I first met Charlotte through our mutual parish.
Admittedly I was never much of a religious guy, but when I was married to my wife Monica and my practicing Christian parents would come to visit us, we would take them to our local church under the guise that we regularly went ourselves.
When Monica told me she wanted a divorce out of the blue one day, my life as I knew it was shattered.
You don't realize how much you lean on someone or just grow accustomed to your life with them until they're gone.
I was lonelier and more depressed than I had ever been in my life in the wake of our divorce which was finalized a few weeks after my 38th birthday.
It probably sounds crazy, but I was ready to get married again tomorrow if I could. Single life wasn't for me.
I leaned on my friends as much as I could without wanting to be a nuisance, but it was still taking its toll.
That's when my mother suggested I get more active in "my" church to meet people.
While I dismissed the idea at first, I realized more than anything I desperately needed as much socializing as I could get.
With that in mind, I started going to the weekly service and more importantly threw myself into attending as many outside activities promoted by the parish community as I could.
One of these activities was a casual weekly barbecue that was held at a different parishioner's home every weekend.
Everyone was extremely kind and welcoming of a relative newcomer like myself and sure enough I made some friends after the first weekend.
When my mother suggested that I get more involved in my church, I think she was not so secretly hoping I'd meet a nice Christian girl there and settle down again soon.
I'm not sure Charlotte was who she had in mind.
The first time I saw Charlotte I thought she was attractive, but I also estimated her to be in her late 50's.
It was only the second weekend barbecue I had attended. I was chatting with a few people I had hit it off with in particular the week before when I noticed Charlotte across the yard.
She was average height and weight with stylish wavy bleached blonde hair she parted in the middle which swept across her forehead and came just above her shoulders. It had a lot of body and looked really good on her. She wore a couple of pearl loop earrings which looked like miniature bracelets on each ear and almost matched the color of her hair.
She was wearing a pair of thin stylish see through amber colored sunglasses and didn't look like your stereotypical mother at that age. She had a more youthful energy and style to her.
It was her red wine colored sundress that caught my eye in particular. It had a polka dot pattern and was kept up by two thin spaghetti straps on her lightly tanned shoulders.
It buttoned from the top of the bust down to just above her knees where it split and flared to create a bit of flow when she moved. It was both casual but very feminine at the same time and it looked great on her.
Admittedly it was also her sizable chest which grabbed my attention. The material of the dress was stretched in the bust with the buttons pushed to their limits, revealing a bit of her undergarment beneath in the gaps between them. I estimated her to be a D-cup, though it was difficult to tell given the dress.
She had some kind of cream colored, intricate strappy bra or sports top with an interesting pattern which looked good with the dress, just to keep everything both in place and respectable given her size there.
It was difficult to tell with the dress, but she looked to have a good figure for her age.
She matched the dress with a pair of pale blue sandals and had her toenails painted a bright red.
She had a small pink purse flung over her shoulder and ran across her chest to rest at her opposite side and she wore a decent amount of jewelry.
Aside from the earrings, she was wearing a white bracelet on one wrist, a silver watch on the other, and a small silver ankle bracelet, as well.
Most importantly, I noticed she wasn't wearing a ring.
I don't know what chemistry dictates which type of person or features another person is attracted to, but there was something about this woman that had me quite taken at first sight regardless of the age difference.
I caught myself sneaking a few glimpses of her until she came over to the group of people I was talking to with another woman who I had chatted with quite a bit last weekend.
"Sam, didn't you say you fixed your AC unit yourself recently?" the woman asked me.
I immediately felt guilty because despite our lengthy conversation the week prior, I couldn't remember her name despite the fact that she remembered mine.
"Yeah, the capacitor blew so I replaced it. It was an easy enough fix." I explained.
I liked taking things apart and putting them back together, so that along with a bit of internet research helped me figure out what was wrong. I was just happy to not have to pay out the ass to some service company trying to take advantage of my ignorance and overcharge me.
"Charlotte's unit clicked off a couple of days ago and they can't come out to see it until Tuesday. I was just thinking you might have an idea." the woman explained, gesturing to Charlotte as I learned her name.
"Ah I don't know unless I take a look at it; it could be anything." I pointed out.
"I'm Sam by the way, nice to meet you." I added with a smile and a small wave to Charlotte.
"Charlotte, nice to meet you, too!" she said in an energetic friendly tone, taking her sunglasses off and smiling at me warmly as we shared a light handshake.
"They can't get there until Tuesday though, in this heat?" I asked with concern, knowing the Georgia heat in the summertime was nothing to take lightly.
Charlotte let out a lovely full laugh.
"I know! And the thing is they just came out to work on it the day before it stopped working!" she exclaimed energetically in an equally lovely voice.
Now that she was closer up, I could get a better look at her without having to worry about staring from a distance.
She had an oval shaped face with full rosy cheeks from the considerable amount of blush she was wearing. Her cheeks had a bit of sag and showed her laughter lines, particularly when she flashed her very pretty smile.
Her nose and round chin were a bit larger than average but were framed well and looked cute on her face.
Her brown eyes were deep set and had a dreamy quality to them. Most of her wrinkles were around her eyes but she wore a lot of makeup to soften them.
She also wore a lot of lavender eye shadow and eye liner which made her eyes quite alluring. I don't know what it was, but I found myself especially taken by them.
"So clearly they messed something up. That's crazy that they won't come for that long especially after it sounds like it's their fault." I told her in getting back to the issue at hand, already annoyed on Charlotte's behalf.
"I know. I take a shower and I'm sweaty again an hour later!" Charlotte added with a chuckle.
"Well you'll stay with us tonight but I just thought maybe Sam you could take a look at it at some point if you wouldn't mind?" the woman said, looking at me hopefully at the end.
"Penny that's ridiculous!" Charlotte instantly protested.
PENNY, I thought to myself... that was her name!
"I'll be fine; Tuesday isn't that far off." Charlotte reasoned for my benefit, still embarrassed that Penny had volunteered my services like that.
