Why Did It Have to Be You?

by Allyson Charles

  “You wanted someone with more experience.”

  Allison nodded, her platinum blonde curls bouncing. “Well, with any experience. CCWP needs someone reliable, someone who won’t—” She cut herself off, seemingly realizing that she might have gone too far.

  Connie stared at her plate. The smell of grease rising from her fries turned her stomach. “Someone who won’t show up for court hung over? Who won’t skip out on doing the research because she wants to go out partying instead?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Allison said.

  She didn’t have to say it. Connie understood her meaning just fine.

  The bell above the front door rang, and Allison looked up, frowning.

  Connie glanced over her shoulder, and slumped further in her seat. Her father sauntered to the counter, his progress halted every few steps as he stopped at tables to say hi, slapping friends on the shoulders. Joel Wilkerson was always the life of the party.

  “Hi, sweetie,” he said when he finally reached her. He kissed her cheek, his bristly jaw scraping against her skin.

  “Coffee?” Allison asked.

  Joel nodded, and slid into the empty stool next to Connie. “Thanks, doll. You know just what I need.” He winked at Allison.

  The blonde rolled her eyes. She was the one friend of Connie’s in high school who hadn’t seemed to fall for her father’s BS. Connie liked her the more for it.

  “What are you doing here, Dad?” Connie asked. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “What, your old man can’t go out for lunch?” He stole a fry and popped it in his mouth.

  “Not in Pineville when your job’s over in Clarion Township.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t like that job anyway.”

  She closed her eyes. “You lost another one? How?”

  “The manager of the dealership didn’t like me.” He picked up her other sandwich half. “Wanted to give the job to one of his friends. It’s all politics.”

  Politics, or the fact that her father was an insubordinate jackass. It shouldn’t surprise her. He’d lasted four months at this job. Almost a record.

  “I’ll ask around.” Connie grabbed the rest of her sandwich before her dad got to that, too. “See if I hear of any other job openings.”

  “Yeah, that’s great.” He rubbed his hands on his chinos, leaving little grease stains. “Look, but until then, rent’s going to be a little tight.” He nudged her in the side with his elbow. “With your fancy new job, you can help your old dad out, right?”

  She forced her lungs to expand. Even breaths, in and out. The past few months it had felt like a weight was pressing on her chest, and every day a few more pounds got added. “Dad, things are still tight for me. You know I refinanced my house to pay off my student loans. And my Jeep is in the shop as we speak, getting a new windshield and battery.” Rubbing her temple, she ran through the numbers, her expected bills versus her incoming pay check. “I don’t know how much help I can give.”

  “Sure, sure.” Picking up her unused fork, he tapped it against the counter. “I’ll make do.” He sighed. “I don’t know why you wasted your money on that house. It was a wreck when you bought it. You probably couldn’t sell it for a profit now if you wanted to.”

  She didn’t want to. Connie narrowed her eyes. And it wasn’t that big a dump when she’d bought it. A little run down, but that was to be expected when the previous owner was an elderly woman. And Connie had fixed it up when she could. The yard still looked a bit rough, but the new floors and paint on the inside looked great.

  “I’m not planning on selling my house.” She waved her finger in the air, giving the universal ‘check please’ signal to Allison. “Let me see how big my repair bill is. Maybe I can loan you some money this month.”

  “It’s a damn shame that the two of us are just scraping by. Some people have billions, and look at us.” He opened his arms wide. “It’s not fair.”

  Connie suspected she and her dad were in the positions they deserved. But in a year or two, she’d be doing better. Her father, however, was too old, or too lazy, to learn new tricks. He’d always be stumbling from one job to another. “We’ll be fine.”

  “If only Caleb had married you before he left for the army. Then you’d be sitting pretty, getting those widow’s benefits. Probably a life insurance policy, too.”

  She stilled. Licking her dry lips, she asked, “What?”

  He cocked his head. “With budget cuts, the army doesn’t pay great benefits, but it would have been something. Nope, it was a shame you couldn’t seal the deal with that boy when you had the chance.”

  “I wasn’t interested in Caleb for his money.”

  “‘Course not. When you were with him he didn’t have any.” He snorted. “That boy was worth more dead than alive.”

  “Not to me,” she whispered. Fumbling with the strap to her purse, she stood on shaky legs. She needed to not be around her father right then. She tossed some money on the counter by her plate.

  “You’re not going to finish that?” Her dad shook his head, and picked up what was left of her sandwich. Connie watched him chew, completely oblivious to the fact that he’d just hurt his daughter. At least she hoped he was oblivious. The alternative was that he didn’t care.

  “Bye, Dad.”

  He nodded, and kept eating.

  Connie fled the restaurant, and didn’t slow down until she reached Gas & Stuff. She found the mechanic, Fred, cleaning dust off her new windshield.

  He tucked his red rag into the back pocket of his coveralls. “You’re here just in time. The Jeep’s good as new, running like a dream.”

  “Great. What do I owe you?”

  He rattled off a number that would still allow her to eat three meals a day for the next month. They wouldn’t be great meals, but she’d eat. Thanking the man, she paid, and headed home.

  Rather than driving down Main, she turned off on a side street and made her way on back roads. She’d always loved downtown Pineville, but today she just wanted to get away. Instead of cheering her up, the quaint storefronts and smiling pedestrians reminded her how alone she was. None of that friendliness was aimed her way. Being surrounded by people who didn’t care made her lonelier than if she lived on her own in the middle of the desert.

  Her phone pinged with an incoming text, but she ignored it. The rows of neat clapboard houses gave way to forest, and all too soon Connie’s Jeep was bouncing over the long drive to her house. The road twisted through a break in the pine trees, and the view of her home opened up before her. The paint was faded and chipping, the roof was missing some shingles, and the yard looked wild.

  Turning the ignition off, she crossed her arms over the steering wheel and rested her chin on them. She was seeing the house with her father’s eyes. She knew that, but it still didn’t make her feel any better. Damn him. Her weekends were going to be filled with fix-it projects from here until eternity.

  Her phone chirped a reminder that she hadn’t viewed her text. She pushed out of her door and stalked into her house, her fingers tight around her cell. She didn’t want to look at the message. There was no one to send her a funny text, or invite her to go out later. It had to be work related. She had case files to go over and an appellate court brief to draft for one of the partners, and she didn’t want to do those things, either.

  Instead, she changed into jeans and sneakers and headed to the gardening shed. She pulled out a pair of gloves, some clippers, and the large green bin for plant debris, and wheeled it around her porch to the backyard. The yard had been the previous owner’s favorite spot, especially the formal garden that once had stood at its center. Connie could still see the bones of the design, could tell that it had been landscaped, but it had been left untended for so many years it was more weeds than flowers. The seller hadn’t seemed to notice the overgrowth, and had proudly pointed out every feature she’d added over the years to the garden.

  Connie’s
phone pinged again, and in defeat, she pulled it out from her back pocket to read her messages. Tossing the gloves and clippers on the lid of the bin, she swiped across her phone and angled the screen out of the glare of the sunlight.

  Her heartbeat slowed. It was from Marisol, the woman she’d interviewed with for a position at a Detroit firm. They’d taken a couple weeks to get back to her, and by the time they’d made their offer, she’d accepted the job at Cornell, Weaver & Costas in Pineville.

  She read the text: We still haven’t filled the position. Have you had any second thoughts about moving to Detroit?

  When Connie had applied for the job, moving to Detroit had been a negative. She looked around her yard, at all the work it needed, and thought maybe a fresh start in a new town was more of a positive than she’d realized.

  The second text in the chain made the air whoosh out of her lungs: We’ve reconsidered the package we can offer. Here’s the new salary number.

  The number was a thirty percent raise over her current salary. Connie chewed on her bottom lip. She couldn’t move to Detroit, could she? She’d just started her new job, and it would be wrong to quit so early.

  She reread the texts. A new town. Far enough away where her father wouldn’t constantly be underfoot, dragging her into his problems. Far enough away where no one knew her past sins. She could have a brand new start.

  It was something to consider. Before she could talk herself out of it, she sent back a reply: Thanks for the offer. Let me think about it. A move to the city is sounding more and more appealing.

  Shoving the phone back in her pocket, she turned back to her yard. Even if on the off chance she did decide to move, a tidy yard would only help the sale price. She pushed on toward the derelict garden, the bin bumping over the uneven ground. She maneuvered it through the leaning archway that served as an entrance, and stopped dead. The previous owner’s pride and joy, a life-size fountain replicating the armless statue of the Venus de Milo, stood at the center. And lying at Venus’s feet, one hoof resting on the rim of the huge clay oyster shell that formed the fountain’s base, was that damn goat, its mouth full of the last surviving hibiscus in the garden.

  The animal caught sight of her, and sneezed, half-masticated red blossoms spewing from its mouth. As if losing its meal was her fault, the beast shot to its feet and charged.

  Chapter Four

  Connie stared at the sky, the blue of it so electric it almost burned her eyes. This wasn’t the way her new life was supposed to go. She was supposed to be cleaning up her act, earning back respect. Instead, she was lying in the dirt with a goat chewing on her hair.

  The bastard yanked, jerking her head.

  She sighed. Cranking her neck, she stared at the animal, its fumbling lips only inches from her face. “We need to stop meeting this way.”

  He snorted, dismissive. Just like a man. All arrogant and overbearing one minute and ignoring her the next. And from her angle, Connie could definitely confirm the goat was a dude.

  Grabbing her hair at the roots, she tugged it from the animal’s teeth, and rolled to her hands and knees. “You’ve got some anger management issues. Don’t take your crap out on me.” She had her own crap to deal with. Warily, she rose to her feet, but after his initial surprise attack, the goat seemed harmless enough.

  “Where are you from?” And why was she talking to a goat?

  Turning his back on her, he trotted back to the dry fountain and hopped inside the half-shell. He grabbed a mouthful of hibiscus, clumps of earth still clinging to the roots, and stared at her. As if he were posing for a picture. Her new Venus de Milo.

  Not knowing what to do about her livestock infestation, Connie decided to go to her tried-and-true solution for any problem. Ignore it. Pulling on her work gloves, she started wrestling with long tendrils of ivy. The weed had invaded the low boxwood hedge that framed the garden. Maybe by the time she finished clearing out the backyard, the goat would be gone and she wouldn’t have to decide what to do about him.

  She worked for an hour, her clothes growing damp and sticking to her body. She’d long since filled her green bin, and had started stuffing garbage bags with her spoils. Milo, as she’d come to call him in her mind, had left his perch in the fountain, and had made his own piles.

  Leaning on her rake, she wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. He was actually pretty efficient at clearing her yard. Completely indiscriminate when it came to what went in his mouth. And since Milo had killed the last of the hibiscus and the yard was all weed, he could pull up what he liked. Maybe his yard work was the goat’s way of apologizing to her for his two assaults.

  Propping the rake against her back porch, she grabbed the hose and turned it on. She unrolled it until she reached the fountain and filled the half-shell with an inch or two of water. “You thirsty?” Connie bent her head and drank from the hose. Water dripped off her chin. “Come on,” she said to Milo. “You’ve been working hard. Time to take a break.”

  With ten feet of ivy dragging behind him, Milo headed over to investigate. He sniffed once at the pool, and jumped in, landing on all fours. Water splashed on Connie’s jeans and top, the cold liquid feeling great against her heated skin, and she laughed.

  “Hello? Is anybody home?” a thin voice called out from the side of her house. “It’s Eugenie Shaw, your neighbor. Hello?”

  Connie jogged back to the house and turned off the hose. Squeezing water from her shirt, she grimaced. She must look a far cry from the stylish woman she wanted to be. That she once had been. Connie loved the latest fashions, and prided herself on looking put together. But between a mortgage and remodel expenses, she hadn’t been able to keep up her designer habit. And now she had to face her judgmental neighbor without her customary armor.

  She heard a second voice hiss, “And me. Don’t forget to tell her I’m here, too.”

  “She’ll see that you’re here. No need to announce it.” A huff and the muted squeaks of rubber on rubber grew louder in the still afternoon.

  Connie was finger-combing her hair when her elderly neighbor took the corner, her best friend, Mrs. Garcia, at her side. Almost inseparable, the two women were nicknamed the tree twins, as they’d been responsible for decorating the town’s Christmas tree up until last year. The reasons why they’d been removed from tree-trimming duty sent a shiver down Connie’s spine. She thrust the memories of the chaos the two women had created to the back of her mind.

  Brushing at her slacks, Connie tried to wipe away the worst of the dirt. “Hi, Miss Eugenie. Mrs. Garcia. How are you doing?”

  “Physically, I’m fit as a fiddle,” Miss Eugenie said. “But I’ve come on a different matter.” The older woman was dressed in a baby blue wool suit, a strand of pearls peeking out beneath her Peter Pan collar. She tugged at the cloche hat pinned tightly to her steel-gray curls, as prim and proper as ever.

  Connie scraped at a bit of mud on her sleeve. The woman had her at a definite disadvantage. The black rubber galoshes on Miss Eugenie’s feet were her only nod to practicality. A walking shag carpet in tones of brown and gray lumbered between the two women. The dog snuffled at Connie’s hand, his nose wet.

  Connie gave Shep a quick scratch behind one big, floppy ear. “Oh? What’s that?” The fence between their yards had fallen down years ago, before Connie had bought the house, so that couldn’t be the problem. Since their homes were set far apart, both parties had decided not to replace it. Connie didn’t know what else could concern her neighbor that would involve her.

  “My prized begonias.” Miss Eugenie said that as if it were supposed to mean something to Connie.

  “What about them?” she asked, a polite smile fixed firmly to her face.

  “They’ve disappeared.”

  Mrs. Garcia nodded in agreement, her double chin wobbling. “Into thin air.”

  “Uh…” Connie’s stomach began a slow slide of trepidation.

  Her neighbor peered around her backy
ard, as if expecting her plants to materialize from thin air. The older woman’s eyes narrowed, and Connie whipped her head around, expecting to see Milo brandishing the begonias like an Academy Award winner with his Oscar. The goat was nowhere in sight.

  “I’m glad to see you’re finally getting around to cleaning up your yard. My previous neighbor took such pride in it.” Miss Eugenie sniffed, her disdain palpable.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Connie narrowed her eyes. The property had been rundown when she’d bought it. It wasn’t as though she’d started with a showpiece and let it fall apart.

  Mrs. Garcia stepped next to the house, and flicked a loose chip of paint off the side with her thumbnail. “Kids these days don’t have the same appreciation for standards that you and I do, Genie.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Connie gritted her teeth. And yard work wasn’t high on her list of priorities. Who, besides herself, saw her backyard anyway?

  “Well, that’s not why I came by.” Miss Eugenie straightened her shoulders. “We have a thief I wanted to warn you about.”

  “A begonia thief?” Connie raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, someone took them! I hear landscapers steal plants to use in their projects.” Striding over to where a pair of clippers lay on the dirt, her neighbor bent over and plucked them up. “Either that or a large animal dug them out. They were tied to steel stakes, for goodness sake.”

  Or more likely, a moderately sized animal with a large attitude. Connie casually glanced around, but Milo was still out of sight. Smart goat. She should tell her neighbor that a goat was on the loose. That would solve her Milo problem. Miss Eugenie wasn’t one to let things slide. She’d have animal control out by evening with Milo tranq’ed and trussed up by dinnertime.

  Connie squirmed. Milo had helped her clean up her yard. Did he really deserve that treatment? “I don’t think an animal would want your begonias. Probably it’s the thief thing.”

  Mrs. Garcia lowered her voice. “Or it’s an animal-human hybrid that wanted the flowers to decorate his cave.”