The Influence

by Bentley Little

  An hour passed. Two.

  When it became obvious that the DirecTV was not coming back on, Ross decided to call it a night. Leaving on only the light in the bathroom, he took off his clothes, got into bed in his underwear. He was hard for some reason, and he tried lying on his back for several minutes, then tried moving onto his side, but his erection would not go down, and he soon realized that if he ever hoped to fall asleep, he would have to take care of things. Pushing off the blanket and pulling down his underwear, he began to masturbate, thinking about Jill, imagining her naked.

  Concentrating hard.

  So he wouldn’t think about Lita.

  NINE

  It wasn’t possible.

  Anna Mae woke up with the dawn—and Del wasn’t in bed next to her. She sat up, confused, thinking maybe she was still asleep and dreaming. She always set up the railing on his side of the bed at night so he wouldn’t fall out, and even if he had been able to crawl over her it would have been impossible for him to do so without waking her up. There was no way he could be out of bed.

  Yet he was.

  She heard noises coming from the kitchen.

  The sounds of someone making breakfast.

  “Del?” she called hesitantly.

  Although he’d done it every weekend for the first forty years of their marriage, it had been years since he had been able to make breakfast for them. Even before the Alzheimer’s struck, his arthritis had been so bad that he had simply not had the manual dexterity to manipulate cooking utensils or even pour milk. Now, however, she smelled pancakes.

  What was going on here?

  Anna Mae got up, pulling her nightgown closed around her neck. Had someone helped Del out of bed, taken him into the kitchen and started making breakfast? It didn’t make any sense, but it was the only possibility she could think of. She glanced around as she walked toward the bedroom door, looking for some type of weapon, just in case. Leaning against the side of the dresser was the cane she’d bought her husband that he never used, and she picked it up, holding the handle tight, prepared to whack someone with it if she needed to.

  From the kitchen came the clinking of silverware. Walking slowly, trying not to make any noise, Anna Mae moved down the hall, past the bathroom, past the linen cupboard. Gathering her courage, lifting the cane above her head, she stepped into the kitchen doorway.

  And saw Del.

  “Anna Mae!’ he said, smiling happily as he poured orange juice out of a pitcher and into a cup.

  She screamed.

  Del rushed forward, a look of concern on his face. “Are you all right?”

  This couldn’t be. She felt like fainting. The husband standing before her had not existed for over a decade, and seeing him like this was like seeing a ghost. He put a hand on her shoulder, the way he used to, and she nearly melted. This was something she had never expected to experience again outside of a dream. It was the answer to her prayers. A miracle. But it was a miracle that frightened her, and while this was a good thing that had happened—a great thing—she could not help thinking it was a thing that was not supposed to be.

  Anna Mae looked into her husband’s eyes. She didn’t know how an outcome that was so right could seem so wrong, but it did.

  “What’s the matter?” Del asked, and while his voice sounded older and more cracked than it had the last time he’d been lucid, the familiar cadences were there.

  She started crying.

  His fingers touched the cheeks under her eyes, wiped away the tears. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here.”

  He was here. She had her husband back. It might be wrong, and it might not last, but for now he was hers, and she threw her arms around him and, through her sobs, whispered into his ear. “I love you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said.

  ****

  “Paul!”

  Where was he?

  Heather Cox-Coburn stormed out of her studio and into the main hallway, looking for her husband. The View was over, she’d finished her workout, and he was supposed to be there to bring her a mid-morning green drink. It was bad enough that he was forcing her to spend an entire month out here in the asshole of America, but to ignore and forget about her this way was really unforgiveable. Heather strode down the hallway toward his office. He was probably sitting in front of his damn computer. He wasted half his day either on that machine or on the phone, constantly monitoring his company, although his business ran fine on its own—and if it didn’t, there were people in place who would make sure that it did.

  “Paul—” she said angrily, walking into his office.

  He wasn’t there.

  She looked around to make sure he hadn’t keeled over from a heart attack, then walked back out of the room just as her cell phone rang. She expected it to be Paul and was about to give him an earful, but it turned out to be Tyra Banks. Yesterday, Tyra had invited her out to LA to attend a taping of her show, and Heather had jumped at the opportunity. Paul had objected, saying they were supposed to be on vacation, but he certainly wasn’t on vacation, and if he was going to spend all day online or on the phone or video conferencing with his investors, she should be able to spend a week with her friends.

  Heather was afraid Tyra was calling to cancel, but it was nothing so drastic. She just wanted to make sure that Heather packed a bathing suit because they were going to be spending a few days at the beach house.

  “Thank God,” Heather said. “I’m getting tired of staring out at this godforsaken desert.”

  Tyra laughed. “I told you you shouldn’t have quit the biz.”

  Heather heard a noise behind her and turned to see Paul standing at the end of the hallway.

  She knew instantly that something was wrong.

  It was the way he was standing, the stiffness of his legs, the cocked angle at which he held his head. He was wearing what looked like pajamas, though she wasn’t aware that he even owned pajamas. “I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone, clicking off without waiting to hear her friend’s goodbye.

  Paul stared at her silently.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Heather said. She tried to summon up some of the anger she’d felt a few moments prior, but her husband’s appearance threw her off balance. She felt nervous rather than angry, and she remained in place, not wanting to walk down the hall to where he stood.

  He started toward her.

  “You were supposed to bring me my green drink,” she said, still trying to pretend that everything was normal, nothing was wrong. “I understand if you were busy, but at least you could have sent someone around to give it to me. You know I need to replenish after my workout.”

  He was still walking up the hallway. There was a dullness in his face that she did not recognize, a slack expression that made him appear almost retarded. She moved back a step involuntarily.

  “I want to sell balloons,” he said.

  “What?” She experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance. Wasn’t that what it was called when two things didn’t go together and made no logical sense? Something like that. Whatever the term, she was experiencing it now, and she looked into her husband’s blank face and had no idea how to respond.

  “I sold it this morning.”

  “What?” she repeated dumbly.

  “Everything. The stocks, the trademarks, the—”

  That woke her up. “You did what?” she demanded.

  “I’m selling the house, too. The houses. All of them.”

  She was about to yell at him, when he stopped directly in front of her. A cold wave washed over her skin, summoning goose bumps, as she saw the slow smile spreading across his slack features.

  “I want to sell balloons,” he said.

  ****

  “Mama?”

  Maria’s heart was pounding as she looked from the lottery ticket in her hand to the numbers on the screen.

  No.

  It wasn’t possible.

  “Mama!” she called again,
louder this time.

  They’d opened the salon on New Year’s Eve day and New Year’s day—a lot of women wanted to get their hair done for parties, and some of the men liked to start off the year with a fresh cut—and in preparation, they’d closed the day before and she’d driven over to the beauty supply shop over in Safford to stock up on what they needed. While there, she’d gotten a Powerball lottery ticket at Circle K, a spur-of-the-moment purchase made when she bought herself a Diet Coke for the trip home and the clerk told her he was out of ones, would it be okay if he gave her eight quarters?

  She’d taken the Powerball ticket instead.

  Now it looked like she’d won.

  They were millionaires.

  “Mama!” she yelled.

  “I was in the bathroom,” her mother said, walking in. “What’s—” She took one look at Maria’s face and, somehow, she knew. “Madre de Dios!” she cried.

  “Double check for me,” Maria said, her breathing tight. “Make sure.”

  Leaning over her shoulder, her mother looked at the ticket in Maria’s hand, then at the numbers on the screen. “Aaaaaiiiieee!” she screamed, throwing up her hands.

  This couldn’t be happening. Things like this did not happen to people like them. It must be a mistake. She was looking at last week’s numbers, or someone had typed in the wrong numbers, or…or…something. They couldn’t have won—she glanced at the winning amount at the top of the page—six million dollars.

  Six. Million. Dollars.

  Maria suddenly felt dizzy. If she wasn’t sitting down… she would have had to sit down.

  Inside her head, she could hear the pulsing of blood through her veins. It sounded like salsa music, a rapid syncopated beat.

  It was a miracle.

  Her mother thought so, too. She was crossing herself, praying in Spanish,

  Maria put down the lottery ticket, afraid to hold it in her hand, afraid she might accidentally tear it, afraid her sweaty fingers might rub off one of the numbers. They couldn’t afford to take any chances. She placed it carefully on the desk, then grew worried because she was no longer holding it. She almost told her mother to take it, but her mama was clumsy and who knew what might happen?

  Maria picked the ticket up again, breathing deeply, her heart pounding. “We have to turn this in,” she said. “As quickly as possible. We can’t let it sit here or leave it around the house. We have to turn it in, get the money and put it immediately in the bank.”

  “And we can’t tell anyone,” her mother said, whispering.

  Maria stood. “We need to go right now.”

  “Go where?”

  Maria turned the ticket over, reading the fine print, trying to figure out how to redeem their winnings, not something she’d ever thought of before because they had never won anything. There was a phone number and a website—

  They were already on the website!

  Stupido. She clicked on the instructions for claiming a prize. For an amount up to a hundred dollars, she could redeem her prize at any retailer that sold Powerball tickets. For larger amounts, she could send in her ticket or bring it in person to the lottery headquarters in Phoenix. A person correctly picking all six numbers including the Powerball number—

  her!

  —had to bring the ticket to lottery headquarters and had to agree to participate in a press conference and use her likeness for publicity purposes…

  Maria stopped reading.

  “Pack up what you need,” she told her mother. “We are going to Phoenix, and we are staying at an expensive resort.”

  “We can’t. We have to open up the salon. Maybe we can close for one day, but tomorrow we need to open.”

  “Mama, we never have to open again. Don’t you understand? We’re rich. We can do whatever we want to do. We can live wherever he want to live.”

  Comprehension dawned in her mother’s eyes.

  Maria smiled. “Yes, Mama.”

  “I want to live in California.”

  “Then we will. Now pack up a suitcase. We’re going to collect our money.”

  ****

  Her sister seemed different.

  JoAnn returned to the living room with two cups of coffee. Becky looked pretty much the same, her appearance had not changed, but she was quiet, subdued, not her usual brash and abrasive self. Accepting the coffee, she sipped it silently, and JoAnn wished Lurlene, Darla and Lita were here. She knew what they thought of Becky, and this would show them that her sister really had grown up. Handing Becky the coffee cup, she could hardly believe it herself. This was the meeting she usually told people had happened, not the one that really did, and for the first time in recent memory, JoAnn was glad that her sister had come to visit.

  They talked for awhile, innocuous conversation about relatives and work. There was no argument for once, no shouting, and they finished talking on the same even keel as when they started. That was a miracle.

  Done with her coffee, Becky put the cup down on the low table in front of her and stared for a moment out the window. Ordinarily, she would be unpacking by now, but this time she made no effort to take her suitcase into the guest room or even get off the couch.

  She glanced nervously around.

  “What’s the matter?” JoAnn asked.

  “I don’t know.” Becky sat down, fidgeting.

  “You okay? You ain’t on drugs or nothing, are you?”

  “No,” Becky said, annoyed. “I don’t know, I just…” She shook her head, suddenly stood. “I gotta go.”

  “You just got here!”

  “Something’s wrong,” Becky said, moving closer to her sister.

  “Then tell me about it. You can talk to me. Is it a guy?”

  “No, I mean something’s wrong here. I could tell even on my way down. As soon as I got close to town, I felt…I don’t know…weird. I almost turned around right then and there.”

  JoAnn thought about New Year’s Eve and her blood ran cold.

  Becky was staring at her. “You feel it, too, don’t you?”

  “No. No, I don’t.” But she was still thinking about New Year’s Eve. She realized that she’d expected there to be a lot of gossip about that night, but there hadn’t been. She wondered why. It was as though everyone was afraid to mention it, afraid to bring it up, and the fact that Becky sensed something meant that they probably should be scared.

  And yet…she wasn’t.

  “I’m going back home,” Becky said. “I can’t stay here.” There was a pause. “I think you should come with me.”

  JoAnn was touched. Becky lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the crappiest street in Casa Grande, and for her to invite JoAnn to stay with her really meant something. It was a personal sacrifice that, before today, JoAnn would not have thought her sister capable of making. “Nah, I can’t,” she said.

  “Weston, too. Both of you should come with me.”

  Becky really was scared. She had to be, to invite Weston. The two of them had never been able to stand each other. JoAnn felt a wave of love for her sister.

  “There’s something wrong, Jo. I feel it. Something bad’s going to happen.”

  It already did.

  “I’m serious!” Becky said angrily, reacting to the expression on JoAnn’s face. She was starting to sound like her normal self. “Despite what you think, I’m not some flake. I don’t go around…I don’t do stuff like this. But it’s like…like…like one of those people who has a premonition, who tells everyone to stay off the plane and then the flight goes down, killing them all. I can feel it, Jo. Something’s wrong here!” She seemed almost ready to cry.

  JoAnn put an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Maybe you should go back,” she said. “If you feel this strongly, it’s probably not a good idea to stay.”

  “What about you?”

  JoAnn thought about it, and despite her sister’s fears, despite what had happened on New Year’s Eve, she actually felt…better. In fact, she felt more optimistic than she had in months. Bo
th personally, with Weston, and at work, things were going well. Very well. And she expected them to improve even more. New Year’s Eve had been horrifying, but it was as though that had acted as some sort of catalyst. That had been the low point and now things were looking up. As strange as it might seem, as illogical as it was, she felt happy, happier than she could remember being in a very long time.

  “Well?” Becky demanded.

  JoAnn smiled at her sister, gave her a big hug. “Call me when you get home.”

  TEN

  Ross was in Lita’s kitchen, borrowing milk for the Pasta Roni he planned to make for lunch, when the phone rang. He debated whether or not he should answer, but it could be Lita or Dave. It might even be an emergency. They might be stranded on the highway somewhere. Maybe they’d tried to call his cell or the line in the shack and been unable to reach him.

  He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is this Ross?”

  He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Yes,” he said.

  “This is Jill. From the farmer’s market?”

  “Oh, hi!” Ross was happier to hear from her than he was willing to admit. He’d thought about her several times over the past two days, and he’d found himself hoping that he’d see her at the market next week. While they hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, she obviously knew Lita’s, and he was impressed that she’d made the effort to call him.

  “Are you busy?” she asked.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Do you have time to talk?”

  “Sure.” He put the milk back in the refrigerator.

  “I mean tonight.”

  He smiled. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “I guess I am.”

  Ross thought about that for a second. He didn’t recall seeing any restaurants, and there definitely wasn’t a movie theater in Magdalena. “Is there anywhere around here to go on a date?”

  She laughed. “No. Not really. But I thought I’d invite you over for a home-cooked meal. We could talk, get to know each other…”