Friday. It didn’t. It was there when I stopped at the post office on my way home on Friday night. However, it was comforting to know that I had it even though I couldn’t spend any of it until it was deposited in the bank and had “cleared. After paying all that I owed I figured I’d have about $200 for clothes for Elle and the kids and $100 for a proverbial ”rainy day“. As I lay in bed that night I had a good feeling knowing that by mid week I wouldn’t owe anyone.

Saturday mornings without the kids allowed us to sleep in and... have a little “morning delight”. Elle decided to do her food shopping before getting the kids from her mother’s. While she was gone I got a call from my mother. She and my father were at my grandfather’s house. I knew my father wanted to sell it but before he could he wanted to have an auction of the contents. The question she had for me was to find out if Elle and I might be interested in having the dining room furniture before the auction house inventoried it. We’d managed to collect enough furniture to make our house “livable” with one exception. There was no furniture in the dining room... not even a chair. The rest of what we had was eclectic, for sure. Someone had asked what style we’d chose to furnish the house and the answer was “early attic”. In spite of having lived with my grandparents as a boy and having eaten many meals in their dining room, I had no memory of what the furniture looked like. I didn’t hesitate to give my mother an answer of “Yes!”. It surprised me when she made the statement that she thought it was “too formal” for us. I distinctly remember standing by the phone and wondering why she even bothered to ask if I wanted it if that’s the way she felt. After a pause where I didn’t respond she told me to get there as soon as possible to confirm that I/we really did want it.

I had to wait for Elle to return and, after a phone call to her mother to tell her it would be a while until we picked up the kids, we took off to go take a look at it. I probably looked more like a hobo, dressed to do yard work, than a bank officer and, to boot, Elle was wearing a pair of short shorts. They were a pair that I especially liked because, depending of the panties and how they fit, it was fairly easy to get a panty peek from her back side. As we walked up the back porch stairs I got what I was looking for. However, I knew my mother, silently, disapproved of them but there was nothing we could do about it then. There were two men there who were “tagging” various pieces of furniture. My mother led us into the dining room and I was really surprised at just how much furniture there was in it. As I suspected she tried to make it seem like it was the wrong “style” for our other furniture. She emphasized how “formal” it was and there was nothing formal about the rest of our furniture. All Elle and I could see was it placed in our dining room and filling an empty room... at no cost to us. I told her it was perfect just about the time my father walked into the room. He seemed pleased that we would take it but he told us that it would be up to us to get it moved... and before Tuesday. The auctioneers were holding a “preview” a day prior to the auction and didn’t want to get prospective buyers confused. I had absolutely no idea how I’d be able to do it. After a little discussion my father said he’d call the man who’d moved the kids playhouse from the mobile home park to our house for me. We left it at that.

Elle hadn’t been back in town since we moved in December. As we headed for my car she asked if we could just walk down the street so she could “take a peek” (her words) in the windows of her favorite clothing store. Even though most of the clothes she’d gotten were from either the Sears or Wards catalogs she did have some from that store. They carried the Aileen brand and she loved their things. As we approached she saw a bathing suit on a mannequin in the window and just by the little squeal she let out I knew she wanted it. It looked like a tennis dress but it had a flowered print rather than all white. I could see the panties had the same print and appeared to be a separate piece of the suit. I’d gotten paid on Friday and before making the deposit into our mortgage account I’d taken out the needed cash for our next two weeks and it was in my wallet. I think I took a deep breath before we walked in the store.

We made straight for the bathing suits. It only took a few seconds for Elle to go through them and the sad look on her face told me there wasn’t one in her size. There were only a few people in the store and the only clerk we saw was sitting on a stool by the cash register and looking very bored. We walked over to her, a middle aged lady with obviously dyed hair, and asked if there were any more of the type that Elle had in her hands. Still looking bored she grunted out a “No.” and gave us a look of disapproval. I knew I wasn’t dressed to go shopping but I’d been taught that you were to treat all customers as if they were potential buyers. If it had been me I would’ve told the lady it was the last time she’d ever see me in the store but because Elle was with me I kept my mouth closed. I remember Elle staring at the material she was holding in her hands and sort of whispering “I really, really love it.”

I don’t know where the idea came from but I asked if it were possible to check the mannequin to see what size it was dressed in. The lady, true to form, grunted out a “No.” and nothing else. At this point I was really upset and asked her if I could speak to the manager. The look she shot back at me was one of utter contempt... but she did get off her stool and walked to the back of the store. A minute of so later I saw a face I’d seen a few times in the lobby of the bank. He was taller than me and at least 100 pounds heavier than me and his “look” told me he wasn’t very happy. In an accent that very much gave him away as a ”city boy“ he asked ”Waddayawant?“ I asked about the size of the suit in the window and he turned and walked towards the front of the store and then disappeared through a small door. When he reappeared he had the mannequin in one hand. ”What size?“ was all he said and Elle, now intimidated, muttered out a weak ”ten“. He pulled the top off and peered inside the suit. Then he stripped the panties off and thrust both pieces into Elle’s hands... and without saying a word returned to the back of the store. The cost was way more than I expected but Elle was happy and I did have enough money to pay for it.

To be continued...