I sat there for a long time, holding the newspaper. I was studying the photograph of Swift, but the person I was thinking about was Elliot.
Many times over the years, especially at night—my son asleep in the next room, with no sound but the occasional creak of the hamster wheel—I had thought of reaching out to him. If I still drank, these would have been the moments I would have taken out the wine, and once I’d had a glass or two, writing to Elliot might have felt like a good idea.
But I didn’t drink anymore. I didn’t make up stories, either. Or fantasies that things were real that never were. I was once a woman who wanted, more than anything, to be part of a family, and for a period of eleven months I believed the Havillands had made me a part of theirs. I betrayed the love of a good man who would have stood by me forever, in favor of two people to whom I meant nothing more than an ice sculpture. Here today. Gone tomorrow.
How could I ask that Elliot trust me ever again, or believe anything I’d tell him, now?
That day at the hospital, though, as I sat in the lobby with my sleeping son wrapped in the blanket next to me, I had still believed we might find our way back to each other. For a few hours that night, I realized who the good man had been all along, and I still held out hope of a life with him.
After all this time, I had not forgotten a single moment of that night—the longest of my life.
It was sometime in the early hours of the next morning, probably, after the police officers and the child welfare advocate had concluded their interview with my son. Swift and Ava were long gone, back to their beautiful house on the shores of that beautiful lake, no doubt, delivering Swift’s son back to the yellow sports car that would bring him to his beautiful fiancée. Carmen was gone, too, but to a different place, from which she would not be returning, her broken-hearted mother by her side.
Early that morning, I had placed the call to Elliot to ask if he could pick us up. He had answered on the first ring. He’d told me he’d be there to get us as soon as he could. Abiding the speed limit.
Sometime during the four hours it took Elliot to get to the police station, I had taken out my wallet. Inside, there was that card, the one on which Ava had written her name and number as the person to call in case of an emergency.
That night I’d crossed out Ava’s name and written Elliot’s.
I still had the card, and on it, the number.
I set down the newspaper. I picked up the phone.
Acknowledgments
I embarked on the telling of this story—though I didn’t know yet what the story was going to be—in the spring of 2014. I’d moved into the home of the man who had recently become my husband, Jim Barringer—but there was a problem. (Or what passed for a problem, back in those days.) I had no place to work.
My friend Karen Mulvaney and her husband, Tom, made the most generous offer: to lend me the use of a wonderful little house they owned that was sitting empty at the time, for as long as I needed. They call it Bud’s house, and now so do I.
One thing I have learned over my many decades of holing up in various cabins, motel rooms, attics—and, once, an underground parking garage—to write: The room doesn’t have to be large or fancy (and probably should not be). But it needs to possess a certain feeling conducive to letting the imagination take flight. Bud’s house—with its big sunny window over the desk; its red refrigerator; its wide front porch where I’d sit with my coffee, reading the previous day’s work while a family of deer grazed under the fruit trees; and its little shed out back where the tractor sits, that Bud used to drive—has this quality in spades.
Just after dawn every morning, all that spring and into summer, I made my way over the hill to the town of Lafayette, California, to sit at the desk in that little red house and write this story. The first draft was completed there.
I should add that at the time I turned the key in the lock at Bud’s and fixed my first pot of coffee there, I had no clue what I’d be writing about. The idea for this story came directly from my meditation on the great gift of friendship, as I had most recently experienced it from Karen, and the memory of times in my life when I had placed trust in a friendship that disappointed me—as I have no doubt disappointed others in my own life as a friend. Years after the loss, I still shudder to think of it. There are not many losses more terrible.
Two very different young women—both dear to my heart—provided another form of inspiration for this story. Melissa Vincel has been a part of my life since she was seventeen years old, when she stepped onto the stage at the Kennedy Center to receive from me one of only twenty national Scholastic Writing Awards. Years later, we re-met at my Guatemala writing workshop, and for more than ten years now, Melissa has helped run that workshop and much more—with the gift of her writing talents, good instincts, supreme organizational skills, and matchless common sense, as well as her boundless zest for life.
In a manner not unlike that of my narrator, Helen (minus the substance abuse and child-custody issues), Jenny Rein has worked for me—sometimes with pay, and sometimes not—taking care of the least glamorous details in a writer’s life. When these details don’t get taken care of, the writer may never get around to writing the book. Mailing off contracts and paying bills is one part of what Jenny did, but she also evicted a family of raccoons from my house, helped arrange for the cross-country transport of a gypsy caravan, delivered a pair of hiking boots to me in a parking lot, and once even—when she could tell I needed to let off some steam—brought me to her favorite batting cage and lent me her personal batting helmet so I could take a swing at a few dozen fastballs. Jenny created her own little traveling file cabinet of my life, the details of which she knows better than I do, in certain ways. Hers is a phone number I call in case of an emergency. She always answers.
My sister, Rona Maynard, was—as she has been all my life—a deeply insightful reader of this manuscript. So, too, was my younger son, Wilson Bethel. It is a great day in the life of a parent (and I have many of these days now) when one of her children teaches her or points out something she had not seen herself. Many times, in his editorial suggestions, Wilson accomplished that.
When I needed to bring to life the character of a deeply lovable, somewhat uncool boyfriend for my narrator, Elliot—a man of great integrity who has made it his life’s mission to rout out financial fraud that bilks honest citizens out of their hard-earned money—I found my model (with some details notably changed) in my longtime friend David Schiff, a man I’d trust with my money far more readily than I’d trust myself, and loyal as the day is long. The details of Swift Havilland’s scam were constructed by David, who uncovers scams with as much zeal as others employ to perpetrate them.
At the age of not-yet-five, Landon Vincel contributed his choice of favorite Shel Silverstein poems, which not coincidentally also happen to be the favorites of the child in this novel, Ollie. Rebecca Tuttle Schultze and the gang at Mousam Lake, Maine—where I first encountered and rode in the Donzi—instructed me on the art of wave jumping on a Jet Ski. Margaret Tumas provided a key piece of veterinary advice important to my story concerning one food a person should never feed to her dog. The women of the Lafayette Library wrapped me in their warm embrace, as did Joe Loya, retired bank robber, writer, and my cohost for the Lafayette Library Writers’ Series. A fierce and loyal protector if ever there was one.
To ensure that I was writing with accuracy about the life of an independent woman with a spinal-cord injury, I sought out the invaluable counsel of Molly Hale, quadriplegic martial artist as well as cofounder and coexecutive director of Ability Production, an organization committed to bringing information and resources to the community of those who use wheelchairs. I would never speak of Molly’s constituency as “wheelchair-bound” or “confined to their wheelchairs,” because Molly sees no limitations, only opportunities.
My gratitude as always to David Kuhn, of Kuhn Projects, and to his West Coast counterpart, my trusted adviser, Judi Farkas, and the team at William Morrow: Kel
ly Rudolph, Kelly O’Connor, Tavia Kowalchuk, and Liate Stehlik. From across the ocean, I feel the tireless encouragement and enthusiasm of the extraordinary team at my French publishing house, Philippe Rey. I also wish to single out—among the many foreign publishers who have supported my work—my lovely Hungarian editor, Eszter Gyuricza. Highest praise and thanks to my agent Nicole Tourtelot, at the DeFiore Agency, who read and reread my manuscript, offering invaluable editorial suggestions that helped to make this a deeper, richer novel than the one I first delivered to her, and when we were done with all that, took out a ukulele and sang.
As always, I leave to the end my treasured editor and, now, dear friend, Jennifer Brehl, who told me she believed in me as a writer of fiction back in 2008, and has remained unfailingly committed to helping me grow as a writer with every novel (and for this one, reminded me—as the months passed—that no publishing deadline matters more than the health of a person you love).
This will be the fourth book we have worked on together. Jennifer is one of that small and dwindling breed of editor who truly edits every single page—line by line, word by word, with thought given to the placement of every comma. Writing is a deeply solitary act, but working with Jennifer, I feel the presence of a hugely perceptive and generous collaborator at my side at all times.
Finally, to my husband, James Barringer, who has faced down the toughest adversary—pancreatic cancer—for ten solid months and counting, and never stopped urging me to go back to work, in the room of my own he made possible for me, at last. In our four years together, so far, Jim has taught me what it is to have a true partner, and to be one.
Your book is still being written in my head, Jim. Your name on my heart.
About the Author
JOYCE MAYNARD is the author of eight previous novels, including To Die For, Labor Day, and The Good Daughters, and four books of nonfiction. Her bestselling memoir At Home in the World has been translated into sixteen languages. A fellow of the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and founder of the Lake Atitlán Writers’ Workshop, she makes her home in Northern California.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Joyce Maynard
FICTION
After Her
The Good Daughters
Labor Day
The Usual Rules
The Cloud Chamber
Where Love Goes
To Die For
Baby Love
NONFICTION
Internal Combustion
At Home in the World
Domestic Affairs
Looking Back
Credits
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover image by Cath Waters / Trevillion
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Copyright © 2016 by Joyce Maynard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN 9780062257727
ISBN 978-0-06-225764-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-241153-2 (international edition)
16 17 18 19 20 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
Under the Influence Page 29