Uneducated 02

Donna put a hand on Bubba's leg.

Bubba also complained about Mony's rule of 'I cooked, you clean' and again Donna put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

Paying a visit to Uni and Mr. George, Mony saw that the dynamics had changed. Before, she and Uni had competed for Mr. George's attention. It had been a friendly competition, but it was a competition.

Now, her seat, which had been the closest to where Mr. George sat at the dinner table, that seat was now Uni's seat.

As they sat and ate, Uni and George touched each other. Soft touches, lingering touches.

And they looked at each other a lot.

On a hunch, Mony snuck a look into what used to be their bedroom. There was no sheet on the bed, no pillow on the bed.

The hall bathroom was empty of any of Uni's cosmetics.

Mony kissed her sister, kissed Mr. George, and left the house.

"Hmm, boy, I'm tired," George gave a mock yawn. "You tired? I'm tired."

"Oh, okay, I guess we should go to bed then," Uni smiled, walking to the bedroom.

Both Uni and Mony sent numerous letters to the address See had given them in her letter but they never did receive any replies.

One day, looking through her purse for a Midol or Pampering tablet, Mony found a business card for Superior Motors.

Men dropped their business cards into the tip jar all the time. Mony did not even bother looking at them, just threw the cards away.

She puzzled over why she would have a business card for cars that were well outside of her price range and flipped it over.

"Oh yeah, that's that blind guy!" she said.

Patrick answered and Mony thrilled that the man remembered her. She found out he was at work, as a switchboard operator at St. Elizabeth's Trauma Center and drove out there.

Mony observed Patrick as he worked and again was struck at how handsome he was, how well-adjusted he seemed. They went to lunch in the hospital's cafeteria. He very politely, but firmly refused her overbearing and quite clumsy attempts of assistance.

Over lunch, he admitted that he did not like the fare at the cafeteria on Fridays. She immediately offered to come get him and bring him to the Dead End for lunch.

Mony forgot about a tradition at the Dead End. Whenever a dancer brought in a boyfriend, husband, or girlfriend to the bar, the other dancers would flirt outrageously with that dancer's significant other.

Blind or not, Patrick was no exception. After witnessing Angela, and her own sister Uni rubbing their breasts all over the smiling Patrick, Mony exploded in jealousy.

"Mine, damn it! He's mine!" she screamed at the giggling Uni and Angela.

"I am?" Patrick smiled at her.

She kissed him hotly.

Two weeks later, Mony happily told Bubba and Donna they were on their own; she was giving TAB Properties thirty days' notice that she intended to vacate the premises. Any sense of duty she may have felt toward her mother had been negated by Bubba's boorish behavior and both adults' slovenly mannerisms and shared lack of ambition.

"It's honest work," she would smirk at her mother whenever Donna would make a disparaging remark about dancing.

Mony was surprised how quickly and easily she was accepted by Patrick's siblings, father and step-mother.

(The step-mother was another shock--the bone thin red head was only twenty one years old, a year younger than Patrick. And Caitlin Delacroix was thirty years younger than her husband, Barry Delacroix.)

Christmas Day, Patrick surprised her with a beautiful set of sapphire earrings. His baby sister, Toni, had helped him pick them out and Patrick pointed out that the sapphires matched her beautiful eyes.

Then, as they were sitting at the dining room table at his father's house, eating and laughing and recounting stories of Christmases past, Patrick got to his feet.

"I can think of only one thing that would make this Christmas perfect; it would make all my future Christmases perfect," he announced, then got down on one knee next to Mony's chair.

Harmony Ann Kohl, marrying you would be the best Christmas gift ever," he said and Mony's eyes rolled back in her head as he held out a beautiful diamond and sapphire ring.

George and Uni were married by Judge Marie Robichaux, on Valentine's Day. Uni also announced that day that she was two months pregnant with George's baby.

At four months pregnant, Uni gave the Dead End Bar her two weeks' notice. She was not even showing yet, but Uni, and George, felt that the cigarette smoke just wasn't good for the fetus.

On the fourth Saturday in June, Bubba sat and stewed as Mony's brother-in-law, George Papil walked Mony down the aisle of St. Thomas Aquinas Church. As he was living with Mony's mother, Bubba felt that this honor should have fallen to him.

At the reception, he said as much to George.

"Look at it this way, Bubba," George smirked. "Know how you always telling people you was almost drafted by the Dallas Cowboys?"

"Yeah, Coach Landry took one look..." Bubba said, warming up to the lie he'd told so many times, he believed it by now.

"Well, now you can tell them you almost walked Mony down the aisle," George said and walked away, laughing.

THE END of the 'Uneducated' series.

(Some of you will recognize Harmony Kohl from the 'Wealth' series--I'd actually started this tale before starting the 'Wealth' series but put it on the back burner.)

**Author's Note: I write these stories for my pleasure; I post them here for your enjoyment. I do thank you for reading my stories.

Disclaimers--which quite often receive more comments than the stories themselves.

Yes, I need an Editor. The moment I become a professional writer, I will get one.

Yes, it's too long.

Yes, there's too many people to keep track of.

Yes, it jumps around too much.

Yes, it's in the wrong category.

Yes, it's stupid shit.

And, yes, I suck.

Also, a note about emails. Quite simply, I do not read them. When I first started on this site, the emails I received were so full of venom and bile I just took to deleting them immediately. Recently Read a few more that I'd received over the Holidays and I see nothing has changed. Venomous filth.

Really? You hate me and hate my stories that much? Give me a '1 STAR' rating and go read something else.

And you have a sticky sweet day.