It was a warm, breezy, sunny afternoon. I was working in the shop fixing a small farm tractor and I had a couple other projects on the go for other people as well. One of my customers came in with his wife and her sister to pick up a weed eater he left for me to fix.
"Hey Brian, got my weed eater fixed?" Dale enquired.
"Yep, it's over here" I walked over grabbed the weed eater put it in his truck and he paid me.
"Good Man, hey I want you meet my sister-in-law Denise."
Denise was about 5'2 maybe 130lbs. She wore her shoulder length brown hair tied at the back with her sunglasses on the top of her head. She had on blue jeans, a white tank top, a small necklace, a light greyish sweater with the sleeves pulled up and small gold watch. I would guess she was about 45 years old.
"Hi Denise, I supposed Dale filled you in on all the bad things already?" I joked.
"Well, a little bit, I think he left out a lot though." She giggled.
The three of us talked for a bit and I was drawn towards Denise's easy going, level-headed nature. For most of the conversation it seemed it was Denise and I doing most of the talking.
"Well Ladies, we better get going I have work to do now." Dale announces with a wink.
Denise asked me if it would be ok if she could hang out here for awhile. I told her yeah, I'd drive her home after. Denise talked to her sister and she nodded her head "ok'. Her sister smiled waved back at me as she got into Dale's truck.
After they left, I went back to work on the old McCormick. The tractor was 75 years old and not much wrong with it. It needed a little TLC more than anything. Denise came over asking questions about the tractor and some of other things in the building. I answered her and asked her questions as well.
"So, you married with a dozen kids?" I kidded.
"No, I'm widowed, my husband died 6 years ago from cancer. We never had kids; I didn't want kids. He did though."
"Oh, I'm sorry about your husband are you Okay?"
"Hmm...yeah, I'm ok." Denise looking a bit glum, runs her finger along the edge of the work bench. "So, Brian what are you doing now?" she mused.
"Well, I'm taking the parts off to clean them and then I'll put them back on again."
"How do you clean them?"
"I have a degreaser I pour into an old stove pot and clean them by hand."
"Could I do that?"
"Sure, if you'd like to. It would help a lot."
I went and poured some degreaser in the pot and got her a pair of blue disposable rubber gloves and an old paint brush I use. I put a sheet of plywood over a couple sawhorses. I told her to take the parts I placed on the bench, clean them and dry them off. Then lay them down on the plywood.
Denise took her sweater off, started cleaning parts and we talked about movies, astronomy which surprised me that she's really into and a bunch of other things.
"What do you do for a living Denise?"
"I worked in a small diner until they shut down permanently. I'm using my unemployment insurance right now. I've got awhile yet."
One of my customers drove in.
"Hey Jack, how's it going? I have your mower all finished. Give me a few minutes and I'll get it," I said.
"Brian, I can get if you tell me which one it is?" Denise volunteered.