when I was scheduled to arrive in Minneapolis the next day. I left a message on her answering machine and on her cell phone, inviting her to meet me at the airport and spend the weekend with me at the Saint Paul Hotel.”
I shuttered. This would have been Adams’s first attempt to contact Christina in ten weeks, and I could sense the outcome.
“I got on the Internet to see what was going on back home that weekend. I bought two tickets online to Turandot —her favorite opera. It was opening at the Ordway Saturday night.”
A smile filled my face. This detailed information was not absolutely essential to Adams’s story, but was just the kind of description he always felt compelled to provide. I was on vacation, but I couldn’t stop being an editor.
As Adams continued his story, my smile vanished. I knew this was headed for a tragic ending. Yet there was still a hint of excitement in his voice as he told me what he had planned for the two of them his first night home.
Adams had left a message for Christina at her dress shop before he boarded his plane in Amman, bound for Paris. No response. Her answering machine picked up again when he called her house before he left Paris for Minneapolis. Disappointed that he wouldn’t be met at the airport, unsure now of what he was walking into, his plane landed at MSP on a Saturday morning. As soon as he cleared Customs, he called Christina’s cell phone. Still no answer. He took a cab home from the airport. He called his legislative assistant, told her he’d be in the office early Monday morning, and that there were two tickets waiting for her and her husband at the Ordway that night.
Every time he drove past Christina’s house that weekend, the same strange car was parked in her driveway. Its presence prevented any further action. He never called her or stopped by. He would expose himself to disappointment and rejection no longer. Early the next week, the cleaning lady he and Christina shared told him what he feared had happened. Christina had met someone. His name was Richard Hunter: a businessman, ten years younger than Adams, recently divorced, scion of one of the richest families in Minneapolis. Besides being heir to a flour fortune, he owned the largest real estate company in Minnesota. Adams was familiar with
Richard Hunter; he frequently had business at the State Capitol, and was well-connected with Republicans who worked there.
Hunter fancied himself a swashbuckling entrepreneur, and presented himself accordingly. Adams claimed that his carefully crafted reputation was undeserved. He said Hunter frequently made bad business decisions that were papered over by large infusions of cash from the family fortune. As Adams talked, I thought of Jim Breech and his story about the high school senior who broke all of his scoring records at Maplewood High. I felt more comfortable when Adams shifted his focus back to Christina.
Hunter apparently had Christina in his sights for a long time. As Adams moved so excruciatingly slow, so delicately, to wrap his arms around Christina’s life, he failed to sense her loneliness. Hunter gave Christina all his time and all his attention. She soaked up everything he poured on her like a five-foot-five, hundred-and-ten-pound sponge. Because Adams had dropped out of Christina’s life without any kind of an explanation for more than two months—between the time Hind, Farah, and Nur were killed and when he had tried to call her from Amman—she figured he had lost interest. Work and distance had pushed Christina away from his center. The death of his friends shoved Christina and everything else in the world beyond his reach. His tenuous hold on his previous life was tethered by a single phone call—the one he made to me an hour after the catastrophe in Mosul.
“Their picture was on the society page in the Sunday Star Tribune last week.” Adams reached over to the coffee table and rummaged through the newspaper, pulling out the society
I shuttered. This would have been Adams’s first attempt to contact Christina in ten weeks, and I could sense the outcome.
“I got on the Internet to see what was going on back home that weekend. I bought two tickets online to Turandot —her favorite opera. It was opening at the Ordway Saturday night.”
A smile filled my face. This detailed information was not absolutely essential to Adams’s story, but was just the kind of description he always felt compelled to provide. I was on vacation, but I couldn’t stop being an editor.
As Adams continued his story, my smile vanished. I knew this was headed for a tragic ending. Yet there was still a hint of excitement in his voice as he told me what he had planned for the two of them his first night home.
Adams had left a message for Christina at her dress shop before he boarded his plane in Amman, bound for Paris. No response. Her answering machine picked up again when he called her house before he left Paris for Minneapolis. Disappointed that he wouldn’t be met at the airport, unsure now of what he was walking into, his plane landed at MSP on a Saturday morning. As soon as he cleared Customs, he called Christina’s cell phone. Still no answer. He took a cab home from the airport. He called his legislative assistant, told her he’d be in the office early Monday morning, and that there were two tickets waiting for her and her husband at the Ordway that night.
Every time he drove past Christina’s house that weekend, the same strange car was parked in her driveway. Its presence prevented any further action. He never called her or stopped by. He would expose himself to disappointment and rejection no longer. Early the next week, the cleaning lady he and Christina shared told him what he feared had happened. Christina had met someone. His name was Richard Hunter: a businessman, ten years younger than Adams, recently divorced, scion of one of the richest families in Minneapolis. Besides being heir to a flour fortune, he owned the largest real estate company in Minnesota. Adams was familiar with
Richard Hunter; he frequently had business at the State Capitol, and was well-connected with Republicans who worked there.
Hunter fancied himself a swashbuckling entrepreneur, and presented himself accordingly. Adams claimed that his carefully crafted reputation was undeserved. He said Hunter frequently made bad business decisions that were papered over by large infusions of cash from the family fortune. As Adams talked, I thought of Jim Breech and his story about the high school senior who broke all of his scoring records at Maplewood High. I felt more comfortable when Adams shifted his focus back to Christina.
Hunter apparently had Christina in his sights for a long time. As Adams moved so excruciatingly slow, so delicately, to wrap his arms around Christina’s life, he failed to sense her loneliness. Hunter gave Christina all his time and all his attention. She soaked up everything he poured on her like a five-foot-five, hundred-and-ten-pound sponge. Because Adams had dropped out of Christina’s life without any kind of an explanation for more than two months—between the time Hind, Farah, and Nur were killed and when he had tried to call her from Amman—she figured he had lost interest. Work and distance had pushed Christina away from his center. The death of his friends shoved Christina and everything else in the world beyond his reach. His tenuous hold on his previous life was tethered by a single phone call—the one he made to me an hour after the catastrophe in Mosul.
“Their picture was on the society page in the Sunday Star Tribune last week.” Adams reached over to the coffee table and rummaged through the newspaper, pulling out the society
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