From inside the $250-a-ticket party, I watched a little boy I knew stand in the rain, locked out of the library that was supposed to be his.
This wasn’t just any party. This was my annual book drive, twisted into something ugly and unrecognizable.
For fifteen years, I ran that event for our community. Then she arrived.
A wealthy woman, new to town, who needed a vanity project to feel important. She hijacked my work, slapped a fancy new name on it, and called it her own vision.
She dismissed my fifteen years of effort, my volunteers, and my community as a “tacky little bake sale.” She thought money was the only thing that had value.
She thought she had won by buying her way in, but she never imagined I would get my revenge by turning her own tactics—and the entire town—against her right on the library’s front lawn.
The Comfort of Cardboard and Sharpies
The smell of old paper and dust is the smell of my purpose. It’s a scent I’ve cultivated for fifteen years in the basement of the Oak Valley Public Library. My husband, Mark, jokes that my real office isn’t the spare bedroom where I write grant proposals for non-profits, but this concrete room with its humming fluorescent lights and towers of donated books.
He’s not wrong.
I ran a black Sharpie over the lid of a cardboard box. FANTASY/SCI-FI. GOOD CONDITION. My daughter, Lily, who is now a freshman in college, learned her alphabet sorting books down here. She’d make little piles: “A for Angelou, B for Bradbury.” This annual book drive was her inheritance as much as mine.
For fourteen years, it worked. The formula was simple. We’d collect books for a month. On the first Saturday in October, we’d open the doors to the community room. Five dollars got you in. A dollar bought you a paperback, three dollars for a hardcover. My friend Carol organized the bake sale table, a chaotic wonderland of brownies and lemon bars that always sold out by noon.
Last year, we made $3,400. That was enough to fund the summer reading program and buy a new set of large-print books for the seniors who came in every Tuesday. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was our fortune. It was money made from a dollar here, five dollars there, from the pockets of the people who actually used this library.
My phone buzzed on the folding table. It was a calendar alert from Mr. Henderson, the library director. Board Meeting – 4 PM. Please Attend. Introduction of New Board Member.
I sighed. I wasn’t on the board, but Henderson always invited me to the pre-drive meeting as a courtesy. I clicked the alert away and taped the box shut. Another box, another small victory. I had no idea it was the last one I would ever label.
A Compliment That Feels Like a Takedown
The library’s board room always felt a little too grand for its purpose, like putting a tuxedo on a golden retriever. The long, polished mahogany table reflected the faces of the other members: retired teachers, a local accountant, all good people. Then there was the new face.
Her name was Clarissa Danville. She was maybe forty, dressed in a sharp, cream-colored blazer that probably cost more than our entire bake sale profits. She had the kind of aggressive wellness that comes from expensive yoga and a personal chef. She’d moved to town six months ago, buying the old Miller estate on the hill. Her first act of civic duty was a massive donation to the library, which secured her a seat on the board.
“And this,” Mr. Henderson said, gesturing to me, “is Sarah Jenkins. Sarah is the heart and soul of our annual book drive. A true grassroots effort.”
Clarissa gave me a brilliant, toothy smile. “I’ve heard all about it. It’s just so… charming. So wonderfully traditional.” The words were a compliment, but the tone felt like a pat on the head. It was the way you’d talk about a child’s macaroni art project just before you hang a real painting in its place.
“We’re proud of it,” I said, my voice flatter than I intended.
“As you should be!” she chirped. “I was just thinking, with my background in marketing, I might be able to offer some help. To elevate it. We could get a wine sponsor, maybe. Have a professional design the flyers instead of… well, instead of the ones we use now.”
She gestured vaguely, as if my flyers—the ones I designed and printed myself every year—were a mildly offensive odor. The other board members murmured in agreement, suddenly seeing our humble book drive through her eyes: a quaint little hobby that could be so much more. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. “I’m always open to help,” I lied.
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