Daphne's Dilemma

Daphne had been to this same thrift store more than one-hundred times over the years. She almost always found that perfect shirt, pant, hat or accessory that fit her bohemian sensibility to a 'T'. Sometimes it was a long and frustrating search and others it was as simple as walking through the door and making one circuit of the huge but crowded space. Today she was looking for that oh-so-perfect hat for the party she would be attending on Saturday, even though she already had at least two-dozen hats stuffed in her vintage armoire she used to store her hats, vests, scarves and jewelry in.

She was pretty fixed for cash as her job at the computer repair shop had required extra hours over the last few months as people were really wearing out their gear with the enormous demand for long hours on Zoom and Facetime calls and meetings. She had a little spring in her step as well, as she knew the upcoming weekend was going to be one for the ages with the company of the 'beautiful nerds' as they called themselves at the party. She was beaming inside and out.

She swung open the door and almost danced in to this wonderfully familiar space and was greeted by the usual, "Hey Daph!" that always made her feel at home and amongst friends. No one offered help, as the staff knew that she had no use for them other than the lovely friendly banter that always took place during and after her searches and purchases.

The pattern was always the same; take a peek at the front glass case to see if there were any baubles that would catch her eye, take a right through the shirts and skirts, a left past the jackets and, on this day, head straight to the back of the store to the 'wall-o-hats' of which there were always many. She could easily call ahead and ask Linda, Stephen or Marc (with a 'c' as he would remind everyone) if there was anything she just had to have that had come in, but she rarely did. Daphne liked the tactile experience of touching and the olfactory experience of the smell of the store and the items for purchase. More than once she had passed on an item because it smelled like something may have gone wrong with the last owner. Her spidette sense would tingle.

As she rounded the corner of jackets, she almost walked directly into an old sofa that was in a path that was usually cut through to the hats. An old familiar sensation flooded her body with warmth as she stared at the sofa, and at first she could not identify its source.

"Hey, Linda, what with the sofa?"

"Came with an estate full of clothing and jewelry. As you know we're not much for furniture, but it just kinda 'arrived', if you know what I mean."

Slowly the warm feeling had an identity as she realized this was an almost exact replica of the sofa her wonderful grammy had in her house that she used to love so much! As the memories of the many hours she spent sitting with her grammy and napping with her 'binky' washed over her, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She decided to see how deep the familiarity would go and she sat down and rubbed the brocade with her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply.

Her hand seemed to shrink and feel small as she caressed the fabric on the seat and arm of this wonderful piece of nostalgia made physical. The aroma of the store already had that 'vintage' nose about it, but she could swear there was an extra layer of familiarity, imagined or not. With her eyes closed she was transported back to that era of comfort and and safety she always felt when she was in that beloved where the original sofa resided. She instantly knew she had to have it.

"How much for the sofa?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah"

"How much you got?" (This was always the answer whether it was a shoe or a scarf or a hat or anything else for that matter.)

"Name your price!" (This was also always her retort.)

"Honestly, I have no idea. Fifty bucks?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yup. I'll be glad to get it out of the way. I'll even get Marc to deliver it, he has the truck today"

"SOLD!"

Twenty minutes later, she was out of the store, her wallet fifty-five dollars lighter, (the hat was a steal!) and literally dancing her way to her house which was literally five-blocks away. She considered herself to be the luckiest girl in the world and thought this might be the best Wednesday she had ever had, or at least in recent memory. She was floating.

She got home quickly and began rearranging the front room in her small post-war 'bungalow' (which sounded more romantic than 'crackerbox') to make room for her new purchase. She hadn't even given any thought to where it would go or if it would even fit with her color scheme, but she also didn't care. She had gotten everything properly situated when a knock at the door announced the arrival of Marc and her beloved sofa.

Once in place, she tipped Marc ten bucks, which he weakly protested, and ushered him out the door. On a day that couldn't possibly be more perfect, the new acquisition turned out to make it even better. The size and color scheme could not have been any more apt for the space and she actually squealed with delight. As the sun went down on an absolutely sublime day, she sat down and breathed deeply and felt a tiredness come over her much like it did as a child right before she knew it was nap time.

She decided to do the only logical thing she could think of and got up and fetched a pillow from her room, a glass of water from the kitchen, her binky, (yes, she still had a small shredded piece of it) and a quilt she inherited and lay down to let the memories flow over her. And just like it was when she was a child, she fell asleep in mere minutes with a large smile on her face and contentment in her heart.

In her dream, she was with her grammy, holding her old, soft and wrinkled hand while she read her the story of the Princess and the Pea, one of her absolute favorites. As she felt her dream-self begin to get sleepy, she became the princess and she began to feel the discomfort the princess felt in her bed from the offending pea. She tossed and turned, fluffed her pillow, switched sides, rolled on her back and her stomach and could not find comfort. It slowly became evident that this was not a dream and she awoke with a start.

When she woke, she still felt the discomfort and punched at the sofa cushion to get the stuffing situated in a better place for comfort, but something felt odd about the cushion. She sat up and turned on the floor lamp, it was full dark now, and saw odd lumpen shapes in the cushion that she had not noticed prior. While she was still delighted with the sofa, she realized there might need to be a new cushion construction in the near future, (it wouldn't be the first time she had needed to do some 'altering' of a vintage piece).

She moved off the cushion to the adjacent one and pulled the offending cushion off, found the back zipper and carefully unzipped it so as not to tear it. She began to pull on the filling, slowly at first and had gotten it halfway out when the money began to fall out in wads, stacks and rolls. There were ones, fives, tens, twenties and a few fifties and hundreds on the outside of the stacks and rolls. There was a LOT of money. Easily more than she had ever seen or touched.

As the last of the cushion stuffing fell out, a small black notebook tumbled out and landed on the floor. Even though it was trifling in size, it felt like it had weight to it. It felt foreboding. She dared not touch it at first, as it seemed to be a portent of something. She believed in omens and this seemed to be a black cat in book form. Her eyes darted from the money to the book and from the book to the money again and she didn't realize it but she was barely breathing. The question quickly took the form of "what the fuck is going on here".

She slowly began to finger the money, at first just barely touching it, then picking up one of the rolls and feeling its weight, then straightening out a few crumpled bills and flipping through one of the smallish stacks. As she did this, she kept her eyes on the book, thinking it might actually move or spring open to reveal a secret spell from which a demon might emerge. She knew it was foolishness, but this was all new territory.

She finally touched the cover of the book, gingerly at first and the word 'moleskin' popped into her head. She knew this was a specific type of notebook, but doubted seriously it was made from the skin of moles. It was somewhat slick but very lightly textured and the page edges looked to be fingered quite a bit, slightly dirty. She hesitated and opened the book about three pages in.

The writing was cramped but neat and was clearly a list of words with small notated numbers by each line. As she got more comfortable with holding the book, she held it closer to her face (but not too close in case the aforementioned demon were to emerge) and she realized the words were actually names and dates. By some names there were 'x' marks and by others there were exclamation points.

The book was far from full, but it was clearly a work in progress, as the last page of names had neither x's or exclamation points as if the status had yet to be determined. She then flipped through the full booklet and out fell a small package of white powder that was stuck between the last couple of pages. It became clear that this was drug money and the booklet was the ledger of customers and account balances. She became afraid and the deliciousness of the day turned into fear of the night.

She looked at her vintage cat clock on the wall with the tail that wagged and the eyes that went side to side and saw that it was eleven-twenty. Time had been standing still in her mind since the discovery, but clearly hours had passed since she laid down. She snapped to reality, got up and locked the door as she peered out through s slit in her curtains to make sure there was no one outside, as the paranoia she would begin to feel started to take shape.

With nothing else to do, given the hour, she sat down, arranged the money in small piles, removing rubber bands and straightening the wads, and began to count. She put the bills in stacks first, her nerd mind in full effect, with the hundreds to the left and then the fifties, twenties, tens, fives and ones in succession. It felt like she was setting up to play a little monopoly, but the stakes were considerably higher.

This was clearly not high stakes drug dealing, as there were lots of ones, fives, tens and twenties and much fewer fifties and hundreds, but it was still a good chunk of cash. She got up and went to the fridge for a beer to calm her down and began to count. She counted once, putting all the bills in order, facing the same direction, (nerd mind again) and putting the bills in one-thousand dollar bundles. She finished her first run through and started again, just to be sure. Twenty-thousand dollars sat in front of her, to the dollar. A very neat, even number she began to roll around in her head.

She sat for a while just considering the ramifications, good and bad, of this newly acquired windfall then got up and went to the closet where she kept various bags, backpacks and suitcases. After much deliberation, she decided on the logical, to her, combinations of a bag inside a backpack inside a suitcase, soon to be pushed to the back of her very crowded closet. She retrieved her package of multi-colored ponytail holders and began bundling the money in a neat and orderly fashion, along with the notebook and packet of powder, then loaded the bag, backpack and suitcase.

She emptied the floor of her closet, stuffed the suitcase in the back, covered it with everything that had previously been on the floor and closed the door. She went through her nightly ritual of face-washing, teeth-brushing and changing clothes on complete auto-pilot, not even realizing she was doing it, all the while creating every scenario she could think of, good and bad, on what to do next. She climbed into bed, turned off the light and stared into space, not daring to close her eyes until sleep overtook her and the dreams began.

The dreams weren't exactly nightmares, but they were unnerving; money, powder, peering eyes, searching for something, not knowing what and a general feeling of being looked at. Her alarm went off and she awoke with a start and turned it off. She promptly grabbed her cell phone and called in sick, something she had never done before. She went to the kitchen, made her morning coffee, sat in her favorite vintage chair and began to think.

Every scenario played itself out in her head, how to keep the money or how to get rid of it. The main thought she kept returning to was "where did the sofa come from?" This piece of information could be extremely valuable in determining which course to take, so she waited until the store's opening time and called to see if she could get any additional information. Linda answered on the first ring.

"Hey it's Daphne!" she wanted to sound upbeat.

"Hey girl, what's up? Already having some buyers remorse on the sofa?" she laughed a bit at this.

"Oh gosh no, I love it! It just brought back a lot of memories, it was so familiar and I wanted to see if you had any idea where it came from."

"Hmm, not really, but hang on let me check the intake form."

Minutes ticked by while Daphne sipped her coffee.

"Sorry Daph, it came in mixed with a bunch of stuff and just says 'mixed estate'. Do you want me to call the company we get stuff from and dig a little deeper?"

Her immediate thought was if she began to dig too deep it could alert someone she wouldn't want to alert.

"No, that's cool, just thought if it was easy to find I'd do a little research myself, but no reason to look any further, I was just curious. Thanks Linda, see you Saturday night?"

"Indeed you will, I can't wait! And just FYI, these estate lots are generally from a household where the occupants were deceased and they had no family claim the items if that helps."

Daphne thought about this last bit and breathed a shallow sigh of relief, not completely at ease, but certainly more relaxed about the possibilities. She grabbed her backpack, pulled out her laptop and began to scour the web for anything that looked like a person who died, possibly of an overdose, possibly on the younger side. She figured by the time everything was said and done, she would have to go back weeks or even months for the property to be disposed of and wind up in the store.

She found four possibilities, two obituaries and two small items in public records police reports. One heart attack, possible, one did look like an overdose, one traffic fatality with drugs found in the vehicle and one where no cause of death was mentioned. At least two of these looked very possible and she stopped her search there. She began to feel lighter and a hint of a smile lit on her lips as she thought about the possibility of the windfall actually being hers to keep.

She began to pace the room and was lost in thought when she heard the footfalls coming up her walkway to the door and mount her old creaky porch. The knock was just a little too loud and her blood ran ice cold as she froze in place. She waited silently until she heard the footsteps begin to walk off the porch, down the walkway and into the distance. After a few minutes, she peered through her curtains...Amazon. Shit. She began to laugh at her foolishness and sat down in her chair.

Daphne spent the rest of the day getting things in order; she re-stuffed the sofa cushion neatly and properly, unearthed the suitcase from her closet, took out a meager five-hundred dollars, retrieved the little black book and packet of powder, flushed the powder, (she was never much for drugs) and shredded the book into a thousand little pieces. She took a photo of the sofa and pulled up her preferred upholstery shop on the internet while also browsing for a fabric that was even closer to her grammy's sofa fabric.

She called the upholstery shop to arrange the pick up, ordered the fabric and had everything set to transform the beautiful piece of furniture from a drug dealer's money repository to a piece that was truly her own. She cleaned her house and took a very long hot shower before the day was over and then collapsed into bed for a dreamless and peaceful sleep.

She went to work on Friday and explained the prior day as a 'stomach bug', although no one really questioned her, she was an exemplary employee. She worked on computers and daydreamed about how to use the new money without raising suspicion. She knew she would be able to deposit small amounts over time and use cash where she had previously used her debit card. She also knew she would be making a LOT of donations to her favorite charities she had never been able to support. She also knew she could never tell a soul.

On Saturday morning, the sofa was picked up for reupholstering. She went for a long walk, never much of a runner or gym rat, and had breakfast at her favorite spot leaving an extra big tip. She had her nails done and splurged for a cut and color at her salon, once again tipping well. She smiled all day and made lists of donations she would make in her cell phone. She stopped at the liquor store, as she didn't want to show up at the party empty handed, and she purchased a little above her usual choices of libations.

That night she showed up at the party and everyone commented on the glow she brought with her. It went from her smile all the way to her heart and could not be ignored. She laughed and danced, knowing she had done good with her newfound funds. She knew she was not rich, but she didn't need to be. She just wanted to be good, so she was. This was how life was supposed to work. Good humans come in first.