Saving Eden. An Ecology Romance featuring Ward Thomas.

“I’ll be taking a big ass beer Eden, because I’m a looking for some hot girl fun tonight.” She quipped in her Harlan county twang, concentrating hard into a cosmetic mirror and glossing her gills with fire-engine red lipstick and swishing her long black locks out of the way.

“Hey, have you cut your hair short to look like me Page?”

“Your hair’s long Amelia... whatever do you mean?”  She sniffed, completely puzzled but still looking at Eden.

“If I gave your ass a motorcycle, you’d look straight outta dykes on bikes," she grinned.

Page blatantly ignored Amelia’s sarcasm and continued to look at her younger sister secretly jealous of her slim figure and natural way. “You can save your marriage Eden, it’s not as if he’s slept with every woman in Kentucky.... and I don’t want fighting-talk whiskey, and you shouldn’t either. You know it boils your blood, and you’re a roomful of angry as it is. Get me a Merlot or Pinot Grigio, if they got such a thing, in this second-rate dive,” she stuffily replied looking down her nose on the room decor and its working-class folk, as if she was somewhat higher class.

“Oh... a Merlot or a Grigio.... oh, how simply divine darling? Pah!  I shoulda guessed, how darn typical... you two-buck wine snob. You got champagne tastes on lemonade money,” she implied shaking her head. “You got your nose so high in the air, you’d drown in a rainstorm,” Eden replied in a high-faluted mocking tone, pretentiously throwing her head into the air to mimic her older sister. She flicked her hand through her long curly red locks and grabbed the barman’s attention fully. “Hi honey, do me a double whiskey and water, a white, smarty-pants wine, whatever you lay your hands on,” she whispered. “And a cold beer sir.  But make mine a nice sweet double malt with ice, I wanna treat me really bad, and that’s allowed since I ain’t been out for over ten God-damn months,” she confirmed loudly for her sister’s benefit, charging him into action.

“Hey, angry heads, stop being so damn nasty!  We’re supposed to be having a good time tonight,” Amelia claimed, puckering her lips and finishing off her lipstick duties.

“Halleluiah to that Em, I guess at least somebody’s listening to me for once,” she agreed to her friend and glaring at her sister again. “Shoot!  You just don’t have a clue Page, I just don’t get you’re stupid thinking sometimes.  Now you just go ahead and stop for a second and listen to your crap.  You’re my older kin, and I’m supposed to look up to you and follow your lead.  Learn by your example and you gotta look out for me... steer me from the bad stuff, you get it...?”  She paused. “I thought we was tight... I thought we was so much closer.  You ain’t never got my back and hell, I told you so many times he’s hit me.  You were my first port of call... my one confidant.  If I’d told Mom or Pop ‘bout all of Kyle’s crap, he’d of had him hung, drawn and castrated.

“I think you should have told them way back Eden,” Amelia chipped in.

“Mom’d just kill him straight out. You’re taking his side yet again, just like you always have Marks.  Kyle’s a whoring liar and hell, if he can hit a woman, he ain’t even a man, and that goes for Mark too,” she fumed.

“I’m not taking sides Eden, all I’m saying is ask yourself do you still love him and is it worth another chance.  And as for watching out for you, you’re a grown woman not a little girl no more,” she maintained in her fake refined tone, fiddling incessantly in her bag as the barman placed the drinks in front of them.

“Right, that’s it... time ladies, enough already!” Amelia interrupted. “You’d better stop this damn bitching and bickering and start getting your cracked heads together before I get back,” she derided. “Cos I ain’t sitting here, bored outta ma tree all the night long, listening to you two a-holes, some ways tearing strips from each other. Now you just listen to me real-good,” she rasped anxiously standing up and wiggling her voluptuous chest and frowning like an angry dog left in a car. “I’m going for a cigarette and to powder my bits... and there ain’t no law about that either Page Buckley... I mean all my bits, cos I’m looking for getting some lady-eeeeee action tonight, and no amount of your BS fighting is gonna stop me,” she crowed, openly pulling down on her tight top and re-positioning her ridden black pencil skirt back into place as Eden watched openly smiling.

“I’m glad you pulled them things down honey, we could see clear through to the promised land and your religion,” she teased.

“Oh, shut up Eden... don’t make me self-conscious... I know my clothes are too small. Fact is, I’m just getting a far too fat ass for my own liking,” she conceded, yanking hard at her red blouse that was leaving nothing to the imagination then frantically shaking her shoulders making her huge gold earrings smack against her cheeks.  “I’m too damn chubby. Now you listen to auntie Em, baby doll,” she whispered flicking her long black hair over her shoulders and leaning forward on Eden’s arm.  “You know I wasn’t Kyle’s biggest fan when you gotten hitched honey. That isn’t that I’m advocating him or his ways, or any other God damn SOB man’s either,” she said pointing her index finger at Eden. “Cos as far as this pretty lady is concerned, all of their asses are a whole space of waste. I can get a full engine service and my suds bubbled just fine without their kind,” she brassily retorted to Eden’s laughter. “Oh, and as for you Page, I’m disappointed with your crabby hashing,” she claimed loudly crossing her arms and leaning backwards as a few of the patrons tried to secretly zero-in on her words. “You stick with your sister’s heart and her decision, whatever it may be. That’s a given girl,” she encouraged, slamming her stiletto heel hard against the wooden floor. “Are you hearing me...? That’s just what you’re supposed to do... so you just go right on down and do it girl.  You’re both unbelievable,” she proclaimed. “It’s actually incredible!” She clamped her hands tightly on her hips and swayed back on her heels. “He’s got you both at each other’s throats and he isn’t even here? He’d be lovin’ every spoonful of this badness if he knew, that’s for sure,” she lectured, standing head and shoulders tall and shaking her head. She looked around, clenched her jaw then leaned forward to get close between their ears, then put a hand on each of them making her big backside stick out to greet the quiet, amalgamated, and whispering heads. “Now when I get back, I want this arguing crap put to bed or I’m gone. As for you baby doll... stop actin’ all hissy fit with a tail end on,” she motioned to silent Eden. Page and her sister continued to look daggers at each other but sat deathly silent, as they watched Amelia animatedly walk away. Obstreperously flaunting all her wares for all and sundry. The barman disappeared and the sisters automatically cogged up another gear.

“We’ll that’s what it feels like to me Page, you’re all for him and dead against me,” she raged.  “And as for do I LOVE him? I HATE him!  He is not the same man any more. He’s not the good man I married. Maybe he was never good to start with,” she explained pulling her long red hair into place. “Perhaps it was all part of the big show he put on for everyone’s benefit. Maybe he’s always been bad inside,” she theorized. “All I know is, he changed for the worse. He’s a twisted chameleon and a leopard that’ll never change its spots,” she surmised sipping on her whiskey as the barman walked past again. “He’s a hurtful son of a bitch that dines with the Devil. Do you know he’s put a claim on the house? Our house,” she badgered waiting for a reaction from her sister as Pages eyes widened. She unfolded her arms, then pulling her white blouse down over her burgeoning stomach as her eyes rolled at the startling news.