A Bright Past

This was the third time since I opened my laptop that I had to blink myself out of a trance-like state. I just couldn't seem to focus on my school work even with the help of the double shot of espresso I had added to my latte. I took a deep breath and looked out of the window of the cafe. My head was clouded with the negative opinions I'd been hearing about my choice to major in writing. Everyone wanted to know how I was going to make a living doing what I loved. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't a little concerned myself. My freelance career was still in its beginning stages and on top of that I had to pay for classes. Money was always an issue in my family and for once I would like to know what it's like to not have to worry about it. At the same time I hated the idea of giving up my passion as a career just to be more comfortable.

Just as I started to drift back into my thoughts again, an email notification popped up on my screen. Great, I thought to myself as I opened it to find another assignment outline. I was surprised however to find that this new assignment actually sounded interesting.

“A biographical piece on a relative you’ve never met,” I read aloud over the foam of my latte. I clicked on the link to the free trial of the genealogy website where the first step of the assignment was to start my family tree. I spent the next hour filling in as much family information as I had and began to get excited with all of the records and photographs that I was discovering. I started on my second latte as I reviewed my growing family tree. I was wondering who I would write my essay on when a new leaf appeared on my tree. A photo of a woman smiling clutching a small black notebook caught my eye.

“Anna,” I murmured as I zoomed in on the photo of my cousin from exactly 100 years ago. The Grolier Club 1921, was neatly scrawled across the bottom of the photo in cursive. Lucky for me there was some more information on this distant relative of mine. After going through some more documents I discovered that Anna was a pretty well known artist and that this black notebook was one of her first sketchbooks. I started to research the Grolier Club and discovered that it houses collections of antique books, illustrations, printing, and binding. Not only this, but it was only four blocks away from the coffee shop that I was doing my research in. I figured that it was a good possibility that my cousin’s notebook might be something that the Grolier Club would have wanted to make a part of their collection all those years ago. I felt a rush of excitement as I shoved my laptop into my bag and started out onto E 60th street.

Once I arrived I asked to speak to one of the librarians. I was directed to a friendly looking woman behind a large wooden desk. I briefly explained my assignment and the connection that my newly discovered relative had to the Grolier Club. I was shocked to learn that the librarian knew of my cousin and that her notebook was on display in the library!

“Seeing as how this is for educational purposes and you are a relative of Anna, I would be happy to show you the notebook,” the librarian informed me. She told me to sit tight and that she would be right back. After a few minutes of anticipation she returned wearing gloves and holding my cousin’s notebook. We sat together and she showed me the different pages, all covered with beautiful sketches. One in particular caught my eye. It was a water fountain, but instead of blue, the water was a gorgeous gold color. Another thing that stood out to me was that there appeared to be coordinates written in the same cursive handwriting across the bottom of the fountain. I jotted them down on the back of my hand to look up later. After going through the notebook cover to cover I thanked the librarian for everything and left. As soon as I stepped outside I searched the coordinates online. I was shocked to find out that they belonged to a spot in a nearby park- only ten minutes away from the Grolier Club! This assignment was turning into one of the most interesting adventures I had been on in a long time. I called up a friend that wouldn’t think I was crazy for wanting to dig up random coordinates in the park. I was excited to hear that he was just as excited as me to find out what was there and that he would meet me there to find out.

As I walked over a hill to get to the mysterious spot in the park, my friend was already waiting there for me with a shovel and a smile on his face.

“I hope we don’t get in too much trouble for this,” he said, still smiling.

“I hope it’s worth it if we do,” I replied. Thankfully it wasn’t long before the shovel hit a metal box. We looked at eachother with excitement and grabbed it. The box was heavier than either of us expected. There was a lock, but lucky for us it was rusted and broken. We carefully opened the box and looked intisde.

“Is that real?” I asked in disbelief as I looked down at what appeared to be large pieces of gold.

“I know someone who could tell us, let's go,” my friend responded.

We hopped on the subway and headed to his friend’s jewelry shop. I started to get nervous and excited on the way there. What if this is real… how much would it be worth? I thought to myself. After a couple of stops we arrived. We were referred to the head jeweler and brought into the back room where he could examine our new discovery. After a careful examination including weighing and measuring, the jeweler looked up and was smiling from ear to ear.

“It’s your lucky day, not only is this real, but it’s worth a lot of money,” he said.

“How much?” my friend and I asked at the same time.

“I’d be willing to take it off of your hands for $20,000,” he replied.

“20,000?” I murmured as I started to drift into my own thoughts. I felt tears come to my eyes as I realized I now had the chance to pursue my passion of writing and for the first time in my life not be worried about money. This was one life changing assignment.