Lenny

“Jamie, you got a sec? I have something to show you.”

It was Friday afternoon and Lenny was leaning over a table in the reading room, where he had been stationed all week, organizing flyer campaigns and collecting signatures for the petition.

I left the cart of audiobooks by the wall where I was shelving and met him by the magazines. “What’s up?”

Lenny was looking at a drawing spread out on the table in front of him. I followed his gaze down to it.

“Whoa” came out of my mouth as an involuntary response.

It was amazing.

I stepped closer to look.

The drawing was done in a satiny black ink on a white background. It showed an open book with an adult fox and her baby fox on the left page, gazing at a barren field on the right. The words Foxfield Library Friends League were hand-printed in calligraphy. The words circled the book image, and so did a leafy vine that followed the path of the words, swirled beneath the two foxes, and ended with one thin tendril of vine taking root in the empty field. It took my breath away.

“Pretty incredible, huh?” Lenny asked me.

“It’s gorgeous. What’s it for?”

“We started a group.” And he cleared his throat to recite, “Foxfield Library Friends League is a collective of dedicated library advocates who support the advancement of their local public library and the services it provides.”

Then he raised his eyebrows at me. “Pretty impressive sounding, don’t ya think?”

“We have a league now? Of supporters?”

“We sure do. Lots of libraries have volunteer groups who fund-raise and help them in different ways. We decided it was time we had one, too. And we have three volunteers who agreed to co-run the league for us and recruit members.”

“This is so awesome!”

“And this is our official seal.” He held up the paper, his arms stretched out long and straight before him so we could consider it from a distance. Lenny’s arms were long enough that the drawing really was a decent distance away.

It was stunning, and it was ours.

“Who made it?” I wanted to know.

Lenny kept his eyes glued to the drawing and answered, “A local student by the name of Trey Evans.”

I gulped.

Trey did this? For us?

“Trey Evans,” I repeated. It was all I could say.

“The one and only,” Lenny confirmed.

“But why?” I managed to get out. “I mean, how?”

“His mom. She’s one of our biggest supporters.” Lenny put the drawing back down on the table and carefully covered it with a protective sheet of tissue paper. “And that’s all because of you.” When he looked at me then, I saw the exhaustion in his face, the small swooshes of blue collecting under each eye. Between his two jobs and the library campaign, he had been working nonstop.

“It turns out Mrs. Evans has some pretty powerful friends in town, and she’s been working them on our behalf,” Lenny continued to explain. “And then she mentioned that her son was a great artist and would be happy to design a logo for the Friends League.”

It was amazing the way everything had shifted gears in just a few months. That confusing quote from Black Hat Guy’s chair ran through my head again: Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. That quote had bothered me all summer, literally stopping me in my tracks several times as I read it over and over, trying to understand it.

And now I thought I finally got it.

So much had changed in just a few months, and not just in the mess of me and Trey and Trina. The library, which I’d walked by hundreds of times without giving a second thought, was now my favorite place to be. Wally, who had made the library a regular part of his life, would never lean on the counter or borrow flicks again. Lenny and Sonia, who had worked side by side for years, were maybe, finally, growing into something more. Things change. We all knew this. But it still surprised us every time it happened. That was what the quote was saying.

I had forgiven myself. Mrs. Evans had forgiven me, too, and so had Trey.

“Trey’s an amazing artist,” I bragged for him, although I was really just stating the obvious.

“So now we have this great logo and Mrs. Evans knows someone willing to print up T-shirts for us. We’re moving right along.”

“What can I do to help? I want to do something!” I felt infused with energy, like a hummingbird after a hit of sugar water.

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Lenny said in all sincerity. “You covering for me at the desk, and everywhere else, allows me to work on this and keep the momentum going. We need a tsunami of pressure as fast as we can whirl it up.”

“I was hoping for a more exciting assignment than that,” I said, slightly deflated. “But okay, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”

“Thanks, J. You’re the best.” Lenny clapped me on the shoulder as he said it.

My eyes fell on the drawing again, the strong ink lines pulsing through the thin tissue paper on top. “And I can’t wait to get my T-shirt. Any way we can speed that up?”

“I was just about to call Mrs. Evans now,” Lenny told me, picking up his cell phone. “I’ll let you know.”