Framed by Nancy Springer

Framed
By Nancy Springer
    Expecting nothing but the creative pleasure of a reframe job, Veronica ripped the brown paper off the back, wadded it and lobbed it into the trash. Reaching for the pliers to pull the brads, she asked, “So you think this guy’s had a sex change or something, Lois?”
    “Who knows?” Putting on her coat to leave, the boss rolled her eyes. “His phone’s a wrong number, they returned the postcard I sent him, maybe he’s deep-sixed with Jimmy Hoffa. Who knows what goes on with customers? Look at the art they bring in. Look at the mats they put on it.”
    “I’ll say.” Puce and fuchsia on a lithograph; what was somebody smoking?
    “Another cowsy-wowsy print. Mat it up nice and some schmo will buy it.”
    “I’ll do my best.” Veronica pulled the last brad and lifted out the backing.
    “Well, I’m outa here. See ya, Ronnie.”
    “See ya,” Veronica echoed automatically, staring at the strange little parcel she had just uncovered. Or not strange, exactly, but quite out of place, taped to the back of the fuchsia mat. Why would somebody sandwich a key inside a frame job?
    A key in a clear plastic bag. Ronnie pulled it loose and looked at it more closely. Looked like some sort of locker key. And a business card. With one stubby, callused finger Ronnie coaxed the card out of the bag and read it: GROAT’S MINI STORAGE. And scrawled in Bic pen the number 129.
    “Huh!” she said.
    “What’s that?” Tim, the other framer on the evening shift, had just come in. She showed him her find. It was good for a lot of joking and speculation over the next four hours, during which she reframed the lithograph in a really classy cream black-core mat with V-groove.
    “Groat’s Mini Storage. Isn’t that where they had an Elvis sighting or something?”
    “I doubt it,” Ronnie said. “It’s down near where I live.”
    “Well, something happened there. I can’t remember. Clinton did it with some woman there? Princess Di’s ghost?”
    When it got near time to close, Ronnie said, “I’m just going to drop the key off.”
    “Sure.”
    That night? Why not; it wasn’t like there was anybody waiting for her at home. Since the divorce, the less time she spent at home, the better. It felt good to walk into Groat’s 24-Hour Convenience Store. Lights. People. She asked the man behind the counter, “You’re under the same management as the mini-storage out back, right?”
    “Right. You want to rent a unit?”
    “No. I found a key.” She laid it on the counter in front of him. Leaning on his plump forearms, he stared at it but did not touch it. He had eyes like a dead fish, expressionless.
    “Where’d you find it?” he asked.
    “Inside a framed picture, of all places.”
    “How’d you do that?”
    She explained briefly. She had no clue why he wanted to know, and for sure he wasn’t her type, but talking with him was better than going home.
    “One twenty-nine,” he said meditatively after a short silence. “That’s a claimer unit.”
    “Huh?”
    “Nobody’s been paying the rent. You got the key. Whatever’s in there, take it. It’s yours.” He shoved the key at her, still in its bag.
    “You serious?”
    “Yep. Yours.” He looked at her with those fish-flat eyes. “Go take a look.”
    She gawked a moment, then took the key and headed out to see for herself. Veronica Phillips could use a windfall as much as most people. More than some. Bluejean jobs like framing don’t pay much. But she’d reached a point in her life where, even if it meant working for minimum wage, she was not willing to walk the walk and talk the talk any longer. No more lipstick. No more pantyhose.
    And if somebody wanted to give her the contents of a mini-storage free, why not?
    It was lighted well enough down there that she did not feel frightened. One twenty-nine was only halfway down the hill anyway. She spotted the number about the same time as she heard the sirens approaching.
    The key fit the lock