Watermelon Summer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2013 by Anna Hess.

 

 

All rights reserved.

 

 

Line break artwork is used courtesy of http://www.WebDesignHot.com.

 

 

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and
retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.   The
only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a
review.

 

 

Visit my blog at www.waldeneffect.org or read more about my books at
www.wetknee.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    If I'd known I was going to fall in love that day
for the first time in my life, I would have taken the attendant
trials and tribulations in stride. But I didn't know, so I spent far
too many minutes considering whether my parents would buy me a
ticket back home to Seattle if I called up and begged.  The
remainder of my stay in the West Virginia airport was devoted to figuring
out how to get to Kentucky, which meant trying to break through the
Appalachian language barrier.

 

    You'd think that, since I mastered Spanish in
high school and picked up a smattering of French from Canadian
visitors, I would have had travel within the U.S. covered.  You
also would have been wrong.  Stopping by the information desk
at the airport felt like a Peanuts cartoon—you know, one
of those scenes where the teacher is talking and all you hear is "wa
wa wa, wa wa, wa wa."  The ancient attendant's excessive
head-shaking seemed ominous, though, so I decided to try my luck
elsewhere.

 

    I didn't remember my new smartphone (and the
airport's free wireless) until the nice lady at McDonald's laughed at
me for suggesting bus or train service to the Pikeville area. 
She, at least, seemed to speak English, albeit with a mountain
twang—perhaps the problem at the information desk had merely been the
old guy's lack of teeth?—and she was quite ready to give me
driving directions to Kentucky.  Until, that is, I mentioned my
lack of wheels.  Then the lady started to look concerned and to
call me "sugar," so I made up some excuse about having family who
could come and pick me up after all, then retreated to a waiting
area to figure out Plan B.

 

    Now, before you take my parents to task for
stranding me in no-bus-service West Virginia, let me speak in their
defense.  Actually, I probably should back up about a week and
explain what a suburban girl like me was doing stranded in an
Appalachian airport.  It all started before I was born, when my
mother hopped in a VW bus with some friends and drove south from her
Massachusetts home to join a commune.

 

    "It wasn't a commune," Mom said, correcting my
wording just like every other time I'd ask her about Greensun. 
"And I wasn't a hippie."

 

    "Sure you weren't, Mom," I'd either say or think,
depending on how nice I was feeling at the moment.

 

    "It was an intentional community," Mom reiterated
a week before I ended up stranded in West Virginia.  The flier
that had restarted this conversation hit the trash can as Mom
continued her historical whitewashing.  "You can call it a
community land trust if you want, but
not
a commune."

 

    I wasn't buying it, but I knew what Mom was
trying to say with her adamant denial of hippiedom—she hadn't
smoked pot (supposedly) and I'd darn well better not either. 
That message was coming through loud and clear, so I decided to
humor my  mother on the semantics issue.  "Sure,
Mom.  You spent a solid year living in an intentional
community.  Got it."

 

    I'd been begging to visit the Greensun community
since I could pronounce words of four syllables, but Mom never saw
any reason to fly across the country to grant my wish.  Never
mind that my biological father still lived there (I thought) and
that I've never met him.

 

    (Oh, yeah—I'm a love child.  Still not a
hippie, Mom?)

 

    "You think you want to go there now, but you
really don't," Mom replied.  (I decided to let it slide that my
mother seemed to think she knew my wishes better than I did, so I
stayed silent.)  "When I left, there were plastic doll heads on
all the fence posts.  Your father said they scared away
deer, but they mostly just scared away people.  Very
creepy."

 

    "So, I'll wear my doll-fighting gear," I
said.  "No problem.  I'll even bring a wooden stake if
it'll make you feel better."

 

    Mom smiled despite herself.  "Forsythia—"  (Naming your child after a flower—another sign of
being a hippie.  Just saying.)  "—Do you really want to
spend your Europe money visiting an abandoned commune?"

 

    At this point, I couldn't hold my tongue any
longer, so I crowed: "Ha!  You admit it's a commune, which
means you're a hippie!"

 

    Mom plowed right past that remark and continued
trying to talk me out of my plan.  But even though I yes'ed
and no'ed appropriately, I was already at Greensun in my mind.

 

    A summer spent among aging hippies might not
sound like fun to most going-on-eighteen-year-olds, but the truth is
that this felt like a do-or-die situation.  Greensun had sent
out a call to all of its past members (thus the flier) asking for a
commitment of time and money if we wanted the community to
continue.  And as much as I had to agree with Mom that sleeping
in an old farmhouse with holes in the wall large enough to see
through wasn't so appealing, the alternative was that if the community
shut down, I'd never
know what I was missing.

 

    And I might never meet my bio-dad.

 

    Which is all a long way of explaining how I ended
up in southern West Virginia, which apparently had the closest
airport to Pikeville, Kentucky, which was relatively close to
Greensun.  (You know you're going to the boondocks when
specifying locations involves lots of "It's near"s rather than an
actual town's name.)  Mom had given me the phone number of a
neighbor who could come pick me up, and she'd even offered
to book a room at a nearby hotel so that one of the previous
Greensun inhabitants could drive me down when he or she arrived. 
But
I wanted to get there early to see the place all by myself, and
I also wanted to travel on my own.  After all, if my
trip had turned out to be a tour of Europe instead of Appalachia,
I'd have been figuring out transportation as I went along, and I
didn't want to miss out on that experience.

 

    On the other hand, now that I was in West
Virginia (aka the land of no public transportation), I was starting
to suspect that I really couldn't get there from here.  While
researching options for where to go on my post-high-school and
pre-college trip, I'd initially chosen Europe (before throwing that
voyage away for what was currently seeming like a very bad idea)
since its extensive rail system made it easy to get around for
those of us too young to rent a car.  Why couldn't Greensun be
located on an Amtrak line?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The smartphone Mom had given me (along with
strict instructions to call her as soon as I got to Greensun)
provided the depressing information that there really were no
trains, buses, or even taxis running between Huntington and
Pikeville.  I was seriously considering throwing away my pride
and calling Mom's old neighbor when a voice disturbed my brown
study.

 

    "Excuse me."  The words came from a guy
about my age, who didn't seem to understand that
person-you-don't-know-frantically-pushing-buttons-on-a-phone is
American for "Do not disturb."  The interrupter of my solitary
frustration was easy on the eyes, and if he'd been the kid next
door, I probably would have been thrilled to be spoken to.  But
since I was in an airport all by myself, I couldn't help thinking
that the guy was probably a rapist or a serial killer.  So I
merely frowned at him and went back to my agitated button-pushing.

 

    But the stranger was undeterred by my lack of eye
contact.  "I couldn't help overhearing that you're having
trouble getting to Kentucky, and I think I have a solution," he told
me.

 

    "Hmmm?" I replied noncommittally, unwilling to be
totally rude by ignoring him but hoping my tone would send him away.

 

    "I'm Jacob," the stranger said, thrusting out a hand, which
I reflexively shook.  "And you're in luck because I'm the sole
owner and driver of the Mountaintop Taxi Company.  I just came
up here from Pikeville to drop someone off, and I'll give you a 50%
discount so I don't have to ride back empty."

 

    (I know what you're thinking.  I start off
by telling you this is the day I fall in love, and now here's a cute
guy standing in front of me.  Not only is he no serial killer,
he's also the love of my life, so I should definitely accept the
ride.  Come on.  Could you be a bit less conventional and
pay more attention to the dangers of my situation?  And, for
the record, I didn't fall in love with Jacob...at least not that
day.)

 

    On the other hand, dangers aside, my options
appeared to be severely limited.  "Hmmm," I repeated, trying to
decide whether accepting a ride from this guy was as bad as
hitchhiking, and whether I could walk ninety-odd miles before my
shoes wore out.

 

    "Okay, I know it probably seems a bit dicey to
accept a ride from a stranger," Jacob said, unfazed by my
monosyllabic replies.  "But if it'll make you feel better, I
have character references.  Wanna call my mamaw?"

 

    "Your what?" I was startled enough to
reply.  And before I could glue my eyes back onto my
smartphone screen and make another go-away hum, the stranger had
speed-dialed his mamaw (which seemed to be a sort of grandmother) and put her on speaker phone.