Page 7 of Stacked
That day, I needed to decide on the right color for the entryway and trim. I had three or four possibilities but couldn’t settle on one. Gray? White? Off-white? Some kind of mix? Nothing felt right, and I walked out of the store with samples and color cards but no answers.
I was still weighing the options when I drove past The Green Frog and its familiar spot on the two-lane road across from the ancient Parker-Olsen YMCA. The bend in the road signaled to every driver that the New Burlington city limits had begun. I’d passed it countless times, but I never stopped. I had too many things to do and not enough time to do them.
But why not check it out?
Growing up, I liked the store. Like a lot of kids in town, I went to The Green Frog with my parents for book signings and in-store events. Mom used to take me frequently during the summer or in the winter as a Saturday treat when I was coming back from a soccer tournament or a basketball game. Still, it had been forever since I’d been inside. I doubted it looked or felt the same. Without Gwen at the helm, her plump, grandmotherly figure on the stool behind the cash register, there was little way it could.
I parked the car out front anyway.
The Green Frog still had the same antique signage with gold lettering and stacks of books in the bay windows that framed the front door. I trotted up three small concrete steps and pushed through the door, a trio of bells jangling from the handle as I walked inside.
I was the only person in the store.
“Hello?” I called, surprised I didn’t at least see a customer service attendant in the front room. Leaving a store unattended would have never happened in New York, not with the way crime had escalated. Most shops had armed security, locked doors, and merchandise tucked away. Nobody was ever this trusting.
But this was New Burlington, Ohio, not New York City. People still had faith in each other here. And that was comforting. I hoped it would never change.
After nobody appeared, I asked in a louder voice, “Is the store open? Maybe I should come back another—”
“Help,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere deeper inside the shop. She sounded muffled and strained. “Can you hear me?”
I walked toward the sound. “Yes—I can.” I stopped when I arrived at the small archway dividing the front room from what looked like an office and stockroom. “I...um...where are you?”
“Back here,” she shouted, and I immediately knew I was a lot closer to her than I thought. “In the walk-in vault.”
“Vault?” I spun around. “This store has avault?”
“Long story,” she replied, her voice still raised and intense. “Do you see the small hallway?”
“Yes.”
“I’m behind the door at the end.”
I strode the narrow distance, stopped in front of the metal door at the end, and yanked the handle. “It’s locked.”
“Yep. It locks automatically. I thought I had propped it open, but it shut while I was preparing an order for a customer.”
“From a vault?”
“I’ll explain it when I get out.” For the first time, I heard exasperation and frustration in her words. “Can you... can you do me a favor and punch in the code to unlock the door? You should see a small keypad by the handle.”
“Yep.” I flipped open the cover of a small black square on the wall by the door handle. “Sure do.”
“Press this code—six, two, eight, one, and then pound, okay? If you do it right, it should click open.”
“Here we go,” I said. “Six, two, eight, one, pound.”
The door unlocked, and I pulled it open. A pretty woman greeted me, her ponytail askew, with whisps of brown hair across her forehead, sweat drenching the collar of her sweatshirt.
“You,” she said. “It’syou.”
“Are you okay?”
Propping the door open with one hand, I took a tentative step toward her. She moved backward, pressing against the row of shelves lining the back of the tiny room. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.” I glanced around the tiny space. “From, whatever this is?”
“It’s a fireproof storage room for rare first editions. We have several of them.”
