Chapter 6: Aunt Jenna and Emily

I broke the news to the Hendersons over dinner that night that I had found a place to live starting next week sometime. I also explained how I would still be glad to do any work that they needed doing around the house.

“I’m just a poor college student that isn’t afraid of a little hard work,” I told them. “And if you’ve got some work to be done, and you need someone else to do it, you just let me know.”

Larry and Kim immediately dismissed that idea and wanted to know where I was going to be living. I explained how my Uncle Reggie had met me this morning and said he had a house that I could borrow, but that it wouldn’t be ready until next week.

“So that’s how you came up with that set of clubs you were using out there today,” Melinda said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “Uncle Reggie brought them when he came to meet me. He said he would give me the details on the house in the next day or so.”

“Was that Coach Fields I saw out there watching you?” Melinda asked.

“If it was, he never introduced himself,” I answered. “However, Coach Watson did introduce himself and we talked a bit. It seems that he knew my grandfather.”

“Your grandfather?” Kim asked.

Of course, I then explained my connection to the former State Senator Williams. They seemed to be impressed, but I really didn’t want this to get out, so I asked them if they would keep it to themselves. They said they would.

It was while I was explaining all this to them that I realized that I had placed them in the same dangerous situation that my family was in. When I went out to the trailer to bed that night, I lay there a long time just worrying. Finally, I made up my mind to call Reggie in the morning and get out of the Henderson’s house and their lives as quickly as possible.

After midnight, I went out and dug up the other fifteen thousand dollars I had buried and then went in and packed my bags.

When I called Reggie on Friday morning, he agreed to meet me at the Starbucks again. But when I arrived, he was still sitting in his Mercedes, talking on his cell phone. I sat there beside him in the minivan with the A/C running. It was already too hot to stand outside very long in the Texas heat.

Finally, he hung up and rolled down his window.

“Follow me and stay close,” he instructed, then he rolled up his window and put the Mercedes in gear. I followed him back to the UT Golf Club and then past the clubhouse to a street called Hawk’s Canyon Circle. The house, one of the McMansions I mentioned earlier was a two story brick edifice, that appeared to be neatly squeezed in between two larger McMansions, and backed up to the Red Tees on Hole number 15.

“Let me do the talking,” Reggie said as we walked to the front door. A lady that I guessed to be in her fifties opened the door and introduced herself as a broker for a local real estate firm. She quickly ran down the features of the home and allowed us to look around on our own.

As Reggie and I walked through the home, I quickly did a search on Zillow and found that the information matched what the agent had told us. Four bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths on four-tenths of an acre. A little less than four thousand square feet. No pool.

Then while Reggie discussed money with her, I walked out the back door to look around. It just so happened that a couple of guys were raking the tee box and resetting the markers. They recognized me and we spoke briefly and then I let them get on about their jobs.

“How fast can you have it furnished?” Reggie was asking the broker as I walked back in the empty house.

“Maybe two weeks...” the broker stammered a little when she said it.

“Monday, at the latest,” Reggie shot back at her.

“But ... that’s impossible!” she whined.

“Come on,” Reggie said to me and headed out the door.

When he got outside, he slowed way down and then looked at me and winked. By the time we reached the Mercedes, the broker was right behind us. I almost thought she was going to give Reggie a blow job there in the driveway, the way she was falling all over herself to keep him from walking away. He finally extracted himself from her clutches with the agreement that she would have everything ready by Monday morning, and got in the car. I followed him back to the Mexican place for lunch.

“What the hell was that all about?” I asked, after we were seated.

“It’s her house,” he started. “And she has it way-y-y over-priced for this market at one-point-five million. You looked it up on your phone while we were there. What did it say?”

“Just under a million,” I replied.

“And how old do you think she was?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Fifty, maybe?” I replied. “But what’s her age got to do with it?”

“I’m guessing closer to sixty,” he said. “And she didn’t grow up with computers or smart phones.”

“Huh?”

“Unlike your generation, she didn’t learn how to use a computer until much later in life. And she doesn’t know how to use her smart phone effectively,” Reggie explained. “Hell, she was still carrying a pager!”

“Okay ... but I still don’t get it.”

“Look. I offered to lease her house for six months at a price that’s way above normal for this area. She didn’t even bat an eye or do a reference check online. She just said yes. Then she figured she’d use the two weeks while she furnished it to check us out.”

“Oh...”

“Now, unless she can get it done on a Friday afternoon, she won’t be able to do much checking before she hands us the keys on Monday,” he explained.

“But what about the furnishings?” I asked.

“I’m sure they have all that in their warehouse somewhere nearby. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had it delivered tomorrow.”

After lunch, Reggie said he was headed for the airport and asked me if I’d like to go back to Zurich for the weekend. I considered it, but then remembered that I was scheduled to work at the golf course. And right now, honoring my commitments were pretty big in my mind, so I reluctantly turned him down, bidding Reggie goodbye until Monday.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I entered the address that was on my driver’s license into my smart phone and headed that way. It was time to see if I could collect my mail.

“I think I know this neighborhood,” I thought to myself as I turned onto Maple Street. A moment later, I passed Chestnut Avenue and I was sure I had been here before. My mom had grown up in this neighborhood, my grandparent’s house was just a couple of blocks over.

The neighborhood had been built in the late 40’s, just after the end of World War Two. And like most neighborhoods built back then, they targeted returning GI’s and others buying startup homes. But unlike similar neighborhoods, this one was inhabited by the descendants of the original buyers who took good care of their homes and their neighborhood.

Since very few families had two cars back when these were built, most homes ended up with at least one car parked on the street. Fortunately, when they designed the neighborhood, they had taken advantage of all the wide open spaces that Texas was famous for, and built the streets wide enough to park on both sides of the street and still pass through.

I found the address and parked on the street in front of an older, single story, brick home with a steep roof and a small porch with brick columns, which in turn, supported the small porch roof. A pair of thin concrete trails with grass in the middle led from the street to a detached garage on the left of the house. A wider concrete sidewalk led from the street to the front porch. The metal mailbox was attached to the front porch, next to the door.

The only visible difference in this house and most of its neighbors was the handicap ramp that went from the end of the porch, down towards the garage.

According to Reggie’s intel, two people lived here, and had for almost twenty years. That their last name was Williams, confused me because my mother had never mentioned any relatives in the neighborhood before.

When I stepped up on the porch, I noticed a letter in the mailbox with a Texas Department of Motor Vehicle Registration return address in the corner. I immediately suspected that it might be the registration to my minivan, but it could be something else. So I left it there for now.