Priceless

Vicki slowly pulled into the dark, vacant parking lot of a suburban strip mall. She checked her uniform and equipment: coveralls, thick boots, headlamp, stick, leather gloves, and duffle bag. This was only her second night on the job, and her nerves were getting the best of her.

“You know the drill, girl,” she told herself. She pulled a little black notebook from the glove compartment of her minivan. This is absurd, she thought, the whole world is absurd. She paged through her scrawled notes until she reached the page marked “Sunday: beauty supply & gift shop.”

She steered the van into the shadows behind the darkened stores. Closing the door, she took a sniff near the dumpster. It wasn’t pleasant, but there was no eau du poisson degoutant like she had encountered on Saturday night out back of the grocery store. She peeked in to make sure no one was using the dumpster as temporary lodging, shouldered the empty duffle, clicked on her headlamp, and crawled in among the refuse.

Calling it refuse was a stretch. It was the cast-offs of consumerism. Here and there, the wrappers of an employee’s fast food lunch, but largely, it was just “faulty” merchandise and discarded receipts. She hooked a sack with her stick and tore it open. Spilling its entrails before the gleam of her headlamp, it revealed no treasure. Cast that to the left. Two more sacks yielded nothing fruitful, but on the fourth one, she hit the mother lode.

It was a face care kit for acne, brand new in shiny plastic packaging. Vicki’s thoughts turned to Emily, her fifteen-year-old daughter. The stress of the situation at home had broken out her fair face. She tried to act like it didn’t bother her, but Vicki and Bill knew their daughter better than that. Things were just too tight financially to spend all that money on special treatments, even though they knew their girl was worth it. Overnight, when the pandemic hit, Bill’s music gigs all but disappeared. There were four of them in the house, and no jobs.

The next bag was also a gold mine. An iridescent white glass bottle with an enormous pink bow came in the view of her headlamp. She took a whiff of the half-empty perfume tester. Not too bad, she thought as she placed it in her bag. Shampoo, conditioner, lotion samples, soaps with torn packaging, even a hot oil treatment for her grandmother, Eleanor. It was a true gift to have her granny living under the same roof as her family. Her mind wandered to an earlier time, when she drove her granny to the hairdresser every Thursday. They would stop and get a cup of soup at The Lariat on the way home, and Molly, the waitress, would gush over the near-lilac coif of the charming Eleanor. Now, there was no hairdresser, no soup, and no money.

She had cleared out most of the bags on the left side of the dumpster and moved systematically to her right. As she stepped to the far corner, the unmistakable sound of breaking glass issued from beneath her boot. Crap, I hope it wasn’t something good, she thought. The occupational hazards of dumpster diving. Her thick soles prevented any injury, but a good rule of thumb is to avoid any bags with broken glass. Something caused her to question her amateur experience, and she tore at the bag with her stick.

The gift shop had discarded a wooden picture frame engraved with a single heart at the base, which now contained the manufacturer’s sickly sweet photo and shards of broken glass. Beneath the frame were two dented heart-shaped box of chocolates. These are coming home with me. As she shook the shards loose from the frame, she heard heavy, uneven footsteps approach. She crouched low among the bags and covered her headlamp with a gloved hand. It must be security! Please don’t close the lid on me. Just continue your patrol and we’ll all be fine. The footsteps made their way to the side of the dumpster. Vicki held her breath. The next thing she heard was the drop of a clanking sack, followed by the familiar hiss of an opening can. She let loose a sigh of relief, and finished packing the frame into her sack.

Clicking off her headlamp she hoisted herself out of the bin with her booty in tow. “Hello,” she whispered as she rounded the corner. The tired, bedraggled man sat holding his beer by the lid with thick, red fingers. Next to him, a grimy backpack was illuminated by the hazy streetlamp. “What?” he snarled. She held out a red velvet box of sweets to him. His eyes slowly focused on her. There was no way to guess his age in the dim light, but she held his gaze, intent on remembering him. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said. Quietly she closed the lids to the dumpster and waved goodbye to the man on the pavement. The worn fingers of his free hand selected a chocolate, and waved in return.

A muffled “God bless you” met her ears as she walked away. Scraping her boots on the asphalt, she set her new treasures in the back of the van and wiped off her hands on a baby wipe. Not too bad for an hour’s work, she thought as she headed home for the night.

Upon her arrival, she cleaned and sorted her loot and placed it in the bathroom cabinet. Vicki’s nimble fingers pulled a loose paper from the back of the picture frame. It was a lottery ticket. Could be my lucky day, she thought as she stuffed the numbers in her pocket. Digging through a shoebox of old photos, she settled on a black and white snapshot. She placed it in the frame and admired her handiwork. Staring back at her was a young man in uniform. Next to him, his girl stood with adoring eyes beneath bouncing curls.

The last notes of The Sound of Music lilted from Eleanor’s room down the hall. “Almost bedtime,” Vicki mused to herself. She went back to the perfume bottle, dabbed a little behind each ear and removed the big pink bow. The rosy satin was the perfect complement to the wooden frame.

A short walk down the hall got her to Eleanor’s room. The elderly woman was dozing with her bedstand lamp on and her glasses resting on her chest. “Granny,” Vicki said as she grasped the thin-skinned hand lying on the wool blanket. “I brought you a little something for Valentine’s Day.” She helped the woman don her glasses and smoothed back the faded curls.

As Eleanor’s hands caressed the picture, tears welled in her eyes. “Priceless...it’s priceless,” she softly whispered. Vicki wrapped her arms around the elderly woman as well as she could. Eleanor sat up and wiped away her tears with her worn, embroidered hankie she kept in the sleeve of her sweater. “Set it right over there, dear,” she said, pointing a crooked finger to the bedside table. Vicki slid a black wooden crucifix and Eleanor’s gaudy tropical purse over to make room for the photo.

“Where did you find such a lovely frame, Vicki?”

Vicki squirmed a bit on the edge of the bed, pondering how to broach the topic with her beloved grandmother. Eleanor had always been a straight shooter, so she might as well just be out with it. “Well, Granny, I liberated it from a dumpster.”

Her grandmother was taken aback, opening her mouth to speak and then closing it. “Well, dear, I’m glad it didn’t go to waste. It’s really precious.” Eleanor squirmed in her turn, then regaining her composure, she looked at Vicki with the same loving eyes from the photo. “That picture was taken Valentine’s Day 1961, not long before your grandfather shipped out on his last mission. He couldn’t tell me where he was going, or when he would be back. He never did make it home. I was pregnant with your mama at the time. Martin never even knew. You are his future, and mine, too. I’m sure he’d give anything to see you here now. He’d be so proud of way you care for us.”

She kissed her grandmother’s creased forehead, and sobbed as she hugged her. Eleanor’s voice crooned, “Good night, baby girl. Sleep tight.”

“Good night, Granny.” Vicki turned off the TV and light and drew the bedroom door shut.

She stumbled back to the kitchen for the box of chocolates and carried them wearily up to her own room. The TV news anchor was droning on about the latest virus counts as the flickering lights reflected on the walls. She sat down on the bed next to Bill, waking him up. “Good haul tonight, hon?” he said as he wiped a hand across his unshaven face. “You smell kinda nice. What do you have there?” She pulled two caramels out of the red velvet box and then passed it to him.

Reaching for the remote, she said, “Why do you bother watching this stuff? It’s nothing but bad news.” Pointing the clicker at the screen to deliver the death blow, she heard the nattering anchor’s voice say, “After yesterday’s Mega Jackpot was won by Betty Ellison to the total of $4.7 million, tonight promises to be a disappointment.”

She turned up the volume and fumbled in her pocket. “I got the winner right here,” she joked to her husband. The numbered balls appeared on the screen. 53. 04. 33. Her mouth stopped mid-chew and she leaned further toward the screen. 43. She was now perched at the edge of the bed. “Babe,” she said with a rising pitch, “you’re not gonna believe this.” 65. “Five matches so far,” she said in disbelief. Bill jumped out of the covers and stood on the bed in his boxers. Chocolates clattered to the floor. Only the red Bonus ball to go. Their hearts stopped in anticipation. A big, red 21 ball finished the series. Bill jumped off the bed, held Vicki’s cheeks in both hands and jabbered, “Are we millionaires? Did we win it all??? Tell me we won big!”

Vicki patted his hand and looked into his hopeful eyes. She showed him the red number 13 on their ticket. “Not quite, but if I’m doing the math right, we just won $20,000,” she said with a smile.

His face was a mask of disappointment. “I thought we were going to win big,” said Bill as he collapsed back onto the bed. She laid down next to his curled shape and wrapped her arm around his ample waist. “Don’t you see, Bill? Now we can catch up on the mortgage. We have food on the table. Emily can get rid of those blasted pimples. I plan to do Granny’s hair tomorrow. I even have a little fancy perfume. You know, I met a man tonight who had nothing. We have everything. We have won big. We have each other, and that’s priceless.”