Once Upon a Misty Bluegrass Hill (23 page)

Natasha pulled Helen toward the door. 
"
Right.
  Well then, maybe we should go and let you two say goodbye.
"

Jolene held
Patrick
'
s gaze
through
his silent warning. 
"
No need to leave.  We are saying goodbye right now.
"

Patrick
'
s jaw worked under his annoyance
. 
"
I know you are mad at me
Jolene
, but someday soon yer going t
o
see this was good for
yer
.
"

Natasha shook her head. 
"
That is exactly what my father said.
"

Jolene dropped
her
purse
off
of her shoulder
to meet the floor with a sad thud
.  She was ready to cry
but
she sure wasn
'
t going to slobber all over
Patrick
…the jerk! 
"
Patrick
, if
you want
to help me right now
you would leave.
"

He stepped closer, sadness turning his eyes dark purple. 
"
Not until at least I get a hug from yer, cause I
'
ll not be seeing you till the next holiday.
"

He held out his arms and Jolene sobbed, then rushed into his arms crying in earnest. 
"
How can you do this to me
Patrick
?
I don
'
t need no school!  I should have told you that I didn
'
t want to go to college no more,
I want to stay on the f
arm with you….
"
She hiccupped. 
"
And Bernie and Stooorm!
"
 

Patrick
squeezed her tight and patted her shoulder under his hand. 
"
Red
, you need an education
.  R
emember all that study you did
in high school
to make such good grades
?
 
Yer told me you wanted to be a horse vet.  Your grades and test scores are
how we got yer accepted here and it is a good prep for veterinary school or have you forgotten all
about
that?  You
not
going
to
give it all up are yer?
"

She sobbed harder. 
"
It is different now
Patrick
, everything is different because of Big Storm winning.
"

Helen
gasped
. 
"
Hey, wait a minute!  
I knew I had seen you someplace! 
Natasha this is the girl that won the Kentucky Derby on that big gray horse, Big Storm!
"

"
I think you are right.
"

Patrick
gently
but firmly
set her back from him
.  T
ears still gushed down her cheeks. 
"
Now s
ee there Jolene, you are famous and you already have friends.  You
'
ll be so popular at the Vance School that you will not have time to think about home.
"

Jolene rubbed the tears away with the back of her hand, embarrassed and angry all at once.  How could she have broken down like that? 

In front of strangers…and
Patrick
. 

Patrick
was smilin
g at her, but she could see worry in his
morning-
glory eyes. 

"
Go away
Patrick
.  I don
'
t need you here now.  Get on out if you are going to leave me here.  I gotta unpack and study some things in the new book they gave me.
"

She turned away from him and unzipped her case.

The room was silent for several seconds.  Natasha and Helen shuffled around near their beds, fiddling with their things. 

"
All right then.  Goodbye and you work hard in school.  I
'
ll be calling you at least once a week.
"

"
Don
'
t bother to call.
I won
'
t be answering any call.
  I
'
ll be too busy here.
"

Patrick
sighed. 
"
Whether you come to the phone or not is up to yer.  But I
'
ll be calling
Red
.
"
 

She heard him go to the door. 

"
Don
'
t ever call me that again.
  My name ain
'
t
Little
Red
.
"

Chapter
13

Since its recognition as a distinctive region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th-century writers focused on sensationalistic aspects of the region's culture, such as moonshining and clan feuding, and often portrayed the region's inhabitants as uneducated and prone to impulsive acts of violence. Sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes, although popular media continue to perpetuate the image of Appalachia as a culturally backward
region into the 21st century.

While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long been associated with and struggled with poverty. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought wage-paying jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by the 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits from these two industries. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government sought to alleviate poverty in the Appalachian region with a series of New Deal initiatives, such as the construction of dams to provide cheap electricity and the implementation of better farming practices. In 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission was created to further alleviate poverty in the region, mainly by diversifying the region's economy and helping to provide better health care and educational opportunities to the region's inhabitants. By 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream, but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators.
-
Wikipedia
- July 23, 2012.

"
You know he is super-hot right?
"
  Helen
was
sitting cross legged on Jolene
'
s bed watching her unpack
,
smiling large behind her hot pink rimmed glasses
.
Apparently
Patrick
's presence made a hot pink inspiration for Helen because as soon as he left she pulled out a drawer filled with glasses of numerous colors and styles and donned the sexy pair of eye aids.  "I wish I had these on when "hot stuff" was here!"

Jolene would have laughed if she wasn't so mad at
Patrick
.  "He is hot alright
.
I wish he was burning in hell!"

Helen laughed and adjusted her glasses. 
Helen
'
s
father
was
the owner and CEO of Brooder
'
s Farm Equipment, the largest in the United States
.

"
He was quite handsome,
especially tall for an Irishman,
"
Natasha said, as
she
lay across her bed flipping through a
La-La-C
hic
M
agazine
. 
"
Not that I have a care because I have Neil waiting for me to finish this bloody school so we can get married.
"

Jolene tucked the last of her underwear in the drawer of her assigned dresser. 
Helen leaned over to look in the drawer. 
"
We need to get you some prettier underwear.
"

Jolene
slammed
the drawer filled with white cotton panties
closed
. 
"
He ain
'
t the least bit handsome and he is a big pain in my ass.
"

Natasha looked up sharply. 
"
Oh my.
"

Helen sputtered then giggled. 
"
Who is he
anyway
?  He isn
'
t your father, couldn
'
t be.
  Uncle maybe?  Brother?
"

Jolene plopped down on the large metal chest/storage locker at the foot of her bed where she had
placed
her shoes moments before.  Not that she brought a whole lot of shoes, just a few athletic shoes and of course her more fancy boots
that
Patrick
had given her
.
 
"
We are not related.  It is
just
too
complicated
to explain
.
"
 

Natasha set the magazine aside
and eyed Jolene closely
. 
"
Oh, so that is the way of it.
  No wonder the sparks were flying.
"
 

Jolene
laughed bitterly and
pushed her ponytail off of her shoulder. 
"
There is no
'
way of it
'
, if you mean he is
my boyfriend.  I live with him
but not like that kind of way.  He took me in because my Aunt Paula was awful and he had bought my parents
'
farm…oh I don
'
t want to talk about it…
or him.
"

Helen leaned toward her with narrowed
eyes. 
"
But you got a crush on him, a big crush, come on admit it, plain for anyone to see anyway.
  I have a crush on an older guy too.  He goes to Ron Paul rallies…that is how I met him…oh…he is so wonderful…we stay in touch through
Friendface
so my dad doesn
'
t know.
"

Jolene jumped
off of
the trunk locker. 
"
No, I ain
'
t got no crush on him! I don
'
t love
Patrick
McCabe
.
I
hate him.
"

For reasons Jolene could not fathom, giant aching sobs
e
merged from deep inside her heart.

Helen jumped from the bed and came to
wrap her arm around
Jolene.  Natasha joined her a few seconds later with a gentle patting of Jolene
'
s back. 
"
Now
you poor dear
, there
is no point in denying it to us
or yourself.  There was fire in this room when you two were here together.
 
But don
'
t worry, y
ou are not the first girl to fall in love and have it completely ignored.
"

"
Yah, you should have seen me with Daniel the first time we met at the bi
g
Ron Paul rally in Cincinnati.  It was like rubbing two
pieces of flint together
.
  He would hardly give me the time of day and I thought he was the sexiest guy I had ever seen.
"

Jolene smiled through watery eyes. 
"
I guess I never really looked at it like that.  I look at him and he makes me feel all funny inside and my legs feel like jello.  Then sometimes he makes me so mad
'
cause he tries to tell me what to do all the time.  Like after the Derby when he didn
'
t let me ride Storm in the next two races….
now I am just so mad at him.
"
  She let out a quivering sigh. 
"
Then he made me come here!
"