The Christmas Promise(3)
“It’s my birthday,” she said. “My daughter and her family have asked me to celebrate with them. One only turns fifty once, you know!”
A loud gust of air shot over my teeth before I could rein it back in. “Ha!” Miriam’s eyes narrowed, looking at me. “Fifty! Well…congratulations…again,” I added, under my breath.
“Would you watch the house for me?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Just keep an eye open and notify the police if anyone drops off any unsightly rubbish.”
I cringed. It was really hard to like that woman.
The bus was packed that morning. Several people had shoved their backpacks up against the window to eke out a few minutes of sleep between stops. Twenty-four-year-old Chaz McConnell sat next to a fat man who was somehow under the impression that he had rights to Chaz’s seat as well. Chaz spent the majority of the ride claiming his armrest and foot space while watching the snow fall outside.
The bus drove through the town square and pulled in front of the bus stop, which was nothing more than a small storefront a few blocks from town with a bench in front of it. Chaz grabbed his backpack and inched his way out of the seat; the fat man never bothered to get up. Chaz pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up and saw apartments just up the street. A one-bedroom apartment was available and he could move in after he paid a one-month deposit and the first month’s rent. He pulled out a wad of money and walked into the apartment with everything he owned stuffed into a backpack. Later in the day he saw a futon and its frame by the Dumpster and made his way across the parking lot to check it out. He noticed that the owner of the house across the road was replacing Christmas lights on the trees in front of his home.
“Those lights have been up all year,” a neighbor woman said when she saw Chaz looking at them. “They keep them on all the time.” The neighbor woman kept talking about the lights but Chaz ignored her, examining the futon frame. One leg was broken but he knew he could just prop it up on something and have a suitable bed. He dragged it up the three flights of stairs to his apartment and put it against the pale beige wall in the bedroom. Days later he found a small black-and-white TV with poor reception by the Dumpster, and a few days after that a card table. He used milk crates as chairs for the table and drawers for the few clothes he owned. As far as he was concerned, he had all the furniture he needed.
When Chaz started the walk to Wilson’s Department Store on Monday it was barely drizzling, but when he approached the town square there was a deluge. The streetlamps had been wrapped with evergreen and topped off with red bows. Several of the storefronts were decorated for the Christmas season, including the barbershop, which had managed to put a waving Santa in the front window to announce the special cut and shave of the week. When he passed the church on the square, several people were coming out of the basement and darting for their cars. He meandered between them and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, making a dash for the entrance of Wilson’s. It was busy inside, but that was to be expected right before Thanksgiving. He took off his sweatshirt and held it away from himself, running his fingers through soggy hair.
“Good morning,” a sales associate said behind a stack of ladies’ sweaters she was carrying. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Mr. Wilson told me to come in this morning to fill out paperwork for a job.”
“The office is just up the stairs behind the purses.” The stack of sweaters tumbled to the floor but Chaz ignored them, walking past the salesgirl toward the small flight of stairs. The store was old: As he looked at the elevators, his guess was it dated back to the early 1950s, but they’d done a lot of remodeling over the years. The floor on the main aisle was made of bright white tiles. The cosmetics and jewelry counters faced each other on the main aisle, and oversized lit Christmas stars and bulbs dangled from the ceiling above each counter. The men’s and women’s departments were on either side of the main aisle, with carpeting in shades of burgundy and green. Beyond the cosmetics counter were shoes and ladies’ handbags, and the stairs leading to the office.
Chaz took the stairs by two and found the small office. A woman wearing a red sweater covered with green and silver beaded ornaments was on the phone. She had a small sign on her desk that read JUDY LUITWEILER. “I’m sorry,” she said when she hung up the receiver. “My daughter’s having a baby any day now and I keep calling her. Anxious grandma, you know!” She spun her hands in the air and Chaz tried to smile but was too wet to care.