APRIL... More of the same (Part 128i)

APRIL... More of the same (Part 128i)

I began to sort through the information Jay had provided on my way home and as I did I came up with a reasonable explanation as to why Mrs. K might have been reluctant to say much about Gina. I figured the situation with the purchasing officer had been somewhat embarrassing for the County and as the one who had the oversight for all employees she wasn’t going to perpetuate rumors. I didn’t know that for sure but I wanted to believe it.

I could see Elle had experienced another trying day at work as soon as I walked in the door. I was still concerned about my having been called into the president’s office and I guessed it showed. Elle said something about “making a deal”. We’d done this a number of times in the past where we agreed not to ask each other about a particularly rough day. It was our personal version of “Don’t go there!” She was preparing supper so I went upstairs to change. Upon my return I saw a brochure on the counter next to the mail. It was for Amana refrigerators. I’d never heard of them. When I asked Elle about it she said she’d gotten it from Nanci at school. I was a bit puzzled and wanted to know more about it. She told me to wait until after we’d eaten so I took it to my seat at the table and perused it. I’d never purchased a refrigerator before. We’d bought two new mobile homes and each had come with a new refrigerator. The one in the house was only a year old when we bought the it and until Elle started to complain about the lack of a freezer compartment I never gave it a thought. In the short time I had to read the material it looked like it would meet Elle’s desires.

Having the brochure to concentrate on took my mind off work (and Gina) so I relaxed. I could sense Elle was excited about it when she asked what I thought of the material as she served dinner. I don’t remember what I said but by my picking the brochure up and looking at it without a negative comment seemed to have sent a message to her that I was amenable to purchasing one. That, in turn relaxed her. After eating I stayed in the kitchen to help her clean up and to also get started on the story behind the brochure.

At my “birthday party”, such as it was, Elle had offhandedly mentioned that we would be getting a new refrigerator to a couple of the women who were there. Nanci said she was getting a new one as well and had told Elle that she’d gotten a really good deal. Her brother worked for the company that had bought the Amana company. They were primarily located in the middle of the country but her brother’s company had expanded the distribution to the Eastern states. They were offering a promotional discount for the month of April and, if we were to buy one we’d get a colored door panel for free. My first thought was just who would service it if there was a problem. But Elle had already picked out the one she wanted and the door panel to go with it. A reasonable assumption would be that I would go out and do some price comparisons... But, for reasons that I still don’t know, decided to go with it. We called Nanci and told her and she was excited as well promising to get the paperwork to us as soon as possible.

We’ve all heard of “buyer’s remorse” and by the next morning I sure had it. I still hadn’t filed all the papers to have my trust fund released and that would have to be done for me to pay for the refrigerator. I didn’t say anything to Elle about the way I felt and decided to just leave it as it was. I still had to sign the purchase contract so it gave me some time to let it all sink in.

Back at work my focus (for a change) wasn’t about Gina or my visit to the president’s office but was on the refrigerator. At lunch I walked down to the appliance store that I’d bought my washing machine and TV from to ask about  Amana refrigerators. When I asked my friend who owned the store with his father I got a strange look. He’d heard of them but had never seen one. Not a good sign. I walked on down to the Montgomery Ward catalog store just to take a look in the current catalog. That was a surprise because it actually showed a couple of models. That was a good sign. However it did get me to thinking about service for one if needed and I knew that both Sears and MW serviced all the brands they sold. While there I found out that MW would even sell service contracts for appliances they didn’t sell so that made me feel better as I walked back to the bank.

I’d brought all the paperwork for the release of my trust fund because my signature had to be notarized on the release papers and Hobie was a Notary. When I pinned him down to do it he made an off-hand comment about my visit to the president’s office, telling me not to dwell on it. He said the matter was too convoluted for him to even try to explain it to me. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. By the time I left for home all the paperwork for the trust was completed in in the mail. At that point I was almost sure I would go ahead with getting the refrigerator. That allowed me to start thinking of what would be forthcoming from Elle in the way of “treats” once the new refrigerator was in place. By the time I got home I knew we’d get it.

When I pulled up to the garage Elle was standing in the little yard between the house and garage and was looking over at the neighboring house. Work on it had been sporadic, at best, over the past few weeks. The last time I’d peeked in I could see the kitchen had been totally redone. I asked her what was going on and Elle pointed to a truck in the driveway that was partially hidden by the house. She said she thought it was a moving van. I’d given up trying to keep track of what was happening there and hadn’t talked with Vic, the real estate agent who had tried to sell the house, in at least two months. Going in our house I headed right for the phone.

The “scoop” was that the builder who’d bought the house in foreclosure was moving his daughter into the house for the Summer while he tried to sell it. That’s all he’d heard. To me it was both good and bad news. Elle and I’d hoped that it would eventually be occupied by a young family with kids. Neither of us liked the idea of an unoccupied house being next to us. Even though there hadn’t been any known vandalism in our town we were constantly reading about it happening in neighboring villages. Having someone there, even if not permanent, was better than having it empty. The next question was what would the woman be like?

To be continued...