A Man of Influence

by Melinda Curtis

  Tracy took a sip of her wine. “So. You look around. And see the Grim Reaper.”

  “No.” He pushed the plate of bruschetta and the wineglasses toward the wall and leaned forward, letting the words and his fears tumble out. “I see kids and grandkids losing sleep over their health—every cough, every stumble, every forgotten word. I see stubborn independent streaks that put their health at risk. I see hospital beds and bedpans and the responsibility of unraveling finances after years of neglect.” And then he saw his father’s manifesto and felt a surge of anger, still so fresh, it pushed his fears for others aside. “I see the best of intentions from family being taken for granted. Or worse, being feared.” Was that why his father had written his postmortem manifesto? Because he’d felt Chad had overstepped his power at Bostwick Lampoon?

  Tracy pushed his wineglass back to him. “You need another drink.”

  He took her advice and downed some more. It was good wine and deserving of a slower appreciation.

  “You...went through most of your life expecting them to kick the bucket. Before you saw them again.” Her gaze was as soft as blue velvet. “That’s scary. You’re still grieving.”

  “No.” Grief was the last thing he felt. It lagged behind loneliness and anger. The good thing about the anger was Chad was feeling more in control. “I haven’t been surrounded like this. Faced with so much inevitability and loss.”

  “Welcome to Harmony Valley.” Her mouth tilted up on one side. “I...never thought mortality would be your weakness.”

  Chad sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “I know. It’s not funny. It’s a hang-up.” Her smile blossomed and her hands rose above the table to accent each word. “Just like me. And the passenger seat. And like my scar. You think too much. About old people dying.”

  “Yes.” But he didn’t know how to stop. He raised his glass. “Here’s to accepting scars and living life.”

  She accepted his toast by clinking her glass to his.

  “What?” Mayra slid plates in front of them. She jabbed her finger at the uneaten bruschetta. “Our food is so horrible you can’t eat?”

  “It’s delicious. We were having a conversation,” Chad said. What felt like an important one.

  “Talk later. Eat now.”

  So they did.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A BOTTLE OF wine and a shared mini Bundt cake later, and Tracy was talking like the Tracy of old. Wine always helped her speech. It didn’t hurt that she felt comfortable with Chad after talking for an hour. “I can’t figure you out.” Or why she liked him so much.

  The dining room had nearly emptied. There were only two other patrons—two elderly men sitting at the bar. The music had been turned up while the staff cleaned the room and set up for breakfast.

  “I’m a man of mystery.” Chad was leaning in the corner, a content smile on his face. Such a difference from the tense man she’d found earlier. The lost look in his eyes had hooked her and the subsequent warmth in them when he calmed had reeled her in.

  “What was your first article about? The very first you ever wrote.”

  “For the Lampoon?”

  She nodded, determined to sort through his layers the way Jess sorted through Eunice’s crazy recipes.

  “I did a piece on VIP nightclubs in Las Vegas.” Pride rang in his words. She supposed he deserved it. He’d risen to the top of his field.

  But something about nightclubs nagged at her. “Ah. That’s how you knew.”

  “Knew what.” He stared at the bottom of his wineglass and then swallowed the last of the red wine.

  “About gurning.”

  He smiled.

  “What was the slant?” She added, “What did you make fun of?” Because he always made fun, in the same way he always seemed to be smiling. Only his humor was often at the expense of others. Often, she found, but not always.

  “I contrasted the conversation and the quality of clientele with a dive bar off the strip.”

  “Clever.” She’d have to look that one up. It sounded like a column she’d enjoy reading, unlike many of his more recent ones.

  The two old men at the bar put on their jackets and left. Chad and Tracy were the only remaining customers.

  Tracy wanted to ask Chad about his inconsistent slant to his bi-monthly columns—many were scathing, some weren’t—but try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him kindly, not when her town was at risk of becoming his target. “When did you become the subversive Happy Bachelor?”

  He frowned.

  “You have to know. Your writing isn’t just clever, it’s often merciless.” Because of the wine and the need not to think so hard about her speech, she refused to filter. “Your...last column put down people who camp in national parks. I’m sure your article had an impact on the number of visitors to Yosemite or Yellowstone. When did you write it? What was going on in your life?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very much so. Your sarcasm level varies. I want to know why.” She leaned forward and stared into those coffee colored eyes. “It was like you had a vendetta against campers. You wrote it seven months ago.”

  “My...” He shook his head. “My dad’s organs were failing.” His normal bravado—that smile, that twinkle in his eye—was missing.

  “And the column about the frequent fliers who would do anything to achieve their status?” They’d even fly red-eyes over the weekend for no reason other than to log the last few miles to the next level of status. “That one probably didn’t encourage more frequent flier sign ups.”

  “Written when Dad had a setback in his treatment, I think.” Chad looked almost as shell-shocked as he had when she’d first arrived. “This is... It means nothing.”

  “And the one about the cat lady you met in Istanbul?” The tour guide who had ten cats in a five hundred square foot apartment. She’d shown Chad nothing but kindness, and he’d ripped her to shreds on a personal level, not with anything that had to do with the quality and enjoyment of his tour. And wasn’t that a lesson Tracy needed to take to heart?

  “That one...I wrote after my mom passed away.” His face seemed unusually pale. “I remember because I wanted to cancel the trip, but Dad wouldn’t let me. It was part of a special edition at the Lampoon.”

  “I don’t think the tour guide’s bookings went up after you wrote the article, do you?” But it was as if a door had opened and she had a glimpse inside Chad’s soul—to the boy who feared he’d lose his parents too soon, to the man who saw death in the feeble. She wanted to take his hand and squeeze it until all the fear and the anger and the biting sarcasm were forced out of him.

  But she couldn’t go soft on him. He was grieving and therefore still seeking targets. He’d said it himself—he was searching for a story. If he could be made to see his own reflection in the mirror, maybe he’d go away.

  “You point out insecurities in others when you feel insecure,” she said.

  “I reject that.” But he frowned.

  “If you feel bad inside, go to the gym or take a drive, but don’t pick on a target that can’t defend itself.” Don’t pick on Harmony Valley.

  “You’re reading too much into this.”

  For a moment, she wondered. But she’d read through several years’ worth of his columns. “Go back and read your work. Place them against the timeline of your parents’ health.” And then because she couldn’t resist, she asked, “What would you write about El Rosal?”

  His dark brown gaze studied the restaurant the same way he’d done upon arriving at Martin’s yesterday morning.

  “I’ll tell you what you should write,” Tracy said. “It was excellent. The service, the diversity of the menu—from traditional Mexican to Italian-Mexican. And the dessert was superb.” She couldn’t help addin
g, “Especially the drizzled icing.”

  “You’re missing the contradiction.” He tapped the royal blue wall with his knuckles. “What are your expectations when you enter this place?”

  “About the same as when I approach a food truck with folding tables and chairs. I’m hopeful.” It felt so good to talk without constraints, but not good enough to forget why Chad’s attitude was dangerous. His influence could help bring new residents and tourists to town or send them away. “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “I can. People like it.”

  “Write that and Mayra will come after you.” The restaurant owner had harbored a longstanding feud with the owner of Giordanos until recently. “Nothing gets past Mayra.”

  “Did I hear my name?” The owner of El Rosal pushed open the kitchen door and smiled.

  “See?” Tracy reassured her they were fine. “Well, it’s been fun. But I’ve got to get up at 4 a.m.”

  “I’ll walk you home.” He stood and reached for his wallet.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Mayra swatted at him with a dish towel. “I told you it was on the house. And Mayor Larry paid for the wine.”

  “Then consider this a big tip.” He tossed two big bills on the table. “My compliments to the chefs.”

  How could a man so generous be so unaware of his own feelings? Tracy headed for the door.

  Chad caught up to her easily on the brick sidewalk. The old lamps were lit, bathing Main Street in soft light. The wind rustled the remaining leaves on the oak in the town square.

  “Go home. I’ll be fine.” She walked past the bakery.

  “Going around the back? That alley looked like it’d be dark at night.”

  “I’ll be fine.” There was a light over the back door. And she’d left so fast, she hadn’t taken her purse or her keys. No matter, the door would be unlocked.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  She turned the corner and quickened her steps. “I don’t want Chad Healy Bostwick to write an article on Harmony Valley. End. Of. Story.”

  “I notice you—”

  “Don’t say how you’ve helped me speak better. I had wine. Everything is easier with wine.” And easier when she was mad at him, which had nothing to do with him helping her. “But I won’t drink my way through life.” And Chad wouldn’t be around forever.

  * * *

  CHAD SAT AT the desk in his room later that night and stared at his list of ideas for his column: a stiff B&B owner who lived by old school rules, a mayor who did naked yoga in public, a gurning competition.

  Those three things made a great start to his column. Even so, he wasn’t sure if he should recommend his readers come to Harmony Valley. What hung in the balance? The quality of the wine. That unknown—not Tracy’s armchair psychiatry—were what held him back from writing a word. Dud or diamond? Despite the time warp, the old folks, naked yoga and gurning, he still wasn’t sure.

  He liked people here. He’d never really connected on a personal level to the residents of a place he was writing about before. Was that the problem? He liked and admired Tracy, but it was the elderly people whom he gravitated toward. He didn’t need a psychiatry degree to realize who they were replacing. He was man enough to admit he felt more in common with adults over the age of sixty than he did with most people his own age. The elderly were at a point in their lives where their trails had been blazed and they knew what paths they wanted to continue traveling and how they wanted to travel.

  Tracy was different. She was trying to find herself. Chad knew what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. For him, life wasn’t a blank canvas. It was a paint by number, planned work of art. And yet, Tracy was a part of the town’s appeal. The promise of what it could be to the younger generation.

  The cursor blinked its indecipherable code on the blank page.

  Only it wasn’t indecipherable. It said, “Welcome to Harmony Valley,” because that’s what most people said to him. Most of them said it with more sincerity than a hostess at a fine restaurant.

  He began typing.

  Welcome to Harmony Valley. Love to debate? Come verbally joust with the ice queen. Want to add some adventure to your yoga? Come commune with nature, clothing optional. For you dabblers in recreational drugs, turn that unpleasant side-effect into a trophy-winning skill.

  Chad slumped in his chair and pressed the delete key. That had to be the worst thing he’d ever written. He’d crafted a better column for the Seattle underground.

  The week after Dad died.

  Coincidence. Tracy was wrong. He wouldn’t disprove her claim by reading it now.

  Irregardless, Chad needed some fresh air.

  * * *

  TRACY SAT IN one of two kitchen chairs in her small apartment. She’d set the chair back against a pink stuccoed wall. Her video camera was on a tripod several feet away. Running. Recording Tracy in all her silent awkwardness.

  Dinner with Chad had left her torn. The man wreaked havoc on a woman—so pretty to look at, so charming to talk to, so annoying in his beliefs and lack of self-awareness. She’d come home and set up the camera in the hopes of being inspired.

  Inspired? No such luck. Doubts clung to words and stuck in her throat like peanut butter on crackers. What did she know about producing videos? She had two years experience writing thirty-second commercials and complimentary digital ads. She had six months experience writing thirty-second news pieces. It wasn’t as if she’d made a name for herself at either place.

  “This sucks.” Her words reverberated in the empty space. She’d have to record a voice over in her closet. It had shag carpet and all those clothes minimized sound bouncing off flat, pink surfaces.

  Tracy’s fingers curled. She longed for a paint brush and the absence of pink.

  Pink was optimistic and pristine and feminine. Not jaded or scarred or solitary.

  “I haven’t worn. A push-up bra. In nearly two years.” How was that for putting on record who she was today? She stared the camera down, feeling feisty. “I haven’t worn lipstick. Or blush. Or mascara.” All the armor women regularly used. She’d let herself become vulnerable. “No heels. No boots. No dresses.” No necklines with a hint of cleavage. No dangly, sparkly earrings meant to catch a man’s eye and show him how put-together she was. At least, in that she was honest.

  Forget Rose’s warning about her single status threatening to be permanent. “I’m...an old maid in the making.” She was broken. A female Humpty Dumpty. No man wanted a woman who wasn’t sure how to put herself together again.

  Something struck the front window. In the summer, moths had flown into the glass when she had the lights on at night. But it was too cold for moths and when something hit the window again, she had to assume. It was a rat.

  Tracy shut off the camera and opened the sash. Her windows were original to the house. There were no screens. She stuck her head out, but it didn’t take long to spot the rodent below.

  “Rapunzel.” Chad was bathed in the warm glow of a streetlight one story beneath her, looking like a modern day Prince Charming, if he’d been lost, because Prince Charming wouldn’t have stopped by Tracy’s castle. “Rapunzel, you cut your hair.”

  “If...you’re looking for nightlife, you won’t find any here.” She groaned. She even sounded like an old maid.

  “What’s the matter?” He took a step closer. “Indigestion?”

  “Keep your voice down. Mayra might hear you.” El Rosal was only a few doors away. “I’m not sick. I’m... I hate that I’m broken and different.” Different than she was before the accident. She hadn’t meant to say that to him. But she still felt some of the effects of the wine.

  Chad considered her for a moment. “You’ve been working on your video, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” A word laden with self-loathing. And then s
uspicion struck. “Did you try writing?”

  “Yes.” He stuffed that short word with the same disgust she had.

  “We suck.”

  He grinned. “Someone once told me it takes dreck to be inspired.”

  That someone had been her. “Wise words.”

  “Back to the dreck, then, in the hopes of being inspired.” He took one step and then turned back. “You’re a good kind of different, Tracy.”

  His words wrapped around her like a thick stadium blanket. She stood at her window, watching him until he disappeared around the corner.

  She was different. Harmony Valley was different. And different was good.

  Tracy turned the video camera back on, sat in her seat in front of that pink wall and began speaking.

  “I’m not put-together.” Just saying it should have undercut her confidence. It should have had her running to stop the recording. It didn’t. Her voice strengthened. “I’m a woman in pieces. Trying to see how what was me—and what is me—fit together. Most people tell me I’ll be okay.” Few told her she was okay now.

  But Chad had.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAD HAD TWO days left before he had to send Marty something. All he had was a crappy first draft. Everything hinged on the wine tasting today. He wanted it to be great wine. Except, the column would be so much better if it was as rotten as the pages he’d written.

  Breakfast at the B&B was as abysmal as his mood. Leona offered him a high-fiber bowl of cereal with nonfat milk. The coffee had the same bitterness as Leona’s attitude. He’d left without touching anything, stopped to chat with Flynn and Slade, who’d been having coffee on the patio at El Rosal with a man called Duffy, the father of the Poop Monster. Little Gregory had also been at their table, bundled up as if he was going on an expedition to the Himalayas. They’d invited Chad to join them, but he declined. Preferring to see what the bakery had to offer.

  The usual crowd was at Martin’s, minus the trio of town council ladies. The mayor sat at their table, looking a bit adrift without them. There was no line, and Tracy greeted him with a secret smile.