Well, Nell was going to finally make good on that promise.
She dug through eighty boxes and inhaled at least a lungful of dust by the afternoon. Almost everything had been underwhelming so far, but she was nothing if not a Young—stubborn to the end. She would not give up until she’d found something incredible.
Finally, near the back and buried under a handful of much older arrivals, she stumbled across an intriguing container. It was a simple banker box, like one could get from a university, smaller than most of the others.
On the side, someone had written junk in permanent marker before donating it—but that was not what was inside at all.
Nell peeled the brittle tape free and peered in. The items had been put into polyethylene sleeves to help preserve them from the humidity—whoever had packed it had known a little bit about what to do. Her pulse quickened. Was this her big break? Discovering the needle in the haystack beneath them all this time and being catapulted to full researcher, or even some kind of specialist?
“Wow,” she’d gasped to herself at that moment, and then gave an embarrassed yelp as the soft echo came back from the corners to startle her. “What the . . .”
In her hands was a small pile of treasure. An immaculate 1700s Franklin of New York City, a Calisteri of its early docks and harbor, what looked like a Dutch-style Visscher draft of the same—and the very same 1930 gas station highway map of New York State she would find again in her father’s portfolio.
Nell stared in stunned silence at what she’d uncovered. The focus of her Ph.D. had been on ancient cartography, so she didn’t know exactly what these three specimens were worth—or why the gas station highway map had been tossed in with them—but the Franklin and Calisteri were famous enough that she recognized them on sight. The box was clearly a gold mine.
Her father was going to be thrilled.
It might even be the first step toward finally breaking through his armor. To someday becoming what she’d always dreamed they could be. The two esteemed Drs. Young together, working side by side, curating the world’s most priceless maps, in one of the world’s most respected institutions.
She was up the stairs and sprinting toward the Map Division offices before she could think. Everyone was coming back from lunch, and she managed to show a handful of senior researchers what she’d found on the way, including Swann, who was so excited he hugged her. She thought she’d never reach her father’s office for all the interested calls from offices she’d had to duck into to show her findings, but at last, she sat bouncing impatiently in one of his guest chairs, waiting for him to return. The accolades this would bring her! She could hardly contain her excitement at imagining how surprised—and maybe even how proud?—he would be.
At last, Nell heard his heavy, purposeful footsteps. She was on him nearly before he could even open the door.
“Dad!” she’d shouted. “I was down in the basement, and I found this box—it’s got a perfectly preserved partial collection of rare eighteenth-century American maps—you have to see this!”
She described her findings at blinding speed, rattling off early guesses as to their provenance, her ideas for how they could fit into the library collection, and how to go about finding the donors to give them proper credit.
“And what about this gas station highway map?” she’d also asked, holding it up. She begged him for permission to examine it in greater detail. Obviously, it was worthless compared to the other specimens, but perhaps it had something to do with a route to where even more valuable maps could be located? It was nothing short of the greatest adventure a cartographer could ask for.
But to her surprise, her father had the exact opposite reaction to what she’d been expecting.
“Why were you wasting your time in the uncatalogued archives?” he asked.
She tried to explain how much extra time she had as an intern, that she hadn’t been shirking her duties, but rather giving more. Her father didn’t seem convinced. He took the box, glanced through the maps—and then tossed the bundle dismissively back in.