43
Adam’s possessions, the ones he plans to take with him to Belleville, require exactly eleven boxes, eight of them for books. He could probably live without the books if it comes to that. But they’re easy to box and they are the only objects, along with his mother’s paintings, about which he allows himself to be sentimental. Half the books belonged to his parents—his mother’s art and photography books, the old man’s biographies and histories. He will build a shelf for them in Polly’s place. Not some college-kid thing made out of plywood and cinder blocks, and not some prefab IKEA shelf. He will build a real one, borrowing tools from Mr. C or someone else in town.
His life in Baltimore is almost as neatly packed away as his possessions. The lease on his apartment will end February 1, phone and utilities will be turned off then, too. On Christmas Eve, he’s going to drop to one knee and ask Polly to marry him. So why not cancel his apartment by December 31?
Because I’m not sure what she’s going to say.
When he’s in his soon-not-his apartment, he checks two, three times a day to make sure that the blue velvet box is safe in its hiding place. He goes to look at it again now, nestled inside a box of tampons that some woman left behind, he’s not even sure who. Someone gambling that she was going to be spending more time with him than she ever did, that’s for sure. Since Adam’s marriage ended, he’s never come close to living with anyone. A month, maybe two, was the most time he put in with a woman.
Then Irving Lowenstein hires him to follow Pauline Hansen and the next thing he knows is that he’s in love with Polly Costello. A woman who killed one man, walked out on another. But he’s the one who almost got her killed. He can’t forget that.
Maybe he shouldn’t ask her to marry him until he’s man enough to tell her that.
Irving’s lawyer keeps calling Adam, asking him to come see him in the city lockup, where he’s being held without bail. The lawyer leaves a message every three days or so. “Irving Lowenstein would like to see you.” “Checking back to see if you’d like to visit Mr. Lowenstein.” “I’ve identified you as a contractor for my firm, so you don’t have to worry about filling out a visitor’s application. You’ll be treated as an employee of the firm.”
Adam has nothing to say to that snake. He owes him nothing. Sure, he felt guilty last summer when he fell in love with Polly, but he still did right by Irving. Irving Lowenstein, teller of tall tales, pretending that a vulnerable woman ripped him off, preyed on kids, when he’s the one who was trying to kill her all along.
It is December 21, a Thursday. That means Christmas falls on a Monday this year, a nice three-day weekend for regular folks who won’t even notice how many other people still have to work December 25. Cops, firefighters, waiters at Chinese restaurants. And there’s not even Chinese food in Belleville. Adam bets the only thing open December 25 will be the Royal Farms near the soon-to-be bypass. Belleville is beautiful at Christmas—and he has never found it more cloying. It has a real It’s a Wonderful Life vibe, and It’s a Wonderful Life is only the most depressing movie ever made. Work your whole life, be good, and maybe your friends will save you. Except they probably won’t, and every small town is Pottersville in the end.
He decides he won’t take his books to Belleville on this trip, or his other boxes. It will look presumptuous, even if he and Polly did live together for part of the fall. Going forward, things between them will be stated, out in the open. He will tell her that he was hired as a private investigator to follow her, that he never knew Irving was trying to harm her. If she forgives him, he’ll ask her to marry him.
That said, there’s no law he has to wait until Christmas Eve to propose. She’ll be looking for something then. Why not do it—tonight? No one expects a proposal on December 21. Polly doesn’t even expect him to be there. When he’d first told her he didn’t think he could get away until Saturday afternoon, at the earliest, they both agreed that it might be better for him to drive over Sunday morning as the roads would be wretched that afternoon. But he’s been to the bank, deposited his checks for his last two gigs and there’s not a lot of work this time of year. His last job, in fact, was so awful it made him want to quit PI work forever. Some poor woman with five kids, shopping at the Dollar Tree, was hit by a car, all her cheap little presents scattering in the wind. No one was at fault—it was dark, she stepped off a curb—and the tortured good citizen behind the wheel immediately established a fund in her name. But the sister who stepped up to take donations on the kids’ behalf turned out to be completely shifty. The driver called Adam, and Adam sussed it out in less than two days. The woman, under a slightly different name, had several penny-ante convictions—bad checks, stealing some stuff from a roommate. Real People’s Court shit. There was no way she should be overseeing that fund.
But the part that soured Adam on his job was the happy client giving him a bonus for scaring the shit out of the shady sister. It was as if her misdeeds cleared the slate for the poor mope, made him feel less guilty about the accident. True, she’d probably skimmed some money off the donations that came in, but there was still almost $5,000 for the five kids, which will help. It won’t send them to college, but it will buy groceries, keep the heat on. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money.
It’s almost enough to buy a canary yellow engagement ring.