The Influence(17)

“Is he cute?” JoAnn asked. “I heard he was cute.”

“He is, actually. But why are you asking?”

“Yeah.” Lurlene nodded toward JoAnn’s husband. “Ain’t your man keepin’ you satisfied?”

“As a matter of fact, no, he isn’t.” They all laughed. “But I was asking for my sister.”

“Becky’s back?” Lita asked, surprised.

“She will be. Back and single. I’m just trying to keep her options open.”

Lurlene put a hand on Lita’s arm. “Honey, don’t let your cousin anywhere near Becky.”

“That’s not funny!” JoAnn objected, but the rest of them thought it was, and the wild Becky stories started flying.

Lita paused to get a drink—the nonalcoholic punch, for now—and by the time she returned, Lurlene had wandered off. Since Darla had been sick in the weeks leading up to Christmas and they hadn’t seen each other in awhile, there was some catching up to do, and the three of them did so, staking out a corner where they could talk privately.

Dave eventually extricated himself from Cameron’s circle and began to mingle, gradually working his way over to Lita. He gave her a quick kiss, and she was surprised to taste nothing stronger than beer on his lips. “Having fun?” he asked her.

“Actually,” she said, “I am.”

“See?”

“What about you?”

“Not so much,” he admitted.

They both laughed.

Father Ramos was there at the party, parked at the dessert table, but his presence wasn’t the deterrence to bacchanalia that Lita wished it had been. He was in his most jovial, convivial mood, gladhanding everyone, and while conversation in his immediate vicinity was cleaned up considerably and those nearby, the Mexican workers who formed the backbone of his congregation in particular, were on their best behavior, alcohol was still being consumed in copious amounts. She could tell that, instead of toning things down as the evening wore on, the faithful were going to end up reveling as hard as the heathens, although perhaps making up for it by being more contrite in their confessions the next day.

As in previous years, things started to get rowdy by about ten.

Somewhere by the barbecue, two men got into a shouting match loud and serious enough that others had to speed over and separate them before the argument escalated. Lita saw a woman bent over a corral fence, loudly vomiting. Behind her, one young man she didn’t recognize was thrusting his hips in her direction, pantomiming having sex with her, while a group of friends, including Lee, the stockboy from the grocery store, and Boo, the mechanic, laughed uproariously.

It was all downhill from here. She knew what was going to happen. As midnight approached, the firearms would come out. To herald the arrival of the new year, redneck ranchers and Mexican cowhands, united for that one magical moment, all of their differences pushed aside, would shoot their guns into the air, whooping and hollering. It was pure luck that no one had been injured or killed yet by one of their bullets plummeting back to earth, but as far as she was concerned, it was only a matter of time, and she wanted to make sure that she and Dave were gone by the time this year’s idiotic ritual was enacted.

Dave had gone off with a couple of other organic farmers who wanted to check out Cameron’s barn and see how the other half lived. She found the three of them chatting with Jorge in front of a narrow pen housing a milky-eyed and shockingly overweight veal calf. In broken English, the foreman was trying to defend Cameron’s indefensible cattle raising practices, but she could tell that he didn’t believe what he was saying. Neither did his audience, who kept asking him how livestock could be treated so inhumanely.

“Tell to Senor Holt,” Jorge kept saying. “Tell to Senor Holt.”

Lita grabbed the sleeve of Dave’s shirt, tugging on it. “I want to go home,” she told him.

He looked at his watch. “It isn’t even eleven yet.”

They’d talked about this before, and she looked straight in his eyes to make sure he understood. “I’m tired, I’m cold, I want to go.”

He did understand. He nodded. “Okay.”

It was getting cold, and Lita wasn’t sure why she hadn’t brought a jacket. Stupid. Dave bid his friends a happy new year, and the two of them walked out of the barn into the night air. A sharp breeze had sprung up in the last few minutes, and Dave put an arm around her shoulders to stave off some of the chill. A few other people—families with kids, mostly—were also starting to leave, getting out before the shooting started and things got out of control.

By the corral, Cameron and one of his buddies had already cornered Doris Stiever, the part-time gas station cashier whose husband was deployed in Afghanistan. She let out a shriek that would have been a cry for help if she hadn’t been drunk, but was playful and flirty because she was.