Dirty Neighbor

by Vivian Connelly

I turned to see her standing there in the doorway. She was a blond nightmare with hate raging in her eyes. And I heard my Aunt Millie gasp as Carla Jean stepped towards the head of the table.

  “Carla Jean, for heaven’s sake! What in the devil are you doing here.”

  Jonathon’s father. His wine glass was back on the table, right next to the gold pen that had just been in my father’s hand two seconds earlier.

  “They’re playing you all for fools, can’t you see that? They aren’t in love. They aren’t planning to get married. They only met four and a half weeks ago right here on the barroom floor. They’re just doing this to get you to settle this land thingy.”

  The room was suddenly quiet. There were no more sounds of silverware. People were looking in from the barroom floor. Even the baby had fallen silent.

  “How do you know all this, Carla Jean?” Jonathon’s father asked.

  “I saw it on Facebook!”

  Fucking Facebook…

  I looked at Jonathon and watched his friend Bobby drop his head in shame. I turned back to look at Carla Jean. She had closed the distance and was standing right in front of us. She was speaking directly to Jonathon’s father, her only ally in the room. But it was my father who spoke first.

  “I knew it. I knew there had to be something going on. No way in hell would my daughter get involved with a McCallister in her right frame of mind, goddammit!”

  And then the shit officially hit the fan.

  Carla Jean folded her arms across her chest and cocked her hips like she had just gotten exactly what she had come there to get. Jonathon’s father stood and hurled an insult back at my father that had something to do with him screwing a steer. Deputy Ratcliff was already standing and had his hand inside his jacket, and I knew I was seconds away from seeing things get ugly in a hurry.

  I turned to look at Jonathon who was returning my look, shell-shocked. His grandmother was next to him shouting something and Cynthia was giving Bobby the third degree. Somewhere in the kitchen I heard a glass breaking. And in the midst of that shitstorm, with a thousand things going through my head, there was one question that stood out above all the rest.

  What was a guy like that ever doing with a girl like Carla Jean?

  I felt the table move behind me and saw that my father was stepping closer to Mr. McAllister. Deputy Ratliff had a taser in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other. He was seconds away from earning his hundred dollars the hard way.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Just stop!”

  My voice bounced off the four walls of the little banquet room louder than I had intended, and I realized I had a lot more in common with my father than I had ever given him credit for. And right now he was staring at me, waiting for what I had to say.

  “She’s right. Jonathon and I only met four weeks and a half weeks ago. But that’s all she’s right about. I do love him.”

  The room was silent. No one moved and my father’s jaw was still tense.

  “And we have to get married now. Because I’m pregnant.”

  The words came off my lips and things started to move in slow motion. I saw Aunt Millie’s eyes flutter as her body started to sink and the quicker of the two twins kept her from hitting the floor. I saw there were five strange faces, peering through the window that led out to the bar. Carla Jean stamped her foot and huffed one of her blond bangs over her head like a spoiled little girl.

  Everything kept moving in slow motion. Except for my fist. My right fist was clenched with four weeks of bottled up rage and jealousy. Carla Jean looked beautiful, I had to admit that. Blonde hair and makeup that must have taken an hour to put on. The last lucid thought I had was I didn’t want to mess up that pretty face of her so the punch came in low.

  And hard.

  I felt the satisfying crush of fist on stomach as I knocked the wind out of the Clark County prom queen. It happened so fast I couldn’t have pulled the punch if I tried, and even Deputy Ratcliff’s face showed an unfamiliar surprise. The room got quiet again as I stepped back and I watched the rose of Clark County wilt to her knees.

  I felt every eye in the room on me, and half the eyes from the barroom outside. It was a fight or flight moment, and I did what my primal instincts told me to do.

  I turned towards the door and I ran.

  Chapter 18

  Jonathon

  I made out into the parking just in time to see the stones kicking up from the tires of her Jetta as she pulled out onto Route 1. I had a restaurant full of relatives watching me from the windows of Huddy’s and my bride-to-be was on the run. But I had a feeling I knew where she was going. I thought I knew exactly where she would be.

  So I got in my car and drove to Potter’s Lake.

  I got to our spot at the lake and I could see the glow of her tail lights by the water. I pulled up alongside the car I could see her sitting on her hood. The glow of the moon on her dress only added to the dramatic effect. She had played this thing perfectly. She was like the Meryl Streep of Madison County.

  I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough to discuss our next move.

  “I’m sorry about Carla Jean, Liv. But Jesus, you saved the day again. My dad’s completely freaked out back there. Both our fathers are. The pregnancy thing might have been a little over the top, but you can probably get them both to sign that fucking Legalbanana document now.”

  “Jonathon…”

  “It’s got to be fast though. Court date is Tuesday. That doesn’t leave us a lot of time. God knows it can’t go much longer than that. I don’t know how the hell you fake a pregnancy beyond the first trimester.”

  “Jonathon…”

  “But we can worry about that after we get them to sign off. That’s something we can deal with once I’m back in Chicago and you’re in New York. I don’t know if I can do another big, dramatic story about the baby, though. This one is really going to require some thought.”

  “Jonathon!”

  I had paced a trail in front of her Jetta without realizing it when she blurted out her words.

  “I’m pregnant! Like, pregnant pregnant. I was hoping I was just late but I tested positive this afternoon.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, I was telling the truth in the restaurant, you idiot. I’m pregnant!”

  I felt like she just punched me in the stomach.

  “How the hell did that happen, Olivia? You kept telling me you’re on the pill?”

  “I think it’s that fucking basil root tea of your grandmother’s, Jonathon. I googled it. That shit is notorious for screwing with birth control.”

  “Huh. I guess that explains why I have like twelve aunts and uncles…”

  “Oh God…”

  She had her head in her hands for a second before sweeping her hair off her face. The moonlight reflected off the tear that was trailing down her cheek. That was another new look for her, but it didn’t work nearly as well as the dress did.

  “So Olivia, you were telling the truth back there. At Huddy’s.”

  “I already told you that. Yes, yes I’m pregnant.”

  “Not that. You said you were in love with me. You said we just met four and a half weeks ago and now you’re in love with me.”

  She was looking at me with eyes that were desperate.

  “So what? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  I paced through my groove in the sand and walked the fifteen feet to the edge of the lake. I thought about the last four weeks I had spent with her. I had thought about how my grandfather probably spent time with my grandmother at this lake fifty years ago. Nothing in the world seemed like it made any more sense to me than what I was thinking right now.

  I just didn’t know how it had taken all of this to make me realize it.

  I walked back to the car. She was still sitting on her hood with her head in her hands and tears running down her cheeks. And she never looked so beautiful.

  She was barely watching me as I got back to her. She had noticed me
when I was standing in front of her. But when I got down on one knee, her eyes bugged open wide.

  “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life. Olivia, I’ve fallen in love with you over the last four weeks. Like, head over heels, the earth moves and the angels weep kind of love. Olivia Hawthorne, will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?”

  She was looking at me with wide eyes without speaking. And I offered her my hand. She was caught up in the emotion of the moment just like I was. I knew it would be a story we would tell our grandchildren decades from now, the sweet proposal by the lake…

  And then, my midnight angel opened her mouth and spoke.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “What? But Liv, I just thought…”

  “No. No you didn’t, Jonathon. You didn’t think at all. What the hell does getting married do? What problem does that solve? We’re both going to end up stuck here. Is that what you want, you jackass?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Yeah but nothing. Jesus Christ my father was right all along. You McCallisters are as dumb as the day is long. That’s not an answer, Jonathon. We’ve got real problems here, you’re not helping things.”

  My knee was suddenly sore from kneeling. I started to stand back up and felt like I left my heart in the dirt.

  “Olivia, if you feel the same way…”

  “This isn’t the way this was supposed to turn out, Jonathon. This is actually the complete opposite of how it was supposed to turn out. I was never meant to be stuck here in Madison, pregnant like every other woman in my family. I wanted more than that for myself. I wanted to make it in the city.”

  I stepped towards her and reached out to touch her, but she was already backing up.

  “This wasn’t what you wanted either, Jonathon, do you remember that? You wanted to go back to Chicago. You don’t want to be stuck here any more than I do.”

  Another step forward. She took two steps back.

  “Olivia, I’m in love with you.”

  “No, No you’re not.”

  I took two steps but she had already made it to the driver’s door of her Jetta as if her feet never touched the ground. I heard the whine of the engine as she put the car into reverse and stuck her foot on the gas. She narrowly missed the back of my Cadillac as the dirt from the lake kicked up and drifted back down through the beams of her head lights. She managed a K turn at the top of the hill, and then I was looking at tail lights.

  And then she was gone.

  Chapter 19

  Olivia

  I had gone to the one place where I had always felt the most comfortable. It was the one place I had gone when I fell off my bike and skinned my knee in grade school. It was the place I had gone when I didn’t make the cheerleading squad in junior high.

  “You were right, Nanny. I should have listened to you. I should have gotten out when I had the chance.”

  My grandmother sat in her kitchen looking at me with as much sympathy as I had ever seen. She was the only one who had known the truth from the beginning. She was my confidante. And I was hoping she was going to be my ticket out of dodge.

  “What happened, sweetheart?”

  “Jonathon. After I left Huddy’s he came and found me. He thought everything I said at the restaurant had been an act. I mean, about the baby. But it’s true, Nanny. Everything that I said was true. He just didn’t know that until I told him at the lake.”

  She nodded her head at me and placed her hand over mine. It was the warmth I had known since I was a little girl. And it was the warmth I desperately needed now.

  “We’ll get through this, sweetheart, don’t you worry. We’ll get through this.”

  She patted my hand. I wanted to cry but I had no tears left to give.

  “And then he left you?”

  “What? No. No, he didn’t leave. Once I told him I was really pregnant, he told me he loved me. He told me he wanted to get married. He wanted to get married for real. It was just like you told me. It was everything you warned me about.”

  She lifted her hand from mind and rose from her kitchen table. The sun was just starting to lift outside and I noticed a ray of light on her kitchen counter. She walked over and looked outside, showing me her back.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He said he loved me. I mean, not right away. Once I told him everything he took a minute to collect himself. And then he told me he loved me and he wanted to be married. He proposed to me right there at the lake. I mean, he got down on one knee like a fool and told me he wanted to get married. Even if that meant staying here. It’s just like you said about Grandpa.”

  She was quiet. I was still looking at the back of a Sears and Roebuck nightgown as the birds started chirping outside. It was becoming light enough that I could see Daddy’s property, even through blurry eyes sitting at Nanny’s kitchen table.

  “That’s not the way it happened with your grandfather, Livy. That’s not the way it happened at all. If it had worked out that way, maybe things might have been different.”

  She turned partway as she said it which was enough to give me her profile. Her eyes were cast downward and although she had stopped speaking, she clearly had plenty going through that old mind of hers.

  “What are you talking about, Nanny?”

  “Your grandfather and I dated in high school, Livy, and after we graduated, he got me pregnant. It was an accident. Of course it was an accident. No one wants to get pregnant at that age. We were far younger than you are now.”

  She turned and looked directly at me.

  “But he didn’t want to get married, and neither did I. Your grandfather was a decent man, but I didn’t plan on marrying him. But things were different back then, sweetheart. A girl who was pregnant couldn’t just up and leave. And more importantly, our parents weren’t going to let us.

  “Once your great-grandfather found out —my father—we didn’t even have a choice. I was married two months after your great grandfather got the news. That’s how it happened for me, honey. Your grandfather didn’t get down on one knee at the lake. You great-grandfather practically put a shotgun to his head. Seven months later, your daddy was born.”

  She came back down to the table and sat down. I felt her warm hand on my arm a second later.

  “I’m sorry. sweetheart. When I told you to get the hell out of here while you still could, that’s the memory this old mind is working from. Your father is as stubborn as a mule, and he has enough of his grandfather in him that I was worried you would end up being trapped here forever. Just like I was. But I see now what you have here with this Jonathon boy is something different, Livy.”

  “What are you saying, Nanny?”

  I could feel her hand gripping my arm. She was looking at me with as much white hot intensity as her eighty years would allow.

  “I think you should marry him, Livy. I saw the way he was looking at you at that restaurant. I know a lot of what you two were doing was an act, but I’ve also been around long enough to know the real thing when I see it. I never had the real thing, Livy, but you could. I saw the way he was looking at you. That boy really loves you.”

  Her words went right through me and practically knocked me out of the chair. Suddenly I was the one who was standing up and pacing her kitchen.

  “What are you talking about, Nanny? You have been the one telling me to leave?”

  “I know that, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. I was wrong. I never had with your grandfather what you have with this Jonathon boy. Things were different then, we were too stupid to know any better. But this boy loves you, Livy. I’m telling you that it could be a mistake for you to leave here now, especially that you’re carrying his baby.”

  I walked over to her kitchen counter and looked out the window. The sun was almost completely up and I could see almost all of our land. That included dozens and dozens of cattle that were grazing stupidly across the land.

  Cattle.

  I
would never tell me father, but I always thought they were stupid, brutish animals. The thought of potentially being stuck here on a cattle farm for the rest of my life made me want to gag, regardless of how I felt about Jonathon.

  “You could be making a big mistake, Livy, that’s all I’m saying. Think hard about it before you throw it all away and run back to New York.”

  New York.

  Chicago.

  Madison County, Colorado.

  The noise of the cattle was reaching Nanny’s kitchen and it seemed like they were telling me to go.

  “I went to school in New York because I didn’t want to be in the family business, Nanny. The whole reason I want to go back is because I want to work in the city. That’s where the big businesses are. I always imagined myself being the one to make enough money so our family doesn’t have to do this crap anymore.”

  My eyes moved from the cattle to the fence on the far side of the property. The land on the other side of that was officially McCallister land now. Somewhere out there in the middle was a piece of property that had turned my life upside down. That little piece of land had turned into my own little Gaza Strip.

  “You can find success anywhere, Livy,” she said. “You might go back to New York and never find love at all.”

  I could see the glimmer of the sun on the tilling machines that Jonathon’s father had on his property. He hadn’t started planting yet. Those machines were poised and at the ready and he had been tied up in court. His life had been just as screwed as the rest of us.

  “Lord know your brother could use you here too, Livy.”

  My brother. The pothead. She had mentioned it as an afterthought. It was a weird thing to say. I was still looking outside, hearing the damn cattle moo and seeing the glint of McCallister farm machinery.

  “My brother.”

  “Yes, your brother. All of us, Livy. All of us would benefit if you stayed here. But most of all you and Jonathon. Not to mention that baby growing inside of you.”

  I ran over to the kitchen table and gave her a hug. She had given me the answer. Without even knowing it she had told me exactly what to do.