The Influence Read online

  “That sounds great,” he admitted.

  There must have been an implied caveat in his voice. “But?” Jill prompted.

  “How about a rain check?”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Okay.”

  “Lita and Dave are getting back today, and I should really—”

  There was the sound of a car pulling into the dirt outside.

  “Hold on, I think they’re here now.” Ross looked out the window.

  “I’ll call back later,” Jill said.

  “I can still talk. You don’t need to—”

  “I’ll call back later.”

  He was sorrier to say goodbye to her than he had any right to be, but he hung up the phone and went out to greet Lita and Dave. They were both getting out of the car, and they both looked tired. Lita gave him a wan smile. Dave nodded solemnly. Ross didn’t know what to say—asking about their trip seemed too trivial, and they were probably not in the mood to discuss anything heavy right now—so he simply helped them carry their bags into the house then left them alone. “I’ll come back later,” he said. “When you’re settled in.”

  Outside the shack, four hens were standing sentry in front of his door. They had somehow escaped from their enclosure and glared at him belligerently. He felt an irrational flash of fear as he looked at the animals, arrayed in an almost perfect semi-circle and facing outward.

  This wasn’t right.

  He considered shooing them away, kicking out at them as he went into the guest house, but he knew that no matter how much money they had coming their way, Lita and, especially, Dave, would not want him to damage any of their laying hens. Ross was too afraid to pick them up, however, so he hurriedly returned to the house to get Dave, who quickly got a box out of the shed and took each of the birds, one by one, feathers flying, back into the enclosure, while Ross stood near the front door to make sure none of the chickens tried to run away.

  “I wonder how they got out,” Dave mused. “The gate was locked, and I don’t see any breaks in the fence.” He turned to Ross. “Egg production still down?”

  “To almost nothing.” He explained about the odd eggs he’d stored in the cellar and described the overly aggressive behavior of the birds.

  “Yeah, I thought they were acting a little weird, too. We’d better keep an eye on them.” Dave clapped a hand on his back. “Thanks for all your help, Ross. Seriously.”

  “No problem,” he said. He’d offered his condolences after first hearing about the death of Dave’s parents, and he thought it was appropriate to do so again, after the funeral, but Dave was already striding across the yard toward the Big House.

  Later, Ross thought, and walked into the shack.

  Outside, he heard the hens squawking, their agitated voices blending together in a way that sounded almost like human conversation.

  Jill called back after an hour and a half, and she talked to Lita, who came over to the shack and told Ross that he was going out on a date tonight. “I talked to Jill,” she said. “It’s all arranged.”

  “What?” He shook his head, confused.

  “I was afraid you might try to weasel out of it, so I accepted on your behalf. You’ll meet her at her place at six. I have the directions.”

  “Weasel out of it?”

  “I know you.” She leaned against the doorjamb, a smile playing across her lips. “So…do you like her?”

  “I barely know her.”

  “You could do worse,” she said.

  He thought of the summer after fifth grade, when Lita’s family had come to visit and they’d gone to Big Surf, which boasted a wave-making machine that created waves in its lagoon just like those of a real beach. On the sand, he’d seen Shauna Boyd, a girl from his class, lying on a blanket next to her older sister, getting a tan. Shauna was a little bit chubby, and some of the boys made fun of her for that, but Ross had a crush on her, though it was not something to which he would ever admit. Seeing her in a bathing suit, he thought she looked wonderful. His brother Rick, having seen where he was looking, burst out laughing. “Break out the harpoons!” he cried. “Whale ashore!” Ross had felt sick to his stomach, but he hadn’t been brave enough to defend Shauna, and he’d even forced himself to smile at Rick’s joke so his brother would think he was cool. Lita had scowled at Rick. “Jerk.” She put an arm around Ross’ shoulder. “Go talk to her. Apologize for your brother.

  “You could do worse,” she added.

  But he hadn’t been brave enough to approach her, and Shauna had hated him until she moved away in eighth grade.

  He’d been grateful for Lita’s intercession, though, and her understanding, and he smiled at her now. “Still looking out for me, huh?”

  “Always.”

  An image flashed in his mind, the image from his dream: Lita, squatting over him, naked. He looked away, his face hot with shame, wondering how and why he could even have thought of such a thing.

  “Lita!” Dave was calling her from the Big House.

  “Coming!” she called back. “Six o’clock,” she told Ross. “Her place.”

  He left a half-hour early, not secure enough in his knowledge of local geography to risk setting out any later, though Lita told him when she handed over the address and directions that it was less than five minutes away. It took him about ten minutes to navigate the dirt roads that led to her small house, and, as a result, he arrived with twenty minutes to spare. He contemplated driving around for a bit, but figured he’d probably been seen already through the windows. Leaving after that, even if only for a little while, would seem weird, so he pulled into her driveway behind the battered Ford Econoline already parked there.

  Jill lived in a small cul-de-sac just east of Magdalena’s main street, in the shadow of the chimney-shaped mountain with the white “M” on its slope. There were five houses arranged in a semi-circle, and hers was one of three facing away from the mountain, looking out over the desert. He hadn’t realized that the road had climbed, so gradual was its slope, but now that he was here, he found that he could look down upon the church, off to his left.

  Jill had seen him, and she emerged from the house just as he was closing his car door. It occurred to him that he should have brought some sort of gift, a bottle of wine maybe, but it was too late for that now and, feeling embarrassed, he greeted her empty handed.

  Jill gave him a quick friendly hug. “Welcome to my home,” she said. “Come in. I hope you like pasta.”

  “Sure. Of course. Who doesn’t.” He cringed inwardly at his own awkwardness. “I would’ve brought something—” he began.

  “I invited you. Remember? You don’t need to bring anything.”

  “Still…” He followed her inside.

  Jill’s house was small but creatively furnished. Like the other four residences on the cul-de-sac, it had on the outside a prefab look, almost like one of those double-wide trailers, but inside she had used the limited space wisely and decorated her home with an imaginative hodgepodge of styles and colors: an old steamer trunk being used as a coffeetable sat in front of an orange 1950s couch, next to which stood what appeared to be a fake streetlamp. There was supposed to be a dining room—although it was little more than a wide passage connecting the living room with the kitchen—but as might be expected from someone whose hobby was baking cookies, Jill had made it into part of the kitchen, equipping it with a freestanding butcher’s block on which sat a well-used rolling pin, and a Hoosier cabinet with a built-in flour sifter. Though the area opened onto the living room, the lines of demarcation were clear.

  Ross looked around admiringly. “Nice place,” he said.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

  “No, I’m serious. It’s very creative. Even when I had a place to live, it didn’t look this nice. I have no imagination.” He examined a cactus growing in a giant pop-art Planter’s Peanuts container. “You could be an interior decorator.”

  “Thank you,” she said, honestly appreciating the complime
nt. She smiled. “I think I was right about you.”

  The air smelled of garlic and herbs, and Jill led him through the doorway into the heart of the kitchen, where a huge pot of red pasta sauce was simmering on the stove. “I figured I might as well make enough to last awhile,” she explained. “Since I’m going to all this trouble. Not that you’re trouble,” she added quickly. “I just meant—”

  He laughed. “I know.”

  “Here. Sit down.” She pulled out a chair from the table in the center of the kitchen.

  “Do you need some help?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. I prefer to be a Lone Ranger. Sit.”

  Ross sat down, watching as she put a pot of water on the stove for the pasta and then started making a salad. He could have felt guilty, probably should have felt guilty, but he didn’t. It was comfortable here, easy, and for a first date, he felt remarkably relaxed.

  “Any more snake sightings?” he asked.

  “That one on my front step? I haven’t seen him, but he’s still around somewhere. Hopefully not in the house. A crow slammed into my bedroom window this morning, though. He didn’t crack it, but he was stunned enough to fall on the ground, and when I peeked out to see what had happened, Puka, my still-missing dog, zoomed out of nowhere, grabbed the crow and hauled off into the hills.” She smiled. “So what’s new with you?”

  They talked of Magdalena, and the conversation came easily. She seemed genuinely unnerved by odd events she saw going on around the town—the subject that had inspired their initial contact. He had to admit that he, too, had some questions, but, her concerns went much deeper, and Ross wondered if she was religious.

  “The thing is,” she said, “I think something happened, something to precipitate all this. I don’t know what, don’t know when, don’t know how, but even with some of my friends it’s like they’re keeping something from me, like they all know something they’ve sworn to keep secret.”

  “Come on. You don’t think that sounds a little paranoid?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted. “But just because you’re paranoid—”

  “—doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you?”

  “Exactly.” Jill put down the knife with which she’d been cutting tomatoes and looked to her left. “Oh. I almost forgot. Would you like some wine?” She picked up a stemmed glass and a bottle of pinot.

  “Yes, thank you,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “I’m a terrible host. Can you tell I don’t do this much?”

  “Not at all,” he said in an extravagantly exaggerated voice, and they both laughed.

  Ross took a sip from the wine glass she handed him and nodded his approval. She took a sip of her own and went back to making the salad.

  “So, did you grow up here?” he asked.

  “No. Magdalena is one of those places where… I think the only people who want to live here are the ones from somewhere else. Most of the people who are actually from here end up leaving. I don’t know too many local kids whose goal is to remain in Magdalena.”

  “So where are you from and how in the world did you end up in this town?”

  “The same way Dave and Lita did, probably. No, maybe not. I think Dave’s family knew about it because of the agriculture thing. But I saw an article in Arizona Highways about spring wildflowers in southern Arizona, and I came down here with my boyfriend at the time to take pictures. We were both in college—Mesa Community—and we were both art majors, both taking the same photography course. The actual wildflower drive shown in the magazine was closer to Sierra Vista, and we went there, but we had our camping gear and ended up exploring some of the dirt roads in this part of the state, and we happened across Magdalena. I’d never heard of it before, and I just thought it was so cute and so…so completely unspoiled. We ate lunch at the bar, and the burgers were great, and I just kind of fell in love with the place. We went back to Mesa, and Craig and I broke up soon after that, but Magdalena kind of haunted me, and after I graduated from MCC and then ASU, I decided I’d like to live out here, be a starving artist. Of course, I didn’t even have enough money to do that, so I lived at my mom’s house and worked for a few years after graduation. Various jobs, nothing permanent. I saved my money, and by the time the housing market crashed in 2008, I had enough for a down payment, and I bought this place. I was working as a telemarketer at the time and, amazingly enough, I was good enough at it to earn a pretty decent commission. I’d been painting all along, but I never sold anything, so I needed to have an income.

  Obviously, there weren’t any jobs around here, so I asked if I could keep my telemarketing job, though I’d actually been hoping I could quit. I was already working from home, checking in online, so they didn’t care, and I moved to Magdalena...and here I am.” She smiled. “Long story, huh?”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Going on five years now.”

  “And how’d you start with the cookies?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always been into baking, cooking, what have you. A couple years back, I started making little…sculptures, sort of, out of my cookies. I’d experiment with different forms, give them away to friends, and someone suggested that I should sell them at the market, so I did. I don’t make a fortune, but I pay for my space, and it gives me the opportunity to try out new ideas every week. I usually try to have a theme. It’s fun, you know? Relaxing.”

  “Do you still paint?”

  “Oh sure.”

  “So…can I see some of your paintings?”

  She shook her head, her face flushing as she turned away.

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe when I know you better.”

  Jill had continued to cook while she talked, tossing the salad, draining the pasta, and now she plated the dinner and brought it over to the table. She was a good cook, and between her food and Lita’s meals, Ross realized how deprived he had been growing up. “Home cooking” to him had always meant his mom’s dry pork chops and overdone meatloaf, but he understood now that there were home cooks able to create dishes as good as those served in restaurants.

  Like Lita, Jill was one of them.

  Dinner was leisurely, relaxed, and though Jill offered to uncork another bottle of wine, Ross switched instead to water. The roads back to the ranch might be dirt and deserted, but he was such a lightweight that drinking even a moderate amount of alcohol could end up with him spinning his wheels in a ditch.

  Jill seemed to have a pretty large DVD collection, and he expected the date to be a variation on the traditional dinner and a movie, but she seemed to have other ideas. After they finished eating, she put the dishes in the sink, telling him she’d take care of them later. “Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested.

  “A walk?”

  “Yes. An after-dinner stroll. Don’t tell me that you don’t like to take walks.”

  “No, I do,” he said quickly, though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually done it. In Phoenix, his condo was adjacent to a charmless business district, and Lita’s place was so remote that, while he’d walked around the ranch doing chores, he had never even thought about strolling around the neighborhood—not that there was a neighborhood. “Is there anyplace to walk?” he asked. “I mean, we’re kind of out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I walk to town all the time.”

  “That’s at least a mile!”

  “Come on. You’re not afraid of a little exercise, are you?”

  “No,” he said, but he hoped they wouldn’t be walking all the way into town. That seemed a little far. He had a sudden flashback to when he was a kid and his whole life had been spent on foot. At the age of nine, he’d been on a rock-hunting kick, and he remembered getting up early one Saturday, before his parents were awake and going out on an expedition. He’d walked down the street, rock pick in hand, looking through neighbors’ front yards for fossils and petrified wood. He’d found nothing more than a few pieces of slightly shiny
, reddish gravel that he misidentified as jasper, but he’d incorporated the pieces into his next batch of rocks for his tumbler, and they’d actually polished up nicely.

  Back then, every foray into the neighborhood had been an adventure, and he wondered when walking had lost its allure for him.

  Probably when he’d learned to drive.

  It was dark out, and Jill disappeared down the hall for a moment, returning with a flashlight. She flipped the light on and off, making sure it worked. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  They walked outside and headed down the lane, sauntering slowly. She pointed out a type of purple flower growing in abundance by the side of the road, shut off her flashlight to show him phosphorescent bugs dotting the sides of the ditch, and he thought he could understand why she liked to walk, what she saw in it. Ahead of them, down the slope, the lights of Magdalena made the town look much bigger than it actually was.

  They held hands, like schoolchildren, and it was nice. He liked her. More than he had liked anyone in a long time. He liked being with her, liked walking with her, and he was glad they hadn’t stayed inside and watched a movie.

  Twenty minutes later, they reached the town, the road they were on meeting the main street in front of the church. They turned right, heading toward the small downtown. Jill sighed. “I don’t know where we’re going to get our hair done around here,” she said.

  Ross pointed toward the salon. “There’s a—”

  “Oh. I guess you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Xochi and Maria? The mother and daughter who run the place? They won the lottery.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was speaking literally or metaphorically. “The…actual lottery?”

  “Yeah. They won six million dollars.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “They closed the place up, and they’re not coming back. So we’re down two beauticians.” She toggled her hand back and forth. “Sort of.”

  Ross laughed, running his fingers through his too-short hair. “Tell me about it.”

  They had no destination in mind, but they walked down one side of the street and up the other. The bar was open, but inside it sounded rowdy, and they passed on by. He wished there was a regular restaurant in town—a hot cup of coffee and a warm piece of pie sounded good right now—but there wasn’t, and with no place to stop, the two of them headed back into the darkness of the desert toward the small cluster of lights that was Jill’s neighborhood.