A Man of Influence

by Melinda Curtis

  Agnes called Tracy over to a group of elderly in a row of chairs.

  Audience gone, Chad felt relieved. He needed to regroup. Should he invite Tracy to the B&B to read his column? Or ask her to dinner?

  He leaned over again and tried to screw the hinge on the other corner board. The screw fell to the ground and the boards inched apart. But Chad was determined to get this. He supported the boards with his knees, leaned upside down and tried to put another screw in. The screw slipped. The drill slipped. The tips of his fingers got drilled.

  He shouted. He nearly fell over the side of the walls on his head, but lurched back, only to drag his fingers up the plywood and tumble to his butt to the ground. The back of his head bounced off the pavement.

  Tracy’s face swam in front of his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Do I have any fingers left?”

  “The fact that you’re joking means you’re okay.” She stood and said to the crowd, “Give him space. He’s okay.” She resumed leaning over him.

  “This town hates me. Literally, it’s out to kill me.” Not any of the people specifically. Just the town in general.

  “If that were true...it’s doing a horrible job.” She took his arm and helped him up. “But...it might be karma from you trying to write one of your belittling columns about it.”

  “I don’t believe in karma.” He looked around at the elderly faces. They reminded him of his parents. This was a community he could simultaneously relate to and be concerned for. The contradictions were there. They’d been there the entire time. This was a place where old traditions contrasted with new ways, and where old people coexisted with the young. This is the story.

  That Pollyana story wouldn’t attract any advertisers.

  “I’m going to have you sit with Agnes while I finish up the hinges.” Tracy pointed him in the direction of others unable to help setup. Older others.

  Chad’s head throbbed. He glanced down at Tracy, wishing he could look at her all day. “You know how to operate power tools?”

  “Hello?” She patted his arm gently, as if she knew he was battered all over. “I grew up on a farm.”

  Chad walked away, but not to the peanut gallery. He pulled out his phone and dialed Marty.

  “I had you on my list of people to call today,” Marty said by way of greeting. His tone was riddled with a bad-news vibe. “That article you sent wasn’t the slam dunk I needed.”

  Chad sat on the curb, rubbing a palm over his forehead, trying not to lose his cool, trying to think fast to avoid disaster.

  “What happened to you, man? The slick killer instinct is missing in these pages. It’s as if you just wanted to kill the town, nothing slick about it.”

  Marty had to have misread the column. Chad stood and headed for the B&B at a good clip. “Give me another shot at it.” He could edit it into something better.

  “I’m sorry, Chad. We’re going to have to back out.”

  “There’s a cancellation clause, Marty.” Chad’s words snapped with anger. If he lost Marty, the rest of his sponsors would almost certainly bail. “It’s gonna cost you.” Twenty percent.

  “You know how this works.” Marty’s uneven rumble smoothed. “You invoke that penalty and I won’t work with you again.”

  Chad didn’t need the advertising money as much as he needed Marty’s goodwill. Still, he was mad enough not to bow down. “I’ll let you know what I decide on Monday.”

  News of No Wrinkles backing out would travel fast. Media-buying execs were networked tighter than the small town gossip chain.

  Chad returned to the B&B to wait out the avalanche of cancellations he was sure would come. And come, they did.

  The Lampoon had won this round. If he launched his website on Sunday without sponsors, it’d be like saying, “I’m nobody.” It’d be like saying, “Dad won.”

  Or it could be an entirely different statement. “Take that, world, the Happy Bachelor doesn’t need anybody.”

  * * *

  THE PEBBLES HIT Tracy’s window just as she was thinking of turning off her laptop and starting dinner.

  She opened the front window, sticking her head out into the chilly night air. “I should give you my cell phone number before you break a window.”

  Chad stood below her, more serious than she’d ever seen him. “Have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Come with me to El Rosal. The early-bird-special diners have left. My treat.”

  Tracy hesitated. The man standing below her wasn’t just plain Chad. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “I still owe you something romantic.” Was that desperation in his voice?

  Tracy felt her resolve weakening and shored it up. “El Rosal isn’t romantic.” No matter how much she liked the food.

  “Don’t let Mayra hear you say that.” Chad pulled a small tablet from his inner jacket pocket. “I brought my column.”

  So much for romance.

  A few minutes later, they were seated at a roomy booth and receiving excellent service in the near empty restaurant. If the veterans hall became popular, El Rosal’s business would increase. If the winery succeeded, the town’s population would increase. If Chad wrote a good column, it could be like a perfect storm of fairy dust and rainbows over Harmony Valley.

  Tracy took off her rose-colored glasses. “Let’s get this over with.” She raised her voice to be heard above the salsa music and reached across the table. “Were you kind? Or did you unleash your inner beast?”

  “I wrote it for my audience.” There was a defensiveness about him that clung like the smell in the veterans hall had clung to her boots.

  His audience? “At the Lampoon?”

  “I’ve been hoping to draw those readers over to my site, so yes. Lampoon readers.” He drummed his fingers over the tablet case nervously. “My advertising sponsor didn’t like it. In fact, I lost all my advertisers today.” He handed her the tablet.

  She hesitated reading it. Sponsors bailing was bad news. Really bad news. Chad looked more beat up than he had after Lilac tried to run him over. But she wasn’t here to give him sympathy.

  Tracy read the column quickly, with a sinking heart. While he talked with Enzo about which wine to choose, with the press of a few buttons she emailed the file to herself. “This...reminds me of the cat lady piece. You...make us sound like a town lost in time, one that should stay lost.”

  “I praised the winery, the bakery, El Rosal and Giordanos.” He frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t my best piece. But it was interesting?”

  Tracy hesitated, realizing he was asking her a question rather than defending his work. He’d never not defended his work before. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize your voice in this. It’s not clever. It’s cruel, which makes it hard to read. You liken Leona...to a prudish horror-movie villainess. You posted a picture of Snarky Sam...next to one of a twenty-year-old drug addict mid-gurn. And you wrote naked yoga isn’t as pleasurable...with an old naked man as with starlets in Hollywood.”

  “I admit...it’s not my best.” He turned his fork over and back, and over and back again. “When you summarize it like that, it sounds bad.”

  “It is bad.” She returned the tablet to him. “That piece...won’t help you relaunch the Happy Bachelor. That’ll kill the column.” If that was what she wanted, why did she long to reach across the table and cover his hand with hers? “Change of topic. I finished my video.”

  “Really?” He forced cheer into his tone. “What is it that makes Tracy Jackson unique?”

  “The usual, boring things—dreck—that make it worth getting up every morning.” It was her turn to fiddle with the silverware, to admit something personal. “This town. My family and friends. My scar. My unique speech. The knowledge that life can change.” She snapped. “In an instant. So why let dreams pa
ss you by?”

  “That’s awesome. Look how you didn’t give up on your dreams and things turned around. Have you sent it in?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “I’m going to stay here. I’m going to freelance in town. As it grows—”

  “You have a college degree and you’re going to waste it here?” His disapproval stabbed at her confidence, threatening to puncture it.

  She held on to that hard-won confidence. “I’ve...been looking for a challenge. And I found many. Right here.” She tapped the table with her forefinger. “I’m changing my dream. I want to live here. And do work that is fun. And challenging.”

  “That’s quitting.” His lip curled. The man she’d known these past few days was gone. She wasn’t sure she recognized the man sitting before her. “Reach higher, Tracy.”

  “I did reach high.” She struggled to keep her voice down. “I succeeded in advertising. I can move on to creating a life that’s important to me. I can ask what if. Maybe you should think about moving on, too.”

  He wouldn’t look at her. The happy, smiling man she found so captivating was nowhere to be found. “You’re moving backward. I’m moving on.”

  “You’re not.” She did raise her voice then, raised it higher than the pulsing salsa music, high enough Mayra could probably hear her in the kitchen. “You’re...trying to write the same column you’ve written for years. You’re scared of spreading your wings. Scared of seeing what else is out there. You’re hoping this little website of yours will get your job back. But what happens if it does? You’re going to be just as unhappy as you were before.” She slid out of the booth. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  Tracy had known this was what he’d write. She might have hoped it’d be more skillfully written, but she never should have hoped for anything different. And tomorrow at the Harvest Festival, she wasn’t going to be silenced. She was going to let the town know exactly what Chad thought of them.

  For his own good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAD ENTERED THE town square on the morning of the Harvest Festival with a heavy heart.

  In his own way, he’d come to love the small town and care for its residents. So his attempt to write a column about them had been a disaster? He’d move on. He’d rebuild. And every so often, he’d think about the handyman gang, Eunice, or Tracy. Especially Tracy. And when he thought of her, his heart would give a painful squeeze and his lungs would feel leaden and he’d wonder what might have been if he’d been smarter or braver or a better writer.

  The parking spaces on Main Street were full and there were several generations of people congregating around the town square. The relatives had arrived.

  There was Nina Valpizzi with her grandkids. Did they notice her attention tended to wander and she was forgetting things? There was the mayor with a woman who might have been his daughter. They shared the same aquiline nose. Had she noticed the spot on Larry’s face that needed checking for cancer? There was Takata with his walker and...Mildred?

  Chad couldn’t resist walking over. “Hey, you two.”

  “Don’t even say it,” Mildred said. “We’re just friends.”

  Takata chuckled. “I’m going to enter the nail-driving competition and she’s going to bowl with pumpkins. Wish us luck.”

  “And good luck to you, Chad.” Mildred clasped her hand over his with that unconditional warmth and trust everyone in town had offered him. “We expect great things from you and your column.”

  Chad didn’t tell them there’d be no column He just moved on.

  There was plenty of food to be sampled. Martin’s Bakery had set up a booth and packaged up cookies, brownies and Bundt cakes for sale. Not to be outdone, El Rosal had a grill going behind their patio. It smelled heavenly.

  “Chad.” Rutgar slapped him on the back hard enough to dislodge a peanut stuck in his throat. If a peanut had been stuck in his throat. “If you ever want to write an article about living off the land, you know where to find me.”

  The mayor pumped his hand. “You let me know anything you need to make your column about us shine. We’ve enjoyed having you here.”

  After a string of other goodbyes—all expecting great things and delivered with nice words—Chad was saved by Flynn, who handed him a beer and led him over by the grill. “The key to these things,” Flynn said. “Is to stay on the sidelines. The older generation really gets into the traditions.”

  “What does the younger generation usually do?” Try as he might, he couldn’t catch sight of Tracy.

  “Try not to get involved.”

  But Flynn’s philosophy was hard to live by when Agnes asked Flynn to judge the gurning contest.

  Chad laughed.

  “You, too,” Agnes said sternly to Chad. “Your face is too beautiful for the gurn, but we need judges.”

  As judges, Flynn, Chad and Duffy had to sit on the stage and try to take the contestants seriously. They failed miserably.

  And then Chad caught sight of one of the Bostwick Lampoon’s writers in the crowd. Mark Nesbit laughed harder and louder than anyone.

  After the competition, which Sam won, Chad worked his way down to his former employee’s side. He shook Mark’s hand like any civilized man would do, but inside his territorial instincts were snarling. “What are you doing here, Mark?”

  “I’m writing the Lampoon’s travel column now. We’re retitling it The Sophisticated Bachelor.” Mark got a good look at Chad’s banged up face. “What happened to you, man? Brawl over a woman? Spent the night in the drunk tank?”

  “I got run over by a Cadillac.”

  “There’s a story for you.” Mark surveyed the crowd with an ear-splitting grin. “I can’t believe you were judging that last event. Are you related to someone here? That was one of the tackiest competitions I’ve ever seen.” Considering Mark was in his twenties and hadn’t seen a lot of the world, his observation meant little to Chad. But readers of the Lampoon might believe him.

  Chad felt the first wave of anger wash over him. “Gurning isn’t tacky. It’s included to give older people something to participate in.” His explanation fell on deaf ears.

  Mark had the attention span of a gnat. “Did I hear there’s going to be pumpkin bowling?”

  “Yes.”

  Mildred was waiting to take her turn. The lane had been marked with chalk powder in the grass. The pins were two-liter soda bottles filled with water and then frozen.

  “Smashing pumpkins. Best played drunk, I bet.” Mark nodded toward the beer in Chad’s hand. There was nothing sophisticated about the little man. He wore a wrinkled beer brand T-shirt, a pair of off-brand blue jeans and sneakers with holes near one toe.

  “Actually, it’s more a game of skill.” The pumpkin stood little chance of surviving against ten frozen pins. The winner was the one who knocked down the most pins without destroying their pumpkin.

  “That’s a hoot.” Mark leaned back and howled at the blue sky, drawing several frowns from the crowd. “This is better than the retirement party they threw for my grandfather at the pork factory.” Mark got out his cell phone. “I’ve got to take video of this. That old biddy is setting aside her walker. I bet she falls.”

  In that moment, Chad realized several demoralizing things. He didn’t like his former employees at the Lampoon. And he was afraid Tracy was right. He’d been cruel and callous and without scruples, like Mark. And yes, he was scared to death to spread his wings and try something different, something that didn’t rise to the top by putting others at the bottom. He’d been too stubborn to see it, too stupid to get o
ut of his own way.

  Of more immediate concern was the possibility that Mildred would fall and Mark would capture it on video.

  Chad made a quick decision. He bumped into Mark hard enough to send them both to the ground and dumped his beer on his former star employee. Mark’s cell phone clattered to the pavement a few feet away. Chad helped Mark to his feet at the same time he ground his heel on Mark’s cell phone. “Sorry, dude. Someone knocked me over.”

  “Or maybe you’ve been drinking too much. Now I smell like a brewery.” Mark spotted his cell phone. “Oh, man. My screen shattered.” He slid his fingers across the screen. It remained blank. “It’s broken. How am I supposed to report this now?”

  “You’re not supposed to, Mark. This story is not for you. Go back to reporting about politicians who cheat on their taxes. And tell the new editor-in-chief that Harmony Valley is off-limits to the Lampoon.”

  “Seriously? You can’t do that.” But Mark’s laugh was nervous.

  “Mark, look at my face—” his beat up face. “—and then tell me I’m not serious. Because otherwise we can head over to that alley and we’ll see how you look when we’re done.”

  Mark hurried away.

  Chad looked for Tracy. Tracy was fearless. She’d stood up to him from day one. She fought constantly to improve herself and to fly in new directions. She’d be proud of what he just did.

  And then he saw her standing in front of the microphone with a look his way that said she was anything but proud of him.

  * * *

  “I HAVE AN announcement to make.” The last time Tracy took the microphone on this stage, she’d been the Grand Marshall of the Spring Festival. That was nearly a year and a half ago. She’d been just as scared to speak in front of the crowd as she was now.

  Deep down, she knew Chad wasn’t a tear down or a throw away. This was her way of helping him. But in doing so, he’d never speak to her again.