Home
Found Money
by Buck Dopp
“Did anything unusual happen today?” Natalie asked.
Ray sipped his coffee before answering. “Funny you should ask, I found a hundred-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk.” As soon as this came out of his mouth he regretted saying it and wanted to walk it back or change the subject entirely.
“Interesting,” she said. “I got a hundred-dollar service charge for delivery of furniture. They said I signed something, but I don’t remember doing it. Maybe you found that money so you could give it to me.”
Ray looked straight into the eyes of his girlfriend of two years and realized she was dead serious. When he’d suggested they meet for a quick cup of coffee at Starbucks, he hadn’t meant to mention the hundred dollar bill, it just slipped out. He tried to change the subject. “Don’t you think it’s been unseasonably warm?”
“Yeah. And I think it’s providential you found a C-note at the same time I had a need for one. That’s not a coincidence,” Natalie said.
“Stuff happens. There doesn’t always have to be some cosmic significance.”
“You found money you weren’t expecting, and I had a bill I wasn’t expecting. Sure seems like a divine plan to me.”
Ray studied the design of his coffee cup to avoid her piercing glare. “Truth of the matter is, I already gave the hundred dollars to someone.”
“Who?”
“A woman—I didn’t know her.”
“You gave a hundred dollars to some random chick?”
“Yeah.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“She wore a red ball cap with the words ‘Semper Fidelis’ and sat in a wheel chair watching some birds pecking at bits of gravel. I handed her the hundred-dollar bill and thanked her for her service.”
“What’d she say?”
“Thanks.”
“I was just teasing you, Ray.”
“I know.”
***
Buck Dopp’s first novel, Kingpin and Eli was published in December 2013 and explores the choices real people make when facing moral dilemmas and the impact of ambitious rivalry and envy in the workplace. It is available on Amazon.com and Kindle. He retired from a twenty-seven-year career in business management in 2008, deciding instead to write full-time. Dopp's stories have appeared in The Oasis Journal and A Long Story Short's e-zine. He is the past president of the Lake Havasu City Writers Group, which published his stories in its anthology, Offerings of the Oasis.
