The Influence (2 page)

“I missed you,” Ross said. 

She smiled, put her hand on his. “I missed you, too.” 

She asked about the rest of his family, his parents, his brother and sister, and he told her the truth, the unvarnished version.  

“I never liked your sister,” Lita admitted. “That’s why I always hung out with you and your brother. Although him I could take or leave, to be honest with you. Maybe because he was older than we were. He always seemed like he was doing us a big favor just by gracing us with his presence.” 

“That was Rick. Still is.” 

“Remember that time you two got in a fight and you sprained your wrist?” 

“I remember.” 

“What was that thing you always used to say when you were trying to be tough? ‘I’ll kick your ass to pay for Friday?’” 

Ross laughed. 

“What did that even mean?” 

“I have no idea. I just thought it sounded cool.” 

“It made you sound like a
dork!” 

“Well, what about you?” 

“What about me?” 

He tried to come up with a corresponding embarrassment for her but couldn’t do it under pressure and gave up, laughing. “All right. I was the dork.” 

Ross was glad he’d come, and after finishing his late lunch, he was taken on a tour of the house and property by Lita and Dave. It was indeed a ranch and even had a name, the L Bar-D. Dave, who’d grown up in Sonoita, the son of a cattleman who’d gone broke and made a midlife career change to become a postal worker, dreamed of owning a herd of cows. At the moment he and Lita had only a horse, a goat, several hives of bees, which provided the organic honey they sold, and a coop full of chickens, which supplied the eggs from which they received most of their admittedly small income. 

“But we don’t need much,” Dave insisted. “We live simply.” 

Beaming, Lita took her husband’s hand. “And happily.” 

The shack where they’d lived while the house was being built, and where Ross would be sleeping, was to the left of the chicken coop and much cuter than the word “shack” had led him to believe. A prefab structure they’d bought and put together themselves, it was basically set up like an efficiency apartment, with a counter separating the small cooking space from the living/sleeping area, and a closet-sized bathroom containing a toilet, a sink and a narrow shower. Lita had kept the place up—like a guestroom, Ross supposed—and he had to admit that it was pretty nice. He even had a view of the open desert through the front windows. 

Lita nudged him with her elbow. “Admit it, Rossie. Not a bad place to stay, is it?” 

No one had called him “Rossie” since he was a kid, and hearing it now made him feel old. 

“It’s nice,” he admitted.  

Despite his initial reservations, Ross enjoyed the weekend. He thought he’d be bored, but while the pace of life was slower than in Phoenix—
much
slower—it was relaxing. Besides, Lita and Dave had DirectTV and internet access, so it wasn’t as though he was completely cut off from the real world. Monday morning, as he prepared to depart, he actually felt sad to be leaving. 

Lita poked her head through the open car window as he was about to go. “Promise me, if things don’t work out, if you run out of money, if you don’t find a job before your benefits expire, if you just need a place to clear your head, that you’ll call. I’m serious. Your shack will be sitting here waiting. And, as you can see, we have plenty of room. It’d be good for you.” 

“Thanks,” he said. “I had a great time. And I appreciate everything you’ve done. Both of you.” 

“Promise me,” she repeated. 

He smiled at her. “I promise.” 

TWO 

Ross kept his promise—and much sooner than he’d intended.  

Despite the state of the economy, despite all of the personal setbacks of the past year, he’d honestly thought he had a shot at getting hired by McDowell Industries, an aerospace firm based in Houston. They’d accepted his resume two months ago, and while he hadn’t been called for an interview, the personnel director had phoned himself and assured Ross that he was on the short list. So it was quite a blow when, the day after Halloween, he received a generic rejection, a one-line email notifying him that the position had been filled. 

The unexpected news caused him to take stock, and Ross decided that if he was going to take advantage of his cousin’s offer, he should do so sooner rather than later, while he still had money coming in and could pay some of his own expenses, before he became a complete leech and freeloader. The prospect still didn’t sit well with him, but being able to contribute made it a lot more palatable, and in the back of his mind was the idea that he could get some sort of part-time or seasonal job in the area—manual labor or a service position—that would enable him to pull his own weight. 

At least he didn’t have a huge debt hanging over his head. Another supervisor, Alex Yoon, who’d gotten laid off the same time as Ross and who had also not yet found employment, had been using his credit cards to see him through the past year. Now they were all maxed out, and he couldn’t even make the minimum payments. A financial advisor had told him that the only option left was personal bankruptcy.  

Ross was not in that bad a shape. 

Yet. 

He informed everyone of his decision several weeks prior to implementing it, hoping it would spur his parents and his siblings to help out somehow. But they only congratulated him, as though moving into a shack out in the middle of nowhere was the equivalent of finding a great new job. He shouldn’t have expected anything different, and it was his own fault for thinking his family might actually give a damn, but the reaction still left him feeling angry and disappointed. 

As it happened, he didn’t have as many personal possessions as he thought he had. Friends helped him move the furniture to a storage unit, along with a couple of boxes of books, games and CDs, another couple of boxes filled with pots, pans, plates and kitchen utensils, and several garbage sacks filled with various odds and ends. In his car, coming with him, were most of his clothes, a few books, his laptop, a small microwave, his toolbox, a lamp and some necessities that he knew Lita’s guest house didn’t have. After dropping a condo key off at the realtor’s, he met his friends at Roundtable Pizza, where he bought them what was either a late lunch or an early dinner—“Linner,” Trent dubbed it—and unlimited pitchers of beer to thank them for their help. 

“When’re you coming back?” Patrick asked. 

Ross shrugged. “When I get a job, I guess.” 

“So…never?” Alex said. 

They all laughed, but underlying the humor was a depressing truth, and a sense of melancholy pervaded the proceedings after that, no matter how hard they tried to ignore it. Eventually, everyone left, and Ross drove out to Chandler to spend the night at his parents’ house before hitting the road in the morning. They’d made up the couch for him but had not gone to any extra effort to make his final night a special one. It was Saturday, so his mom baked meat loaf, the way she always did, and it was as bad as he remembered. He ended up eating mostly side dishes, white bread and creamed corn, just as he had as a kid. Neither his sister’s family nor his brother’s had been invited over to say goodbye, and after dinner he sat in his parents’ living room while his mom and dad watched
Jeopardy
and then a
CSI
rerun and then went to bed.  

He left early, not bothering to wake his parents, not bothering to say goodbye, hitting McDonald’s for a quick junk food breakfast before heading out on the highway. He felt a little down as he headed into the pre-dawn darkness and the last lights of Phoenix disappeared behind the low desert hills in his rearview mirror. But the sun came up soon after, rising quickly, clear and bright, and a weird feeling of liberation overcame him as he passed Picacho Peak, heading south. 

By the time he reached the outskirts of Tucson, he was filled with a renewed sense of optimism. He raced past a freight train, chugging slowly on tracks that paralleled the highway. He wasn’t merely leaving behind his old life; he was starting a new one. This wasn’t a retreat. It was a beginning. And if it so happened that he never found a job making as much money as he had at Air Research, if he ended up eking out a living doing manual labor or working the land, well, that was okay. He would survive. He might even thrive. 

He didn’t know what the future would hold. 

And for the first time, that prospect was not frightening to him but exciting. 

He’d told Lita he was coming today, but he’d also told her that he’d arrive mid-afternoon and not to save lunch for him, he’d grab something on the way. In Tucson, he found a Target, where he looked for something he could bring to his hosts as a thank you present. Nothing struck his fancy, but he stopped off at a nearby Bookman’s, where he browsed for an hour or so before picking out a Southwest cookbook and a boxed set of Beatles CDs that he thought Lita and Dave would like. For lunch, he ate at a Subway in Benson that was adjacent to the gas station where he filled up, and it was shortly after two when he finally drove down the dirt road into Magdalena. 

As before, the directions to Lita’s ranch were on a piece of paper on the seat next to him, but this time he didn’t need them. He remembered the way and turned down the second dirt road, passed the beauty salon and houses, went into open country and turned in at the mailbox, going up the narrow drive until he reached the L Bar-D. He pulled up in front of the main house rather than the guest house, figuring he’d better check in first, but before he could even get out of the car, Lita was on the porch and waving him forward. “Park by the shack!” she called.  

Ross nodded, started the car again and drove around the house and several yards down, stopping on the side of the small building. 

Dave emerged from the guest house, where he’d been installing a new water-saver showerhead, just as Lita ran up. It was clear almost instantly that the two of them had been fighting— 

about him? 

—but they were both friendly and welcoming, individually if not together, and Dave helped him unload the heavier items while Lita brought over supplies such as paper towels and bottled water from the main house. The living room/sleeping area was larger than he remembered, which was good, because he’d brought quite a few things. He told Lita and Dave to just pile everything in the middle of the floor and on the counter, and he’d find a place for it. From the Bookman’s bag that he’d taken from the front seat, he withdrew the cookbook and Beatles CDs that he’d bought in Tucson. “Here,” he said, clumsily handing them over. “A little thank you present for letting me stay here.”  

“You didn’t have to—” Lita began. 

“All right!” Dave said. “The Beatles!” 

She shot him a look of disapproval. 

“And I want to pay rent,” Ross said. “Each month, I’m going to—” 

“No,” Lita and Dave said together. They looked at each other, and something like a smile passed between them. “You’re our guest,” Lita told him, “not our tenant. We invited you here. We’re not taking money from you.” 

“But—” 

“No buts, Rossie. Discussion over.” 

He recognized that voice from when they were young and knew it was futile to argue with her. “Thanks,” he said sincerely.  

“We’ll leave you alone, let you get settled. I’ll give you a shout out when dinner’s ready. You can eat with us or take it back here to the shack, whatever you want.” 

Already he felt awkward, an intruder in their lives. “Do you need some help?” he asked. “I’m not a great cook, but if you want someone to—” 

“I can handle it.” She smiled. “Just get yourself settled in. We’ll sort out the details tomorrow. And thank you for the cookbook. You didn’t have to go to all that trouble, but it was very thoughtful of you.”  

“The CDs, too!” Dave called as they headed out the door. “The Beatles,” Ross heard him say as they walked back to the house. “A boxed set!”  

He spent the rest of the afternoon putting things away, checking his email every other minute and walking around, pacing. He felt restless, unsure of what to do with himself, and thought he had probably made a huge mistake in coming here. He was not a rural/country/wilderness kind of guy; this wasn’t the place for someone like him. He wasn’t going to sit in his room and write a novel, wasn’t going to set up an easel and paint a picture of the surrounding scenery. He was an engineer, for God’s sake. He worked on projects, with other people, in a crowded office, and even his leisure activities involved city life. But out here he couldn’t go to movies or clubs or concerts, couldn’t hang with his friends at a pizza joint or do any of the things he usually did.  

At least he had his computer. 

He played
Plants vs. Zombies
and
Angry Birds
until Lita stepped into the yard and announced that it was time to eat. Glancing through the window, he was surprised to see that the day was gone and it was dark already. Walking between the two buildings, he could see the lights of town in the distance, slightly downslope, though the road to the ranch had seemed flat. Above, an amazing array of stars filled the sky, so thick in spots that they appeared to be clouds. He hadn’t noticed such details when he’d come up last month for the weekend, and it hit him that he was no longer a tourist. He lived here. For now, at least, this was his home. 

He had never felt more alone. 

Unsure of the etiquette involved, he knocked on the kitchen door and waited for Lita to open it before going inside. “Don’t be so formal,” she admonished him.  

“I wasn’t sure—” 

“If there’s something you’re not supposed to see,” she said, “the door will be locked. Otherwise, just come in. Our house is yours.” 

Sitting at the kitchen table, Dave reddened. 

“Well, uh, thanks,” Ross managed to get out. 

“Welcome to my world,” Dave said wryly.  

Lita smiled. “He loves it.” 

Neither of them were quite sure to what she was referring, so they did not respond as Ross sat down awkwardly at the table across from Dave.