AUTUMN... preparing for changes (Part 142f)
The look on her face
told me she had a problem. Unlocking the door I heard her say ”I’m glad
your still here“. Not knowing what to expect, I let her in. Her car had
stopped running as she traversed the traffic circle at the end of the
street. Five major roads emptied into the round-a bout and it was always
a problem at the end of a work day. I didn’t hesitate and led her to my
car. There was no mistaking which car was hers as it was definitely
causing a problem. It was a post WWII Chevrolet 4 door sedan with the
old fashioned, high bumpers. I’d thought that maybe I could push it but when I
pulled in behind it the bumpers didn’t match up. My effort had created
an even bigger traffic problem and now cars trying to manipulate around us were
blowing their horns. I moved my car into the parking lot at the diner
that was located right there and went back to see if I could get her car
started. The engine turned over but there was no sign of it firing up. A
couple of people in the parking lot came over and I was able to
convince a couple of them to help push the car out of the traffic
circle. It was still in the way but only affected the cars going down
that road. Moira was beside herself with embarrassment.
The only
thing I could think of was to call my friend, James, who owned the
service station that I used and to ask his help. He was sympathetic but told
me he couldn’t come right at that time. When I told Moira it really
upset her. She was concerned about her kids and the fact that she had no
way to get home to them. To me, that was the least of her problems but,
women being women, have their own set of priorities. I told her I could
drive her home and then would try to follow up on getting her car running.
However, having just experienced a bit of crisis at home for not having
called Elle to tell her I’d be late, I made the call first. Not happy, but
accepting of it was all I could expect from Elle.
By the time we headed for
Moira’s, she’d calmed down. After a few minutes, to break the silence, I
asked if Gee, the Trustee of the bank who was also an attorney, had
been any help to her. I remember her taking a deep breath and sighing.
Long story short... to do anything about getting money her husband would have to be found.
To do that would take hiring a private investigator and she didn’t even
have the money to pay the mortgage. She told me that he'd told her one of her options
was to stay in the house for now and just let the bank foreclose on it.
That, to me, sounded strange because it would affect her credit rating
but, I wasn’t an attorney. One thing about the trip was that to get to
the town where she lived I had to drive past the mobile home park where
Elle and I’d lived for over three years. I hadn’t been there in at least
two and decided that I’d do a drive through on the way home.
I
was actually shocked to see both the area where she lived and especially
the house. It wasn't much bigger than some of the mobile homes in the
park we’d just driven past. But that wasn’t the only thing. It was
obviously cheaply built and needed attention. With the Air Force base
just down the road I pictured it being built to house married service
men... and that was how Moira got there. Her husband was in the Air
Force but retired soon after they moved in. Then he took off and left
her and two kids. I had a ‘working knowledge’ of appraisals and knew the
house wouldn’t appraise very well. I was a bit bold when I asked her
what they’d paid for it and couldn’t believe it when she said $17,000.
I’d only paid $25,000 for my house and it was a two story, 2250 square
foot house with 5/8 of an acre property in an established neighborhood.
My guess was that the property at this house totaled less than 1/5 of an
acre in a very poor area. I know my reaction didn’t make Moira happy
but, as I said, it was a sad, sad parcel.
I’d met her daughter
back right after she’d started at the bank. A pretty girl with her
mother’s red hair, she obviously needed some new (and larger) clothes.
She was sitting on the steps leading to a side door into the house. If
Moira hadn’t been in the passenger seat I might’ve had a good upskirt
look when she went to stand up. When she did her dress, a cotton print,
was really tight across her chest. From where I was sitting the print
looked faded as well. I’ve mentioned that Moira’s clothes were outdated
so, after seeing the house there was no doubt she was in pretty dire
straits.
She thanked me profusely and when I asked how she’d get
to work she said she could get a friend to drive her to the bus stop. I
let her know I'd follow up on her car and took off. On the way home I
couldn’t, for the life of me, come up with a solution for her situation.
When I saw the sign for the old mobile home park coming up I remembered
that I wanted to do a drive through. The first thing I noticed was that
there were no more large mobile homes in the front lot. I drove on back
to where the last unit we’d lived in was located and was taken aback
when I saw two units to the West of it. When we’d lived there I’d been
told they were unusable and wonder what had changed. Just before we sold
and bought our house the owners had been converting some of the older,
small pads to spaces for camping trailers. Now, there had to have been
over 40 of them and they ran all the way out to the road. A lot had
happened in just three years.
As it was now later than I expected
it to be when I got near the bank I decided to by-pass stopping to get my
briefcase and kept on going. Even though I’d called Elle I fully
expected that the atmosphere would be a bit ’chilly’ when I walked in.
She was all bright and cheerful and didn’t waste anytime in telling me
why. She’d been called in to substitute teach the next day. That news
made me happy as well because it would afford me the opportunity to
locate the panties I wanted to dig out of my stash of new panties for Joanie.
To be continued...
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