Nick was just about to read the note when his phone rang. Dropping the paper, and leaving the medallion where it lay on the coffee table, he turned and walked to the small table Megan had in her apartment's kitchen where his phone lay was charging. As he walked, he failed to notice the note catch a breeze and slide off the coffee table and under the couch.
"Hello?" he said, putting the phone to his ear. He only held it there for a second, then hung up and put the phone back where he had found it.
"Who was it?" Megan asked from behind him, making sandwiches for the pair.
"Telemarketer," he answered with disgust.
"Assholes," she said, smiling.
Nick returned to the living room and picked up the medallion. The note was nowhere to be found, but he dismissed it, thinking that it was most likely something private that the former owners forgot to throw away. He put the thought of it out of his mind.
The old dirty medallion hung from tarnished, gold coloured chain. The image of an angel, or maybe a fairy, was hard to make out, so worn it was. Nick briefly wondered how old the trinket was, how many hands had held it in its lifetime.
"Is that the medallion we found at the first place we stopped?" Nick's girlfriend Megan asked, sitting next to him on the couch. She placed a sandwich in front of him on a cheap, second hand plate.
Nick appreciated his girlfriend more than she knew. He knew she was out of his league in so many ways. Tall, dark haired, smart, ambitious, Megan was an upwardly mobile young lawyer at a downtown law firm. She made enough money to buy new things, but hunting at yard sales was her hobby, so much of her apartment was adorned with treasures she had found.
Her wardrobe was a different story. Megan knew that to move up in the world, she had to sell a particular image of herself. Every item in her closet was fashionable, fitting, and expensive. She had outfits for every occasion, for the office, for down-time, for going out with her girlfriends.
Nick often wondered what such an image conscious woman was doing with a guy like him. Sure, he loved her, and he thought she loved him too, but sometimes he felt like he didn't live up to her potential. Nick was a tall, gangly man with thin, dirty blonde hair and a goatee. He worked at a small engineering firm. Since finishing college, he'd been getting coffee, and filing paperwork. When he was lucky he'd get to debug a little code, but only when the rest of the team was overworked. He had told Megan that he was doing well, that he was enjoying his job, that it was creatively fulfilling, but the truth was that it was a dead-end position, but with his student debt he saw no way out of it.
"Sure is," he confirmed, turning the medallion so that she could see it, "If I clean it up, I think it might be quite the treasure."
"A treasure?" She laughed her beautiful, airy laugh, "Looks more like trash to me!"
"Trash?" Nick feigned insult, "M'lady is mistaken! This beautiful treasure will surely be the key to our millions! Here, let me try it on you. A beautiful lady deserves beautiful adornment!"
Nick unfastened the chain and moved the medallion toward his girlfriend. Her shirt was low-cut enough so that the medallion would nestle nicely in her cleavage, an image he was sure he would enjoy. As soon as it touched her skin, however, he felt something like a static discharge run up the chain and into his hand.
"Ow!" the both exclaimed simultaneously.
Nick let the medallion drop to the floor, and shook out his hand. Megan was rubbing the spot where the medallion had touched her.
"Weird," he said.
"I know, right?" Megan replied, "Did you rub your socks on the carpet or something?"
Nick grinned, "Not I! That would be a shocking display of disregard for your safety!"
They both laughed and ate their sandwiches, putting the matter behind them. After they ate in silence, Megan gathered their plates and took them back to the kitchen. Nick watched her go, normally admiring her body as she moved, but for some reason she looked a little different. Was she taller? Thinner? Didn't her hair normally look darker and longer than it did?
