Bad Influence

Bad Influence Summary | Detailed Summary

Rita, the narrator of this story, is an "almost" fifteen-year-old girl with attitude. When she and her best friend Meli lie to their parents and get caught spending the night with two boys, Rita's parents give her a choice of punishments. She can either spend the summer with her grandparents in Puerto Rico or she can go on a convent retreat for Catholic girls. Rita chooses to go to Puerto Rico, though she really wishes she could stay in her hometown of Paterson, New Jersey.

Normally, Rita sees her grandparents once a year and spends most of her time in Puerto Rico on the beach with her cousins. This time, however, none of her cousins are on vacation at the same time. When Rita arrives in hot and humid Puerto Rico, she is greeted by her grandparents, Papa Juan and Mama Ana, and about a dozen other neighbors and friends. They all jostle to help her with her bags and a caravan of cars returns to Rita's grandparents' home. The ride is so hot and crowded that Rita decides to practice Zen calming methods, and her grandmother mistakes her deep breaths for asthma.

At Ana and Juan's house, Rita tries to take a nap but is repeatedly interrupted by Ramon, the family rooster that has no sense of time, and the noise of the people in the neighborhood. Though she's annoyed, she's able to sleep briefly and she dreams of Johnny Ruiz, the boy with whom she got caught staying overnight. After her nap, she goes into the living room where her grandmother gives her tea "for her asthma." Mama Ana settles down to watch her telenovela (soap opera) and Rita feels so misplaced that she considers calling her mother and going on the convent retreat instead. She realizes, however, that her grandparents don't have a phone. The closest one is at a neighbor's house.

Rita goes to bed early. Before she falls asleep, she thinks about Johnny and her friend Meli. She doesn't think her parents understand dating, because they would like her to end up with a boy from a family with whom they are familiar. Though she never slept with Johnny, Rita thinks about it, because it would be cool to date a basketball player, and Johnny usually dates older girls and expects them to have sex. Rita's thoughts are interrupted when Mama Ana comes in to say goodnight and tell her they will be waking up early to accompany Papa Juan to a job by the beach. Juan is a "medium" or "spiritist" who can see into people's hearts in order to help them with spiritual problems. Tomorrow, they are scheduled to meet with a girl who has stopped eating and refuses to talk to her mother. Ana also tells Rita that when she was a young girl, she had wanted to be a dancer, but she met Juan and got married when she was fifteen and began having babies instead. Rita falls asleep thinking about Johnny.

Rita's grandparents wake her up at four in the morning. Rita tries to use her assumed asthma as an excuse to stay in bed. Ana offers to stay with her and plans to call the comadre (Spanish for godmother) over to make some strong tea. This option is no better than the first, so Rita says she is feeling better.

They drive to the girl's house, and on the way, Rita falls asleep. She wakes up to find the car parked at a house on the beach: a large house painted pink and white. Outside, the ocean looks beautiful. Mama Ana is on the beach in the water, catching crabs, and she calls Rita over to see what she's caught. She offers Rita some café con leche. Though Rita usually hates it because it's too sweet, she takes some and is surprised to find that she enjoys it.

Papa Juan is having a session with the troubled girl and her mother. The sixteen-year-old girl, Angela, is so skinny that Mama Ana thinks she has "packed her bags for the other world." Mama Ana blames the girl's problems on a man living in the house, a "mala influencia" (Spanish for bad influence). Ana and Juan could feel the bad influence in the house. Angela's mother also seems to have some problems. Papa Juan will interview each person then decide which spirits need to be called on for help. If a bad spirit rests over the house, the job will be to decide what it wants or needs.

After helping Ana pull in the crab traps, Rita goes for a walk down the beach. She collects shells and sees some dolphins. She wonders how the girl in the pink house could be sad in an environment as beautiful as this beach. When she's done walking, she eats lunch and falls asleep. She wakes to Juan's voice. She pretends to sleep so she can eavesdrop. Juan verifies that the man is the agent for the evil spirit. Angela shows evidence of physical abuse and she seems frightened.

Juan drops into something like a trance then wakes up and writes in his notebook. He plans to tell the woman to kick the man out of the house, prepare some herbs that will cleanse the home, and give the girl tea and instructions to help her mother. Juan and Ana decide to send Rita to invite the girl, Angela, to dinner, so they wake her. Rita goes to the house and Angela's mother, an actress for toothpaste commercials, answers. Rita invites Angela to dinner, but her mother doesn't think she will come. However, Angela emerges from her room, grabs Rita's hand and takes her outside.

Angela speaks to Rita in English, which she learned by spending time with her stepfather, an American, in New York. At the crab feast on the beach, Rita eats a lot, but Angela only picks at the food and Ana encourages her to eat more. Before Angela returns to the house, Ana invites her to Rita's fifteenth birthday party, and Angela accepts.

The next two weeks pass uneventfully. Rita gets a blue satin cocktail dress for her birthday. Ana plans a big party with friends and neighbors.

The day of the party arrives and the house is prepared with food, Japanese lanterns and a record player for salsa music. Many people come to the party, including Angela and her mother, who arrive in a white limousine. In addition to looking healthier, Angela tells Rita that her mother kicked the bad influence out of the house.

The party is a success; everyone has a great time. Rita's attitude toward her grandparents softens and she sees them as a pair of kind, fun loving people who are well respected in the community.

For the rest of her trip, Rita spends a lot of time at the pink house. She and Angela become great friends and make plans for Angela to visit Rita in New Jersey. When Rita tells Angela about Johnny Ruiz, they decide he might be a mala influencia, too. In return, Angela tells about her father who had left when she was five, her stepfather who had died in a plane crash, and the worst of all, the man with the bad spirit Juan had chased away. Rita realizes that Angela and her mother believe that Juan has special powers, too.

In early August, Rita's family arrives in Puerto Rico, and another caravan greets them. Rita's mother isn't sure how to treat her daughter, perhaps not believing Ana's letters that said Rita was enjoying her summer and not having any asthma attacks. To dispel her mother's fears, Rita hugs her mom and asks Meli. Meli had gone on the Catholic girl's retreat and enjoyed it so much that she was planning on switching schools.

Instead of being disappointed, Rita laughs because both she and Meli had actually enjoyed the punishments their parents had come up with. Rita even started taking medium lessons and had learned how to tell when a person is troubled.

The story ends as Rita settles into the car ride and starts to think how she can meet up with Meli to scope out the cute basketball players at St. Mary's.