“You’re a doctor?” she asked enthusiastically.
Mom nodded and said, “Yes, I’m Dr. Natalie Nicholas.”
“Cool, well welcome to Four Points, I’m Annabelle,” she said and shook hands with mom.
Then turning toward me, we shook hands as well and I said, “Dana. Nice to meet you.”
“Good to meet you too, Dana. Where do you guys live?”
“We live out on Old Masonic Road.”
“No kidding, I live out on Old Masonic Road, number 405, what’s your house number?”
Looking at mother I asked, “What’s our number again?”
“403,” she replied.
Annabelle exclaimed, “Oh my God! You’re our new neighbors. How cool! I’m sorry I’ve not been over to introduce myself. I work a lot of the time, here, and go to school too, but I’m out on summer break right now.”
A dark headed man of about forty to forty-five years of age, who was one of those guys that women find handsome, you know, that movie star look, walked up to the table where we were sitting. He stood there as Annabelle continued to talk, and finally after a few moments she recognized that he was present.
“Oh dad, these are our new next-door neighbors, Dr. Nicholas and her daughter Dana.”
“It’s great to meet you, I’m Neil, Neil Austin,” he said as he shook mine and mom’s hand.
“Great to meet you Neil,” mom said.
“Good to meet you too, Dr. Nicholas.”
“Oh please, call me Natalie.”
“Alright Natalie, well, how was your food today?” he asked.
“Pretty good as I was telling your daughter. Is this your place?”
He nodded and said, “Sure is.”
“So,” mom asked, “Who is Peggy?”
At this point I could tell that mom was fancying him by asking that question, as she was trying to figure out if he was married. Plus, I could also tell by the way she was looking at the guy that she liked him, which I was glad to see after all these years. She has spent so much time alone since dad’s passing. Another thing I could tell from the amount of attention he was paying to her was that he was also digging on her a little bit as well.
“Peggy was my mother, who passed away a number of years ago. I grew up in this place and once I got out of the military I decided to come back here and work in the family business, and now I run the place.”
“Oh okay, I wasn’t sure if it was your wife’s name or what?” mom replied.
“No, it’s not, I’m not married,” he said.
“Oh, okay.”
“So, if you ladies every need anything just come on over and knock. If we’re home, we’ll answer, if not, we’re here.”
“That’s very nice of you Neil, thank you.”
“Hey that’s what neighbors are for. And by the way, if your husband it interested some of us guys play cards about once a week, and he’s welcome to join us if he’s interested.”
At this point I could see that he was interested in mom and was trying to see if there was a man in the picture.
“I’m not married,” mom volunteered.
“Oh, well, you ladies come on over anytime, and once again it was good meeting you,” and he turned and walked away.
Annabelle asked me, “So you’re totally new to the area?”
I nodded.
“If you’d like, we could get together sometime and I could show you around, maybe we could even hang out or do something.”
“Thanks, that would be great, and I’m also trying to figure out where the best place would be to attend school here so maybe you could help me with that too?”
“I would be glad to,” she said. “Just stop by the hostess stand on the way out and I’ll give you my number and you can text me.
“Great,” I said, “I’d love that.”
“Well, I’d better get back to work before I get in trouble with the boss. See you up front,” she said as she walked away, and once again, I checked out her out as she shook her booty as she returned to the front of the restaurant.
Feeling a pair of eyes upon me, I stopped staring at Annabelle’s derriere and looked over at mom where she was sitting there staring at me. Throwing my open hands up in the air I asked, “What?”
Chapter 7
After finishing up our business in the café I walked mom to her car and told her I would see her at the house later that evening and I would be taking a Suber home as planned.
Before ordering a car to take me home I got a brainstorm and decided that I was going to start the process of trying to find out how I’d gotten changed into a girl and attempt to determine if there was a potential solution. Finding out more about the former owners seemed like the best place to start so I headed to the county courthouse, which was just across the town square from the restaurant where we had dined.
Walking into the building the first thing I did was look at the building directory, and I quickly found a listing indicating where the real estate records section was and headed in that direction. Entering the office, I didn’t see anyone on duty but walked up to the counter and saw a note on the counter which said, Be Right Back, so I took a seat and waited patiently. It had been about fifteen minutes and I was growing impatient. I had played with my smartphone all that I wanted and was hoping for some customer service.
Just as I stood up, planning to go down the hall to a neighboring office and raise hell, the door opened and a young man in his early twenties, right about my age entered the office. About 5’11 with medium brown hair and eyes he had a slight muscular build and was nice looking for a man, despite the fact that I did not swing that direction or had not historically anyway.
Smiling at me he said, “I am so sorry, I hope you’ve not been waiting long,” he
