The Original Little Black Book

Weather-wise it’s an odd day. Rolling across the expansive, freshly snow-covered lawn, muffled thunder threatens from outside the room where they stand.

“Ava, all the most valuable first editions and rare books have been removed. They’re more difficult to sell during this pandemic. But they have been sitting here untouched for more than two years. So, you’re welcome to them.”

She is at a loss for words, not knowing how to react to such generosity. To give herself a bit of grace and time before responding, she turns and looks at the four walls lined with glass-doored bookshelves. Ava completes her full circle turn and faces back towards her benefactor knowing that a simple thank you would never be enough. Her brown eyes shine with appreciation and she says it anyway. This is an echo of her past when her parents gifted her with a child-sized rocking chair accompanied by a little stack of Golden Books perched on the seat. She is as enraptured then as she is now.

The white-haired woman nods and adds, “I know that your company normally only picks up cast-off items. But I noticed you reading in your truck while on your lunch break. It was a long shot. Maybe you might know what to do with these? The estate has been finalized and all else will be donated. So anything else you find on the premises or property is part of Finders Keepers Law and it applies here. The place needs to be completely empty in just over one weeks’ time, though.”

Ava thinks she will have to quickly rally more people to help with this house purge and that might mean employing people she hasn’t yet vetted. Living in a large city, trust is not something that comes easily to her while at the same time she almost always sees people in their best possible lights. Finding the middle ground between these two opposites is something she contends with daily.

The older woman leaves behind her scent of sandalwood and it intermingles with a faint smell of well-kept cedar that Ava can pick up through her gray face mask. Now alone, she is involuntarily drawn to the farthest wall, where brighter illustrations cover children’s books. She immediately looks for her son’s favorite books. My Side of the Mountain. A Wrinkle in Time and as always she includes, his surprising choice of Pippi Longstocking and his adult choice of Into the Wild. He was always so trusting of other people, even strangers. Without opening the glass doors, she already knows what she will do with these children’s books. Rain suddenly knocks on the windows. And she glances east out the big picture window. The sky is in colors of grays, plum, and raisin and the trees are slightly bowing in the wind.

Excited she works her way counterclockwise scanning the library. She chooses one area and one shelf at a time and follows where her word bliss leads her. She confirms to herself that yes, of the seemingly twenty thousand book collection, there are books in the vein of, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The complete set of The Story of Civilization, and a more current novel, Shelter in Place. There seems to be classic books for almost every kind of reader. Then out of curiosity she searches by last name and finds one matching the deceased estate owner L. Grenwall.

Lightning crashes and Ava remains still as she almost always while she feels for the eye of the storm; she is familiar with tempests, and has waited many times for their abatement. A crow catches her astonishment and shakes it even more-so awake as it begins vigorously pecking at the window as if wanting to come inside. Ava slowly approaches the bird and sits down to hold its gaze for a moment until it breaks away and nestles its body into the corner where the ledge and building meet and provide a bit of room to shelter in place. She thinks to herself, “Maybe I am feverish?” She feels the echoing vibration of thunder in the knob as she opens the glass doors. No, this is not a hallucination; everything is so solid and real.

She picks up the “Grenwell Family Almanac 1920.” As always she turns to the last page first and there is a little note left inside, “Page Two Hundred.” With eagerness, she flips the pages while dry paper whispers past her fingertips and calls to her to both heed and hurry. On that page, there is an insert of a plain, very slim little black book. This little black book automatically calls to mind her son once more. Her son George had had a little black book of his own. His was an address book with a list of all the people he had met on his travels while touring North America by Greyhound bus. And whenever he was online, he emailed them a thank you for their friendship and hospitality. He had been such a good man and still, he had died so incredibly young by his own hand.

The title inscribed inside of this little black book in her hands reads, Jubilee- List of Debts Repaid 2018. She knows what Jubilee means – it signifies a year when a globally wide church authorizes that all individual debts be cleared and declared null and void. She ponders this and thinks that governments worldwide should offer this solution as it would be a timely reprieve as a post-pandemic boost to help people’s standards of living and get them back on track to a new economy. This would ensure people had an increased feeling of their economic worth and help them to thrive in their communities.

Ava’s debts are paltry in comparison to others, but they gnaw away at her nonetheless, eroding her ability to get ahead. There are ten names on the list and all debts are paid in full and under two thousand dollars. But even more interesting is a one-sentence line that goes along with each listing. One reads, “For telling the truth about who robbed Jacob’s Store.” Another is, “Because they ALL needed new shoes.” And “He sacrificed much to save Peter from drowning.” The tenth and last name is, 'R. Knowles,' and it is left blank. Ava looks for another book author with a matching name and finds it. Again she opens it to page two hundred. There is a photograph of a young family and a local newspaper clipping, “Family Loses All in a Fire.” She knows what she will need to do first. She must check on them and see how they’re doing and she will do so by delivering that book and a box of other ones too, to that family.

After having personally selected the books, Ava arranges a pandemic touch-free safe drop-off for the next day. She knows only that the family lost two of their own in a fire and it has been three years since this incident.

“You are the Junk Lady?” a curly-haired boy of about eight calls out to her from behind his balloon face mask as she walks up their sidewalk.

Ava delights in being called this and smiles, “That’s me!”

“Is that a food box you are carrying or just junk?”

“There’s no junk food and some good books.”

“You can’t eat books, you know?”

She chuckles, “They would not taste nearly as good as these muffins I brought.”

He bounds ahead of her and pushes the door to their place open, “G. Pa, she’s got books and muffins!”

An octogenarian man in a regular blue face mask welcomes her inside.

Ava says “I will be very brief. Do you know the Grenwell family?”

“Yes, I was their gardener.”

“How have all of you made out since the accident?”

“The fire happened right after Mr. Grenwell died. After a year’s time of healing for all of us, we received a small inheritance from him. Along with an envelope to hold onto for a stranger whoever came by to check on us. I guess that’s you,” and he held it out.

“It is good to hear that you’re all on the path to healing.” As she held out her hand palm up, she adds “And ohh, how curious!”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve been for three years now. We never tried to puzzle it out. But we knew by its shape that there’s a key inside.”

Ava feels a surging sense of purpose pulsates near her core. This small strong family wants to know how the next chapter will reveal itself. She opens her envelop and reads it aloud, “The key is books.” It is an ordinary key with a seemingly plain message.

They all groan.

And Ava laughs.

This latest clue points her back to the library. On her typical route back to that part of the city, she gets profiled and pulled over and once the officer encounters her, she deftly allays any concerns that they had had. And she likes to think that she gives them a fresh perspective from which to possibly not do this as readily to others, but this she knows is most likely wishful thinking. But she is accustomed to it, and always allots extra time for the delay in her travel time, so she can retain her dignity while under fire. Her son’s dignity of person had been trampled on by others and by the world where he had walked and by herself, his mother. Ava knew this to be undeniably true, and somehow she will heal this wound.

She resumes her journey with her usual heed and hurry pace and finds herself honing in on the author’s last name of “Key,” and plucks the book from its perch. Now knowing the pattern of two hundred, she wastes no time at all and turns to that page. There between its pages is another folded note. It is a new list of ten names with a different title this time, “Pay it Forward,” with a subheading, “Advice; you should keep half for your own needs.” Inside of this note is a cashier’s check for $20,000.00. Of their own accord, Ava’s arms reflexively startle.

With tears silently flowing down her cheeks, she thinks if only George had been with her for this adventure. Both of them had almost always believed in everyday miracles until the darkness of depression had suffocated both of their ability to have gratitude for the smallest things. She still had his little black book and she knew from rereading it countless times that of the two hundred names in it, ten were asterisked. The rightness of her plans began to formulate themselves and she could see them becoming real. She will double the number of people on her Pay it Forward list and include her son’s not to be missed ones from his original Little Black Book and enter them into a scarlet red Moleskin Notebook. She will hire additional help from her own neighborhood to get hundreds of boxes of books moved to their new homes. She will take the remaining half of her son’s books and add them to a special delivery box. Lastly, she will continue her adventure and discover what her new key will unlock. Her son will always be with her in both the everyday mundane and in each little miracle.

Her body trembles, like a luna moth pressing against its chrysalis, with a sense of purpose that at the same time both changes and clarifies itself. And a deep pervasive gentle warmth saturates her inside and out. Alone again, Ava lowers her mask and takes a bite out of her crisp Red Delicious Apple, and savors it until it’s done. ‘Now this is a life worth living,’ she thinks to herself and she gets back to the work she loves.