Windfall

Maybe the life of every person on the planet, if I stretched things out to their logical conclusion.

I put my head down and forced myself to focus, to be still and calm.

“What did I do?” she asked in a meek, little-girl voice. “Jo, just tell me, what did I do?”

I couldn’t exactly explain that she’d just tossed away the love of my life in a garbage truck. Oh God, David… This was surreal, it was so ridiculous.

Sarah, of course, came to exactly the wrong conclusion. She clapped both hands over her mouth, tears forming in her eyes, and then ventured, “Oh God, Jo… Was it drugs? Are you on drugs? Did I throw away your stash?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It came out as a kind of mad, despairing burst of sound, and I covered my face with my hands and stood there for a moment, shaking. Dragging in one gulp of air after another.

Sarah’s hand fell on my shoulder, warm but tentative.

“I screwed up,” she said. “I get it. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll do whatever I have to do to get it back for you. I’m sorry, believe me, I thought—we thought we were doing something good for you—”

Oh yeah, it was good. I had an apartment full of furniture I didn’t want, the Dji

I stood up and walked to the closet.

“Jo? Where—where are you going?”

I didn’t even look back as I pulled out industrial-strength jeans and tossed my hiking boots onto the brand-new bed.

“We,” I corrected her. “We are going dump-diving. Get dressed.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a big-city dump at twilight, but it’s definitely an adventure. I’d come prepared for the worst—my trashed-out blue jeans, thick, long-sleeved tee, hiking boots, hair twisted up in a knot, face mask and gloves. Sarah wore brand-new jeans, a delicate pink top, and old te

At least the rain had stopped. If it had been storming, I don’t think even I could have bullied her into it.

Armed with the name of the furniture company, we arrived at the dump an hour before closing, and tracked the delivery to a huge pit that was earmarked for furniture, appliances, and other large junk. Trucks were still arriving. As we pulled up in the minivan, a commercial truck backed up to the dropoff, sounded a beeping alarm, and tilted its bed slowly into the air.

An avalanche of twisted metal, old, splintered furniture, and busted TVs joined the mass grave.

Sarah was fidgeting before we’d parked the mommy-van. “Oh, my God! Jo, it smells out here!”

“Yes,” I said, and handed her a face mask and gloves. “You’re sure you left it in the drawer of the nightstand?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because otherwise we’re in the other pit. The one with the biodegradable garbage like rotten food and old diapers. And believe me, you’ll like this better.”

She shuddered, pinching her nose shut. “I’m dure.” She sounded like a wacky 1940s comedie

“Yeah, no shit. Watch out for rats.”

“Rats?” she squeaked.

“Rats.” I’d had a friend once whose boss had sent her to the dump to retrieve legal papers from a trash bag. I decided not to tell Sarah about the scary cockroaches. “Take the flashlight. It may be dark down there.”

“Dark?” Sarah’s commitment to make things right was rapidly eroding and gaining qualifiers like so long as it’s convenient and so long as I don’t get my hands dirty.

I ignored her, popped the door, and got out. The newer arrivals seemed to be dumped toward the right-hand side, and I sca

I jumped down from the packed earth ledge into the pit, braced myself with one hand on the wall, and started carefully picking my way over the junk pile. It was dangerous. Sharp corners and nails and jagged metal. Glass. Broken mirrors.

The place was a tetanus shot waiting to happen.

Even though I was completely focused on the mission at hand, my eyes kept focusing on interesting bits of garbage. A broken, tiger-maple chest that looked antique. A massive, carved teak table that was magnificently in one piece and probably would be until the sun consumed the earth, as hard as teak was—I couldn’t believe somebody had actually moved it in the first place. It made me exhausted just looking at it.

I tripped over a big, dented brass pot and nearly fell into a steel cabinet, but managed to brace myself. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Sarah was okay.

She was picking her way slowly behind me, testing every step twice before putting her weight on anything, one hand always outstretched to catch herself.

The other held a flashlight in a death grip, not that she really needed it yet.

The face mask and cherry pink top made quite a fashion statement.

I climbed a small, slippery hill of appliances—somebody had thrown out a gigantic Maytag washer—and saw something that might have been the leg of a French Provincial nightstand. I reached for it and yanked; it was a slender, delicately curved leg, freshly broken off, with faded gilt on white.

Definitely from Sarah’s room. Or, okay, somebody else with the bad taste to have French Provincial bedroom furniture. But I doubted there’d be two of us contributing to the city dump on the same afternoon.

“It’s somewhere around here!” I yelled. She nodded breathlessly and climbed up to join me. She found the first piece of my bedroom suite—the headboard—and yelled in triumph as if she’d discovered King Tut’s tomb. I scrambled over to haul it to the side. Underneath was a broken drawer from my dresser. Empty.

We worked silently, panting, sweating, as night brushed closer and darker. Alarms sounded the everybody out, along with loudspeaker a

“We’ll never find it!” Sarah wailed. She straightened up, yanked down her mask, and wiped her streaming forehead with the back of her forearm. Dirt smudged her face in a circle around the mask, and her normally cute hair was plastered lankly around her skull. Her desire to please had ebbed into pure, disgusted exhaustion. “Dammit, Jo, just forget about it, would you? What was it, cocaine? Jesus! Bill me for it!”

I yanked a shattered television aside—yes, that was mine; I remembered it with a lurch of affection because I’d bought that crappy little thing with my own hard-earned money at a yard sale—and uncovered another dresser drawer. Blank, except for a coating of liner paper. I kicked it out of the way with u

“It wasn’t cocaine, you idiot!” I yelled back, and felt my hands curling into fists at my sides. “Maybe that’s your lifestyle of the rich and blameless, but—”

“Hey! I’m hip-deep in garbage trying to help you, you know—”

“Excuse me, but you showed up begging me for help, if I remember! And all you’ve done is cost me money and fuck up my life!”

I didn’t mean to say that… exactly. But it was true. I watched Sarah’s flushed face drain of color and bit back an impulse to apologize.

“Fine,” she said, with u