Chapter 22

She replied, “Well, since Mom and Dad are gone for another 100 days or so, we should bring the refrigerated and frozen stuff over or it will spoil, and maybe get freezer burn. I wonder if we shouldn’t get an additional refrigerator for the garage or wherever.”

“If you do, I can stay here and sign for it, you guys,” said Jennifer.

“Jenn, that’s nice of you but...”

“Richard, will you let go of that, ‘it’s not what you’re hired for’ crap. Sometimes a person wants to help out a friend, and that’s what Jennifer is today, our friend. Granted she’s technically an employee now, but she wouldn’t offer if she didn’t really want to help. Get over yourself.”

Jennifer couldn’t help giggling, and I heard Caroline join her.

I said, “All right, Jenn ... just realize you can always say no.”

“If I’d said no a few days ago, we wouldn’t be such good friends, now, would we?” Her logic was amazingly simple, and correct.

My goodness, this Jennifer O’Malley is a real spitfire. She’ll make a great Realtor and Office Administrator, as long as I can keep focused so I don’t do anything stupid, which I’m thankful Caroline is here for, to keep me from doing.

So, we all piled in to the car and left for our folk’s house, it only taking less than two hours. We loaded up the folk’s SUV with the cold and frozen foods, covering it really well and headed back to Stockton, getting there just after dark. We parked the SUV in the garage, and we all left for Lowe’s in Caroline’s car to get a refrigerator.

It took all of 15 minutes to find a nice large refrigerator, but Caroline saw the new generation washer and dryers, so we ended up replacing my perfectly fine 12-year-old washer and dryer, with a pair that were more energy efficient. We asked for a rush delivery ... they said OK, and we left to go back to our new home.

“How soon will they be here, Richard?” Jenn asked.

“Before 11am tomorrow morning, they promised, maybe earlier,” I said.

“So, ladies ... we should put the stuff away that’s in the SUV. I don’t think it will keep until tomorrow. It doesn’t get cold enough this time of year to keep all of that fresh.”

Nobody was moving from where they were sitting, so I added, “After we’re done unloading it all, I thought we would go out to dinner. Jennifer you’re invited to dinner as well. I thought we would go back and say hi to Jimbo tonight. How’s that sound to you two?”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Jennifer said, and then covered her own mouth, realizing she’d cursed. “I’m sorry, I never curse, but that amazes me you want to go back there, Richard.”

Caroline had looked at me and realized right away that I was just messing with them. She got up and we all moved to bring in the food from the car.

We got an assembly line type process going with Jennifer handing it to Caroline and then Caroline bringing it in to me and I either put it away or on the counter. After about 10 minutes, Jennifer and Caroline switched places and we finished up with only a little bit of food we couldn’t put away. We put it all back in the SUV, and re-covered it, hoping it might make it until tomorrow morning.

We went to Payter’s for dinner, parking in front of our new offices. We ran into Jeremy, Jennifer’s Dad, while in there. She ran to him and they hugged.

“I thought you’d taken my daughter hostage guys ... I hadn’t seen her much lately.”

“Oh, Daddy, I’ve just been helping them with this and that, showing off Stockton ... I even helped them pick out a refrigerator, washer and dryer, when we all went to Lowe’s together.”

“Well, all right, everybody ... nice to see you all again, especially this cutie-pie.”

“Oh, Daddy, stop it ... you’re embarrassing me. They’ll bring me home after dinner, OK?”

“Sure, JJ ... I’ll see you later, bye guys.”

“JJ?” Caroline said. “What does that stand for?”

“Jennifer Jolene, but only my Daddy can call me that,” she said.

“I’ll bet Jimbo called you that,” I said.

“Yeah-but I got real tired of him calling me that all the time,” Jenn responded.

“OK, Jenn ... I’ll stop kidding you about it.”

We ordered our food, I got the California Chicken Sandwich, Caroline got the Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich, and Jenn got their Philly Cheesesteak. I don’t see how these young thin girls, with their cute figures, can eat these big sandwiches, but I’ve learned not to question it. Caroline has refused me kisses for an hour after a meal, because of something ‘cute’ I’d said when she ordered it.

After we finished, we walked down to the office and decided to go in and see what all had been done.

“When will our signs be ready, Caroline?”

“Less than a week, honey.”

Jennifer giggled a little.

“What’s so funny JJ?”

She quickly put a sour look on her face, but couldn’t hold it more than a second and busted out laughing. “You two are so perfect for each other, but you’re brother and sister ... I don’t begin to understand it, but I sure do envy you guys.”

“What, you wish you had an available brother?” Caroline said.

That made Jennifer blush a little but quickly responded, “Maybe, I guess I’ll just have to find somebody else’s brother.”

This made Caroline laugh and say, “Anybody’s but mine, Jenn.”

“Caroline, we haven’t ordered any desks or anything like that for this place yet, have we?”