For the university janitorial staff, the end of the spring semester was the payoff for months of dwelling as phantoms among the rich students whose trash they collected, whose dirt they scrubbed off dormitory floors, whose ivy they trimmed. Once the students had filled their cars and storage units to bursting, items they didn't care to drag home were tossed in the trash or left abandoned in the halls: clothes, furniture, books, electronics. You just never know what you might find.
As the crowds flowed out of the red-bricked dorms, heading to summer vacation and poolside relaxation, this jumbled scene was left behind for us, the janitors.
Emily loved picking through the piles of other peoples junk. The hard bodied, petite junior had chosen this seemingly unattractive task as her summer job every year since she was a freshman. The finds this year were not too bad: a designer belt that cinched snugly around her trim waist, several textbooks to sell back to the bookstore, and two twenty dollar bills that were wedged inside a desk drawer. After sorting through the trash piles on three floors of the sophomore girls' dorm, Emily's feet ached, her back was stiff and several chestnut curls had escaped her braid and were clinging to the sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck. Just a couple more dorm rooms to check out before she could head to her apartment and a steamy, muscle-relaxing bubble bath, she told herself.
Room 214-C was relatively empty, yielding only an old Cosmopolitan Magazine, a few stray bobby pins on the sink edge and a cardboard box shoved to the back of a high shelf in the closet. She discarded the smaller items and jimmied the box open, hoping for an expensive pair of shoes or, as one of the other janitors had found, someone's forgotten pot stash.
