The morning was dragging on a bit. A few customers returned wallpaper books. I was busy putting them away. The store owner, Betty, was off on sales calls. We sold interior decorating things and did custom blinds and other window treatments as well. I would watch the store when Betty was out selling.
When the customer's window treatments were delivered to the store, I would be the one going out to install them. It was easy enough usually. I did the measuring for them too, so as long as they were made correctly, there were not many issues.
I hear the door jingle from the decorative things hanging on it that had small bells. Glancing over, I know who it was.
"Hi Tom." She said.
"Hey Mary Jane. How are you today?" I said.
"Oh fine. Running around getting things done. We finally decided on which wallpaper we want to use in the lower bath and the living room. I have the pages marked. If you could let Betty know when she comes in, that would be great." She said.
"No problem. Just leave them there on the table and I will take care of them and let her know." I said.
Mary Jane was a recent transplant to the area with her husband. She was quite good looking. Shorter loosely curled dirty blonde hair. Always dressed nice. Sweet looking body. Very nice rack. Definitely a suburban milf if there ever was one. I would guess she was about 46 years old.
"Did those blinds for the upstairs master bedroom and bath come in yet?" She asked.
"Mmmm, I don't think so. Let me take a look in back." I said.
I walked in the back room of this ancient building and had a look at various boxes. I found only one with her name. Looking at the label, it was the master bath blind.
Coming back out to the showroom, "It looks like just the bath blind is here so far. The other ones should not be much longer. Did you want to take it with you today?" I asked.
"Oh no, that's okay. You can just bring them all at once when you install them." She said. "Can I have you pencil me in for an installation day?"
"Sure, no problem. If you need to reschedule, just call. What day were you thinking?" I asked, walking behind the front counter to the appointment book.
"Well if you could make it on Thursday next week, say about 10am, that would be great." She said.
I looked at the book, and that time was open. "Okay, looks like I can do that. I will double check with Betty when she gets back today too."
"Great. Thanks a bunch." Mary Jane said. "I have to run. Tell Betty I said hi."
"Will do... Oh wait...do you have the square footage estimate from the wallpaper installer? I asked.
She stopped near the door. "Oh good thing you remembered. I do." She said. "Hang on, I have it on a piece of paper." She put her purse on the counter and dug into it.
"Here it is." She said, pulling out a half sheet that was folded. "He wrote it down here for the bath and then down here are the living room measurements."
I looked at it and said, "Alright, I'll write your name on here and leave it for Betty to have a look at. Then she can get the correct number of rolls ordered."
"Okay. Sounds good. Thanks. I'll see you later." She said smiling.
With that, Mary Jane was out the door.
This town was small farm town America. And women were thrilled to have a decorating store to go into. It was funny, the husbands rarely ever came in. But the wives almost always complained that they had to do decorating things a small bit at a time, so as to avoid sticker shocking the husbands. Some of the women even had separate accounts to handle decorating bills, so the husband wouldn't see what they spent.
I could understand. Blinds and the nicer wallpapers and fabrics were never cheap. Anything custom made for your windows was going to cost some bucks for sure.
Thankfully, Mary Jane and her husband lived in a newer subdivision and not out in the sticks. So she and her husband were much more knowledgeable about what things cost. She didn't have to deal with the grumbling husband syndrome that other wives dealt with.
I had been to Mary Jane's home quite a few times over the past year doing blind installations and dropping things off. Thankfully they had no dogs or young kids running all over. It made getting things done much easier.
It was about fifteen minutes to quitting time. Betty was running late getting back. This was before cell phones that we know. Back then "car phones" were just hitting the market. Clunky, cumbersome things, looking back on them now.
I had a key to lock the front door if Betty was going to be late.
The clock hit five and I went back to shut off the lights and lock up. As I came out front again, Betty was walking in the door with two hands full with wallpaper books.
"Could you grab the rest of these books out of the van for me?" She asked.
"No problem." I said. I went out into the heat of the day and pulled open the side door of the van. Another eight wallpaper books were leaning against the seat. I grabbed them and came back in.
"So how was the store today?" Betty asked.
"We had a few people wander in and look around. Some returned books. Mary Jane came in and asked about her blinds and dropped off the measurements for the wallpaper install. It's on the desk. I put her on the calendar for install, assuming the blinds are not delayed another week." I said.
"Ok. Great. I'll take a look and get that wallpaper ordered for her." Betty said.
"Her wallpaper books with the pages marked are there by the side wall." I said.
"Ok. I'll see you tomorrow then. Thanks." Betty said.
"Alright. See ya." I said, opening the front door.
Off I went into the baking sun again. The car was going to be really hot. Thankfully my/ a/c worked good.
I needed to stop for some groceries but didn't feel like doing it right then. So I just went on home to my bachelor apartment for a while. I was 27 and and had a room mate. Rarely did we bump into each other, because of our schedules.
Walking into my apartment, I flip on the air conditioning and grab some iced tea. I sit down on the couch and flipped through my mail, nothing but the usual marketing crap. I laid down on the couch and stared at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the a/c.
